Hard drives have typically been the go-to storage medium for loading up a NAS with data, but flash storage in the form of SSDs has grown in popularity as NAS owners look for quieter and faster drives.
The best SSDs for NAS have dropped in price in recent years, allowing for a substantially better price-per-GB, and we’re going to provide you with our favorites for use inside your NAS system. And if you’re building it all from scratch, make sure to check out our pick of the best NAS cases, too.
The Western Digital Red SA500 is our favorite SSD for NAS use, mainly because of the value on offer. It’s priced below its direct competitor, the Seagate IronWolf 125. Although it may not offer quite as high an endurance rating, the SA500 is excellent for keeping all your data safe without any moving parts. The family of drives is available in capacities of 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB. That’s considerably more restrictive than mechanical drives and is something we’ll see with other NAS SSDs.
Where these drives hit back at HDDs is with the omission of any moving parts. An SSD like the WD Red SA500 uses electricity and cells to store data. Because of this, these drives are excellent for sustained data transfer and offer speeds up to 560 MB/s with an endurance rating of up to 2,500 TBW, which essentially means you shouldn’t encounter any problems with the SSD before writing 2,500 TB of data. This varies between capacities with higher capacity drives offering better endurance.
The best NAS will only be as good as the storage drives used. That’s why we’d recommend either the top pick Western Digital SSD or the Seagate IronWolf 125. The Seagate IronWolf 125 series costs slightly more than the Western Digital competition, but you’ll be able to enjoy better endurance with up to 5,600 TBW. This makes these drives not only great for storing data but also as SSDs for frequently writing new data to the server. Capacities are limited, just like Western Digital’s offering of just 4 TB.
Speeds are the same, with up to 560 MB/s, which is about as good as we’ll see from drives using the SATA III interface. Still, it’s pricey, and you will have to work around the fact the low capacities will restrict how much can be stored on the NAS, but without having any moving parts and drawing less power make these SSDs worth considering.
We’d typically advise against using desktop or laptop SSDs inside a NAS, but the cost of flash storage designed for servers can put many off. If you absolutely must use such a drive, we’d go with something such as the Western Digital Blue SA510. These drives are cheap, cheerful, and offer the same capacities as both the WD Red and Seagate IronWolf NAS SSD families. You won’t be able to rely on these drives for enduring constant use, and we’d absolutely recommend multiple backups just in case they fail.
Where the Blue SA510 shines is with its price-per-GB and five-year warranty one would typically find with other NAS SSDs. It may not be the fastest SSD available, nor will it offer all the advanced features and integrations with NAS operating systems, but it’s an affordable way to move from mechanical drives to flash storage.
More and more NAS enclosures are coming with M.2 slots. Drives such as the Western Digital Red SN700 would be ideal for use inside NAS with such expandability. With transfer speeds up to 3,430 MB/s, the Red SN700 range of M.2 NVMe drives is perfect for use as data storage or SSD caching. The latter allows the OS of the NAS to effectively use the drive as a form of slower RAM, which can be handy inside NAS where the RAM cannot be expanded further. The main drawback of these M.2 NAS SSDs is the price.
Also, it’s worth checking your NAS specification sheet to ensure it’s possible to use the M.2 slot for data storage as not all manufacturers allow it. Just about every M.2 slot can be used for SSD caching, however, and the Western Digital Red SN700 is a solid value choice for reliable NAS caching.
Did you know Synology makes its own branded drives? The Synology SAT5210 is a family of 2.5-inch SATA SSDs designed for use with Synology NAS and DiskStation Manager (DSM). The operating system can integrate the drives into the NAS with full support for keeping tabs on performance and SSD health. What sets these drives apart from the competition is the high endurance and up to 7 TB capacity. That makes these the best choice for a NAS fully populated by higher-capacity mechanical drives.
So long as you’re able to overlook the high price tag for all the Synology SAT5210 drives and the slower transfer speeds, these are the best choice for Synology fans who want high-capacity and reliable flash storage.
If transfer speed is of the utmost importance to you, no matter the price, the Seagate IronWolf 525 will serve you well. This NVMe drive supports PCIe 4.0 (unlike PCIe 3.0 supported by cheaper options), which doubles the theoretical speeds when compared to the previous generation. With a compatible NAS, you will be able to get up to a crazy 5,000 MB/s of sequential transfer speeds. This is fantastic for caching as it will improve your file transfer rate quite a bit, and if your NAS lets you, you can even use it as primary storage.
But don’t worry if your NAS has a PCIe 3.0 slot, as this drive is backward compatible, so you can still get it and know that it will work with your devices for years to come, even if you upgrade your NAS down the line. Its longevity is further strengthened by Seagate’s bundled 3-year recovery service that professionally recovers your data in case the drive fails.
If you don’t mind using an SSD not designed for use inside a NAS or server, we’d recommend the Crucial P3 to save the most money. Designed for use inside a PC, the Crucial P3 has great performance and a good selection of capacities to store data. Even the smallest drive is capable of hitting speeds up to 3,500 MB/s. This is a considerable improvement over the 560 MB/s offered by 3.5-inch mechanical hard drives.
So long as you have an available M.2 slot, you can use the Crucial P3. It’s not the fastest consumer-grade SSD, but it does mean you can expand the capacity of your NAS without spending too much. Just don’t go using the SSD for caching as its weaker endurance rating will see it fail sooner than NAS-specific drives.
While NAS-specific SSDS have surely become cheaper in recent times, they remain a relatively expensive proposition when compared to spinning hard drives. Moreover, SSDs aren’t even available in large sizes, making them suitable only for smaller — but high-speed — storage pools. That makes it important for you to know how you intend to use SSDs on your NAS, as some of them are better designed for storing data while others would be a better fit for caching.
The two NVMe drives on this list — the WD Red SN700 and the Seagate IronWolf 525 — are best for caching, thanks to their blazing fast speeds, but they don’t make much financial sense as storage units. If your NAS has M.2 slots, we recommend picking up either of these drives to improve your data speeds without upgrading your existing hard drives.
Other 2.5-inch SSDs sit in the middle to offer better value while still getting you all the benefits of an SSD, like silent operation and relatively fast speeds. Our top drive recommendation for storing data on your NAS would be the Western Digital Red SA500. This offers capacities up to 4TB, a decent price per GB, and a good endurance rating. It may not be quite as good as Seagate’s IronWolf 125, but it’s notably more affordable.
We wouldn’t typically recommend using a desktop-class SSD for NAS, but the Western Digital Blue SA510 would be a good fit if the workload is low, or you use your NAS occasionally, like for backups. And for those with one of the best Synology NAS, we’d recommend picking up the company’s own Synology SAT5210 with its excellent integration with the DSM operating system. If you’re just looking to bulk up on as much storage as possible, also check out our recommendations for the best NAS hard drives.
Maybe if we start telling people the brain is an app they will start using it!
