Quiet essential backbone for the family home network

This NAS provides an added storage (+ redundancy) capacity to the two older Seagate NAS drives on my home network. My home network typically supports multiple desktops, laptops, printers, tablets, cell phones, a VoIP phone system, a wireless home security system, game consoles, smart TVs, AppleTVs and Google Chromecasts for a family of 4. With each device generating and consuming media data (photos, videos, cloud data, school homework, youtube etc), the NAS drives are the go-to central backup storage and also function as the media server for streaming via the home network. Setup was a simple follow-the-instructions exercise in connecting the NAS to an available LAN port using the provided ethernet cable.....etc. If needed, there are how-to youtube videos available. This drive is connect to the network via an unmanaged switch already supporting the game consoles and the family room TV . The older NAS are connected to the router located in the home office. It is super quiet. In my case, few would know this NAS is quietly running behind the family room TV. Fast? Just like the overall network speed, it can always be faster (why 4 stars instead of 5). It streams videos to hand-held devices without any problem. PLEX streaming via the ethernet-connected game consoles, appleTVs and smartTVs has never been an issue. Over the network backup is also not an issue since the regular backups are performed in the background at pre-scheduled off-hours. IMHO, the current USB based storage drives still lack the 24-7 connected functionality, (probable knock-on-wood durability) and the connect&forget convenience of the NAS at this time,Read full review

Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned