Can you Populate a Synology 4-Bay NAS with 1 or 2 Disks?

Populating a 4-Bay NAS with a single Hard drive

Hi, I'm thinking about getting 4 bay DS418. I also want to get
4tb and higher disks but because of the price,
I was wondering if I can just start with only 2
disks and add more disks later?

Which brand nas disk do you recommend?
Thank you.

M

Thank you for your message. This is a surprisingly common question, though completely understandable as all too many older generation storage hardware requires full population. I am pleased to say that you can populate one of the four Bay Synology NAS with even as few as 1 hard drive! If you go ahead with 2 drives, be sure to select SHR when you set it up as a RAID configuration, as then you can expand the storage easily and quickly as you add drives month/years down the line. use the following articles to help you.

The best 4-Bay Synology NAS of the year, in case you want to get a sense of comparison with other devices in their same range/year:

What is the Best Synology 4-Bay NAS – DS918+ vs DS418play vs DS418 vs DS418j

Also, here are the top 4 Bays of the year to see what is on offer from other brands:

The Top 5 4-Bay NAS of the Year

Finally, to better explain SHR, here is a guide on how it compares with traditional RAID:

What is SHR? And what is the difference between Synology Hybrid RAID and Ordinary RAID?

Of course I would prefer you choose nascompares.com to buy your perfect solution, however, if you would rather buy locally, please use the page below to take you to your local Amazon store and help support this free advice service with ad revenue. Thanks again and have an awesome 2018 – https://nascompares.com/choosing-between-synology-qnap-drobo-thecus-netgear-and-asustor/

Kind regards,

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