If you are a novice buying a NAS for the first time, remember these 6 practical tips.

1. First, think clearly: What can a NAS really do for you

1. core rigid

   • Automatically backs up on your phone/computer, so photos won't be lost

   • you can retrieve documents anytime while you're out, no need to carry a USB drive

   • AI album automatically categorizes and can find photos of your child in just 3 seconds

2. bonus items (optional) for now

   • 4K film walls, surveillance footage, music comic servers

   • Docker, Virtual Machines, AI Training Stations

conclusion: first tackle the two essential needs of "backup + anytime access," then move on to other needs.

2. How to choose a brand? In short: Whoever buys it with peace of mind is

• complete newbies who just want to "plug in and use": Jispace, UGREEN

• know some technical skills but want to mess around but don't want to hurt too much: Feiniu OS, Black Synology

• data fanatic, enterprise-level redundancy: Synology, QNAP, MTRWe

reminder: 'Doing it all in one step is false proposition. Upgrade your needs before replacing your device, and you can even use your old device as a backup warehouse.'

3. Before buying, prepare all three tickets

1. Network: External network above 300 M, indoor full gigabit, starting with Category 6 cables; IPv6 is easy to activate, public IPs are not required, and official internal network trafing is sufficient.

2. Position: ventilated, shaded, low, and shaking-free; Starting at 4bay storage, adding hard drives later is worry-free.

3. power supply: UPS or smart power strip to prevent power loss and to avoid unplugging directly.

4. Hard Drive Capacity Quick Calculation Table

• photo enthusiast: 3 phones ≈ 1 TB, leaving 1 redundant copy = 2 TB

• Film & TV Party: H265 drama 500 episodes≈1 TB

• conclusion: A typical household 4×2 TB is enough for 5 years, cost is ≈1k; For true Blu-ray and young ladies, start directly at 4×4 TB.

5. Data Security "3-2-1" Mnemonic

3 data → 2 media → 1 remote

• automatically backs up to another hard drive every night

• bundle and push one more weekly to cloud drive/external hard drive

• RAID can be turned on or not; it's just "redundancy," not a "backup."

VI. Resource Acquisition and Audio-Visual Management

• Download tools: qBittorrent, TR, Aria2, one-click NAS store installation.

• Video Walls: Jispace "Ji Film," UGREEN "Cinema," Synology Video Station. Choose TMM or NAS built-in scrapers to complete the poster wall in 10 minutes.

• subtitles: Subtitle Hero, OpenSubtitles, choose Infuse, Kodi, DS Video as players, and TV supports 4K instant playback.

Bonus: Don't rush to buy a membership—master the free plugins first, then decide whether to upgrade.

you master these six steps thoroughly, you can have your NAS quietly working in the corner in just 30 minutes. Wishing you a successful first try and never lose your position!