Before you compare brands, decide whether your 2-bay NAS will only hold backups or will also run Plex. That one answer decides the CPU, the RAM and whether you spend about $210 or about $390. A backup-only box can be a cheap ARM unit that sips power. A media server needs an Intel chip with Quick Sync, and the cheapest models skip it.
We compared six current 2-bay models from Synology, UGREEN and TerraMaster for three kinds of buyer. You want automatic backups of phones and laptops, you want a Plex or Jellyfin server, or you’ve never owned a NAS and want the fewest surprises. Each pick is priced with a mirrored pair of CMR drives, since two drives in RAID 1 give you the capacity of one. This is desk research from vendor spec sheets and cited reviews, not a bench test, and prices and stock below were checked on Amazon on October 24, 2026.
Best 2-bay NAS picks at a glance
Start from what the NAS will do for you, not from the spec sheet. Each award below names the job it is best at:
- Best for first-time owners: Synology DS225+, about $365. DSM is the easiest NAS software to live with, and it carries a three-year warranty.
- Best for Plex and Jellyfin: UGREEN DXP2800, about $390. An Intel N100 with Quick Sync, 8 GB of DDR5 and two M.2 slots.
- Best budget x86 box: TerraMaster F2-425, about $255. Quick Sync and 2.5GbE for the price of an ARM box, with a locked OS.
- Best premium pick: UGREEN DXP2800 GT, about $460. The only 10GbE port in this guide and room for 64 GB of RAM.
- Cheapest box for backups: Synology DS223j, about $210. DSM backup tools on a 1 GB ARM box with one gigabit port.
- Lowest power draw: UGREEN DH2300, about $239. Rated 13.72 W while working, but no Docker and no Plex server.
Prices move daily, so treat these as the level we saw and check the live listing before you buy. If the box will ever run a media server, skip straight to the DXP2800 or the F2-425, because the two ARM picks and the DS225+ cannot transcode for Plex as shipped.
How we picked these six
Every spec in this guide comes from the maker’s own product page, and every price and stock line from Amazon’s catalog API on October 24, 2026. We only kept NAS listings sold by Amazon.com or the brand’s own Amazon storefront, so a warranty claim goes to someone accountable. Speeds, idle power and noise come from the independent reviews linked in each section. We did not bench these units ourselves, and where we found no independent test, we say so.
We left out boxes we could not verify or buy cleanly, and there is a short list of those near the end. If you’d rather build than buy, our DIY NAS on a mini PC guide prices that route against these boxes.
2-bay NAS comparison table
These columns hold the specs that change the decision for a 2-bay buyer. Quick Sync decides Plex, the network port decides copy speed, and the warranty and OS rules decide what happens in year three:
| Model | Price on Oct 24, 2026 | CPU | RAM (max) | Network | M.2 | Quick Sync | Warranty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synology DS225+ | $364.99 | Celeron J4125 | 2 GB (6 GB) | 1GbE + 2.5GbE | None | Yes, needs a community driver | 3 years |
| UGREEN DXP2800 | $389.99 | Intel N100 | 8 GB DDR5 (16 GB) | 2.5GbE | 2x NVMe | Yes | 2 years |
| TerraMaster F2-425 | $254.99 | Celeron N5095 | 4 GB (16 GB) | 2.5GbE | None | Yes | 2 years |
| UGREEN DXP2800 GT | $459.99 | Ryzen Embedded R2514 | 8 GB DDR4 (64 GB) | 10GbE | 2x NVMe | No (Radeon graphics) | 2 years |
| Synology DS223j | $209.99 | Realtek RTD1619B (ARM) | 1 GB (fixed) | 1GbE | None | No | 2 years |
| UGREEN DH2300 | $239.00 | Rockchip 8-core (ARM) | 4 GB | 1GbE | None | No | 2 years |
Read the Quick Sync column first. Three boxes have it, and only two of those use it for Plex without extra work, which is why the DS225+ wins for first-time owners but not for media servers. The 1GbE boxes top out near 115 MB/s on copies, so copying 10 TB onto one takes about a day. The 2.5GbE boxes need roughly 10 to 15 hours, depending on how fast each writes.
Mirrored drives cost more than the box
A 2-bay NAS almost always runs RAID 1, which writes every file to both drives, so you pay for two drives and get the space of one. That makes the drives the bigger bill. These are the cheapest new CMR NAS drives we found sold by Amazon.com (Adorama for the 6TB), priced as a mirrored pair:
| Drive | Price each on Oct 24, 2026 | Mirrored pair | Usable space | Per usable TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WD Red Plus 6TB (sold by Adorama) | $299.99 | $599.98 | 6 TB | $100.00 |
| WD Red Plus 10TB | $459.99 | $919.98 | 10 TB | $92.00 |
| WD Red Pro 12TB | $539.99 | $1,079.98 | 12 TB | $90.00 |
| WD Red Pro 16TB | $714.99 | $1,429.98 | 16 TB | $89.37 |
| WD Red Pro 20TB | $907.47 | $1,814.94 | 20 TB | $90.75 |
From 10 TB up, the cost per usable TB barely moves, between $89 and $92, so buy the largest pair you can afford now. Two bays cannot grow by adding a third drive. The only upgrade path is replacing both drives with bigger ones, one at a time, with a full rebuild after each swap. The 6TB pair is the worst value per TB here, and it was the smallest new CMR drive we found from a seller we’d trust. No 4TB or 8TB CMR drive was sold by Amazon.com when we checked.
With a 10TB pair, the full builds land between about $1,130 (DS223j) and $1,380 (DXP2800 GT), which is why a cheaper box rarely changes the total by much. Buy CMR drives only, since SMR drives can stall a rebuild for days. The CMR vs SMR explainer covers why, and our NAS hard drive rankings track more sizes and brands by price per TB.
1. Synology DS225+
For someone who has never owned a NAS, the DS225+ is the 2-bay box we’d hand over first. DSM’s backup apps, snapshots and phone photo backup are the most finished software in this guide, and Synology is the only maker here that gives three years of warranty.
Inside is a four-core Celeron J4125 with 2 GB of DDR4, expandable to 6 GB, two hot-swap bays for up to 48 TB raw, and one 1GbE plus one 2.5GbE port. Synology rates it at 282 MB/s reads, and NASCompares reports up to 280 to 290 MB/s over 2.5GbE, so the faster port is real. Synology rates writes lower, at 217 MB/s. That review also found DSM using 28 to 38% of the RAM at rest, which is the first sign that 2 GB is tight once you add apps.
The 2025 drive lock is gone too, and that was the big complaint when this model launched. Synology’s DSM 7.3 announcement says 25-series Plus, Value and J models accept non-validated third-party drives for storage pools, so the WD drives above work. Where it falls short:
- Plex transcoding needs a workaround: the DS225+ ships without the i915 modules Plex and Jellyfin use, and the fix is the community Transcode for x25 package.
- No M.2 slots: an SSD cache would cost one of your two drive bays.
- An old CPU: the J4125 dates from 2019, and 6 GB is the RAM ceiling for its whole life.
Pick it if backups, photo sync and file shares are the job and you want software that needs no tinkering, at about $365 sold by Amazon.com. Look elsewhere if Plex is part of the plan, because running an unofficial driver package on your only copy of the family photos is the opposite of why you’d buy a Synology in the first place.
2. UGREEN DXP2800
For a 2-bay Plex or Jellyfin server, the DXP2800 is the standout. Its Intel N100 has Quick Sync and it ships with 8 GB of DDR5, four times the RAM of the DS225+. It also has the two M.2 slots the Synology lacks, for about $25 more.
Intel’s N100 is a four-core chip, and Quick Sync is the transcoding path Plex and Jellyfin support best. That is why this box handles media without any driver workarounds. The RAM sits in one SO-DIMM slot that takes 16 GB, and the network is one 2.5GbE port. The OS boots from a 32 GB eMMC chip, so both bays stay free for data. ocinside measured about 7 W idle, 34.7 W at peak, and 181 MB/s writing to a RAID 1 pair.
UGREEN’s software, UGOS Pro, is younger than DSM, and you will notice it in the backup and photo apps more than in file sharing. What you give up:
- Noise: UGREEN rates it at 29 to 34 dB in quiet mode, higher than the 19.6 dB(A) Synology quotes for the DS225+, though the two are measured differently.
- Warranty: two years against Synology’s three.
- M.2 speed: the N100 platform runs PCIe Gen 3, so the NVMe slots won’t run Gen 4 drives at full speed.
It’s also the box that grows with you. In a March 2024 update to NASCompares’ UGREEN Q&A, a UGREEN representative said the warranty covers only the hardware and warned that a third-party OS risks data loss and compatibility issues, though older text on that page still says it voids the warranty. TrueNAS or Unraid later is an option, but get UGREEN’s answer in writing first. Pick it at about $390, sold by UGREEN, if Plex is on the plan. For more media-server boxes beyond two bays, see our NAS picks for Plex and self-hosting.
3. TerraMaster F2-425
The F2-425 is the cheapest way into an x86 NAS with Quick Sync, at about $255, which is $135 less than the DXP2800 and only $45 more than the ARM-based DS223j. TerraMaster rates its Celeron N5095 for H.264 and H.265 transcoding at 4K60.
You get 4 GB of RAM in a SODIMM slot that takes 16 GB, one 2.5GbE port, two 10Gbps USB ports and HDMI, and bays for up to 60 TB raw. TerraMaster’s product page title says N95 while its spec table says N5095; we’ve gone with the spec table, and so should you when comparing. TerraMaster rates it at 22 W working and 11 W in hibernation, the highest hibernation figure of the budget picks.
Its low price comes with three conditions you should accept up front:
- The OS is locked: TerraMaster states that installing another system voids the warranty, so this box runs TOS for its whole life.
- An older chip: the N5095 is a 2021 Jasper Lake part, and there is no M.2 slot for a cache.
- Thin stock: Amazon showed 9 units left from TerraMaster’s storefront when we checked.
Buy it if you want Plex-capable hardware on the smallest budget and you’re happy with TerraMaster’s own software. If the price climbs back toward its $300 list, the DXP2800 is the better buy for the extra RAM and M.2 slots.
4. UGREEN DXP2800 GT
The GT is the 2-bay NAS for a home that already has 10GbE, or plans to. It’s the only box here with a 10GbE port, and its two SO-DIMM slots take up to 64 GB, enough for real VMs next to the file shares.
It runs an AMD Ryzen Embedded R2514 with four cores and eight threads at up to 3.7 GHz, ships with 8 GB of DDR4, and has two NVMe slots. The bays also take U.2 drives. Notebookcheck measured 14.84 to 20.14 W idle, 35.9 W at peak, and 29.11 dB(A) idle at 30 cm, and called it surprisingly quiet. One spec doesn’t match the price, though:
- No Quick Sync: the Radeon graphics are not Intel’s encoder, so check your media server’s AMD support before you count on transcoding.
- Power: UGREEN rates it at 42.36 W working and 18.12 W in hibernation, about two and a half times the DXP2800.
- M.2 lanes: Mighty Gadget reports each NVMe slot runs at Gen 3 x2.
Two bays and 10GbE is an odd pairing, because a mirrored pair of hard drives cannot fill a 10GbE link on its own. The port earns its keep when you put fast NVMe storage in those slots. Pick it at about $460, sold by UGREEN, if you will use the NVMe slots and the RAM; for a plain backup box it’s paying for hardware you’ll never touch.
5. Synology DS223j
If all you want is a place for laptop and phone backups with Synology’s software, the DS223j does it for about $210. It runs the same DSM as the DS225+, including Btrfs, Synology Hybrid RAID and snapshot replication.
Synology kept the hardware minimal on purpose: a four-core Realtek RTD1619B ARM chip at 1.7 GHz, 1 GB of RAM that cannot be upgraded, and one 1GbE port. StorageReview measured 115 MB/s reads and writes over SMB in RAID 1, which is gigabit line rate, so the drives were never the bottleneck. Synology’s own spec table suggests a ceiling of 5 users in Synology Drive.
The bays are not hot-swap, so a failed drive means powering the box down before you swap it. The warranty is two years, not three, and there is no Intel Quick Sync, so plan on direct play rather than transcoding. It’s quiet at 18.2 dB(A) and rated at 4 W in hibernation. Buy it as a backup target and nothing more; if you can stretch to the F2-425 for $45 extra, you get x86, Quick Sync and 2.5GbE.
6. UGREEN DH2300
Of the six, the DH2300 draws the least power, rated at 13.72 W working and 3.3 W in hibernation, which makes it the cheapest box here to leave on. UGREEN sells it as a beginner’s backup NAS, and it’s honest about the limits.
It pairs an eight-core Rockchip chip (an RK3576, per PCMag’s review) with 4 GB of RAM, one 1GbE port and bays for up to 64 TB. PCMag measured 107 MB/s writes and 108 MB/s reads, gigabit speed again. UGREEN’s own product page tells you not to buy it for a Plex server or Home Assistant, and there’s no Docker and no VM support. The apps UGREEN ships are the apps you get.
Against the DS223j, you trade DSM for four times the RAM and a lower power rating, and you pay about $29 more. Stock was thin, with 12 units left from UGREEN’s storefront when we checked. Pick it for a quiet backup box that stays on, at about $239, and pick the DS223j instead if you want Synology’s backup apps.
What a 2-bay NAS costs to run for a year
A home NAS stays on around the clock, so the power rating is a running cost you’ll pay every month. We took each maker’s “access” figure, which is measured with drives working, and ran it for all 8,760 hours of a year at $0.20 per kWh. Scale the last column to your own rate:
| Model | Rated access power | Rated hibernation | kWh per year at access | Cost per year at $0.20/kWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UGREEN DH2300 | 13.72 W | 3.30 W | 120.2 | $24.04 |
| Synology DS223j | 16.31 W | 4.00 W | 142.9 | $28.58 |
| UGREEN DXP2800 | 16.38 W | 5.24 W | 143.5 | $28.70 |
| Synology DS225+ | 16.98 W | 6.08 W | 148.7 | $29.75 |
| TerraMaster F2-425 | 22.00 W | 11.00 W | 192.7 | $38.54 |
| UGREEN DXP2800 GT | 42.36 W | 18.12 W | 371.1 | $74.21 |
Treat these numbers as a worst case. A home NAS spends most of its day idle or with drives spun down, and the reviews above measured lower idle figures than these ratings. Even so, the gap is the useful part. Four of the six cost $24 to $30 a year to run, so power shouldn’t decide between them. The GT costs about $45 a year more than the DXP2800, which adds up to about $228 over five years, three times the $70 gap in their prices.
What first-time NAS owners should check before buying
Most first-NAS regrets come from a handful of assumptions that sound reasonable and aren’t. Go through these before you order:
- RAID 1 is not a backup: a mirror survives one dead drive, but a deleted file, ransomware or a fire takes out both copies at once. Keep a second copy off the NAS, on a USB drive or a cloud bucket.
- Two bays means one drive of space: plan capacity for three or four years, because the only way to grow is replacing both drives.
- Plex needs Quick Sync: phones and smart TVs often can’t play every file directly, and without a hardware encoder the NAS can’t convert it on the fly. Since DSM 7.2.2, Synology Photos and its other media apps hand HEVC, AVC and VC-1 to the playing device instead of converting them.
- Gigabit caps copy speed: 1GbE boxes top out near 115 MB/s, which is fine for backups and a bottleneck for editing video off the NAS.
- The OS is part of the purchase: TerraMaster voids the warranty on a third-party OS, Synology runs only DSM, and UGREEN has warned of data-loss risk with a third-party OS.
- Buy CMR drives: SMR drives can turn a routine rebuild into a multi-day crawl, and a 2-bay box has no second parity to fall back on while it runs.
People skip the first item most often. If the off-NAS copy is a USB disk, our list of external drives for backups covers which ones hold up. The NAS’s own backup app can write to it on a schedule.
Models left out on purpose
A few popular 2-bay boxes didn’t make the cut, and the reasons are about buying them, not about the hardware:
- QNAP TS-264: listed at about $469, but the only seller was Adorama with thin stock, and at that price the DXP2800 GT adds 10GbE.
- TerraMaster F2-425 Plus: about $425, but we couldn’t confirm which CPU ships on the current listing, since N150 and N95 versions both exist.
- Four bays: if you want RAID 5 or room to add drives later, our 4-bay NAS guide prices that step up.
If you’re leaving Synology rather than starting fresh, the Synology alternatives roundup compares the same UGREEN boxes against QNAP, UniFi and DIY builds.
Where each 2-bay NAS falls short
No box here is right for every home, so it helps to know the single weakness you’d live with on each:
- Synology DS225+: Plex transcoding needs an unofficial driver package, and RAM stops at 6 GB.
- UGREEN DXP2800: louder than the Synologys, with younger software and a two-year warranty.
- TerraMaster F2-425: any other OS voids the warranty, and stock was down to single digits.
- UGREEN DXP2800 GT: no Quick Sync and the highest power draw. Its 10GbE port is also wasted on a pair of hard drives alone.
- Synology DS223j: 1 GB of fixed RAM, gigabit only, and no hot-swap bays.
- UGREEN DH2300: no Docker, no VMs and no Plex server, by UGREEN’s own description.
For most first-time owners we’d still start with the DS225+ for backups or the DXP2800 for media, because their weaknesses are the easiest to live with. Whichever you pick, spend the money you save on the box on the biggest CMR pair you can afford, since that’s the part you can’t upgrade without starting over.
