Best NAS under $1,000 for a small office of about 10 people (2026)
Updated 2026-11-08
Short answer. For the most hardware under $1,000, buy the UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus ($619.99; buy: https://dealectric.com/go/ugreen-nasync-dxp4800-plus), $619.99 diskless on 2026-11-03: a 4-bay Intel NAS with 10GbE and 2.5GbE built in (no card to buy), 8 GB DDR5 to 64 GB, two M.2 slots, Btrfs snapshots, per-user quotas and two-factor admin login in UGOS Pro. For the most complete office software, the Synology DS925+ ($639.99 list, $511.99 on sale in June 2026) adds Active Backup for Business for the office PCs, Hyper Backup to S3 and immutable snapshots, on 2.5GbE only and a three-year warranty.
What UGOS Pro lacks today, so the DXP4800 Plus is the pick only if these do not matter: no native S3 or Backblaze B2 backup (Dropbox yes; Duplicati in Docker is the workaround), no equivalent of Active Backup for office PCs, and owner reports of failed Active Directory joins, so test the domain join before buying. Ten users on 2.5GbE share about 280 MB/s, which is fine for documents; 10GbE matters for the one or two people moving video or CAD files, and only with a switch that has a 10G port. A sample bill: NAS $619.99 + four 8 TB NAS drives (about $1,200 in late 2026, 24 TB usable in RAID 5) + a UniFi Flex 2.5G switch ($159) = about $1,980.
- UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus, $619.99. Buy: https://dealectric.com/go/ugreen-nasync-dxp4800-plus
Published 2026-11-03 · prices checked 2026-11-03.
| Model | CPU / RAM | LAN | Office software | Warranty | Price | Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus Buy: https://dealectric.com/go/ugreen-nasync-dxp4800-plus | Intel Pentium Gold 8505, 8 GB DDR5 (64 GB) | 1× 10GbE + 1× 2.5GbE built in | SMB permissions, Domain/LDAP wizard (AD joins reported failing), Btrfs snapshots, per-user quotas, 2FA, Dropbox backup; no S3/B2, no endpoint backup | 2 years | $619.99 | No discount code applies. |
| Synology DS925+ | AMD Ryzen V1500B, 4 GB ECC (32 GB) | 2× 2.5GbE; no 10GbE option | AD/LDAP client or Directory Server, Snapshot Replication with immutable snapshots, Hyper Backup to S3, Active Backup for Business (PCs, Macs, VMs, Microsoft 365), Synology Drive | 3 years (5 with Extended Warranty Plus) | $639.99 list; $511.99 Prime Day (June 2026) | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
| Synology DS1525+ | AMD Ryzen V1500B, 8 GB ECC | 2× 2.5GbE; 10GbE via E10G22-T1-Mini | Same DSM stack, five bays | 3 years | $799.99 list; $639.99 Prime Day | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
| Synology DS425+ | Intel Celeron J4125, 2 GB (6 GB) | 1× 2.5GbE + 1× 1GbE | Same DSM stack | 3 years | $519.99 list; $415.99 Prime Day | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
| QNAP TS-464 | Intel Celeron N5095, 8 GB | 2× 2.5GbE; 10GbE by PCIe card | AD join, snapshots, HBS 3 backup, Security Center ransomware watch | 3 years | about $638 (aggregator, Oct 2026) | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
| QNAP TS-432X | ARM Alpine AL524, 4 GB | 2× 2.5GbE + 1× 10GbE SFP+ | QTS (ARM: fewer apps, no VMs) | 2 years | $659 (QNAP store) to $718 (Newegg) | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
| TerraMaster F4-424 Pro | Intel Core i3-N305, 32 GB DDR5 | 2× 2.5GbE | TOS 6: Domain/LDAP listed, scheduled snapshots with lock, CloudSync to S3 and 14 others, Hyper-Lock WORM | 2 years | $699.99 (TerraMaster store, via search) | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
| TerraMaster F4-424 Max | Intel Core i5-1235U, 8 GB DDR5 | 2× 10GbE | TOS 6, as above | 2 years | $899.99 list; $629–799 street (undated) | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
| Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen2 (AS6704T) | Intel Celeron N5105, 4 GB (16 GB) | 2× 2.5GbE; PCIe 10GbE card optional | ADM: AD join, snapshots, cloud backup apps | 3 years | $549.99 (Walmart, undated) to $771 (SHI) | Not sold through Dealectric; listed for comparison. |
Rows marked with a code and buy link are products Dealectric lists: the price was verified on the brand's own US store on 2026-11-07 and the code is tested daily in that brand's cart; the date shown is its last pass (last check 2026-11-13). The other rows (Asustor, QNAP, Synology, TerraMaster) are included so the comparison is complete; their figures and prices were read from the makers' own US pages on 2026-11-03 and are not re-checked daily. The buy links are affiliate links: they open the brand's official US store at no cost to the shopper, and the commission pays for the testing; see the disclosure.
What ten people actually need
- Permissions and sign-in: per-user and per-group folder rights over SMB on every OS here; joining a Windows domain is documented and routine on Synology and QNAP, and offered on UGOS with owner reports of joins that failed where Synology's worked.
- Versions and ransomware: Btrfs snapshots on UGOS (per folder, incremental), Synology's Snapshot Replication with immutable snapshots, QNAP snapshots plus Security Center, TerraMaster's lockable snapshots and WORM.
- Backup: the NAS is the office's file store, not its backup. Synology's Active Backup for Business backs up the PCs and Macs to the NAS at no licence cost; Hyper Backup and QNAP's HBS 3 send the NAS to S3-class cloud storage; UGOS backs up to another NASync or an rsync target and to Dropbox, with S3 and B2 on UGREEN's roadmap.
- Quotas and 2FA: both on UGOS (quotas from 1.18, authenticator-app 2FA) and on DSM and QTS.
Network: 2.5GbE or 10GbE for ten users
A 2.5GbE NAS port moves about 280 MB/s in total; ten people copying at once get about 28 MB/s each, and most office PCs sit on 1GbE (about 110 MB/s) anyway. A 10GbE port (about 1,100 MB/s) lets ten 1GbE clients all run at full speed, or one video workstation on 10GbE take the lot; four hard drives in RAID 5 will cap sustained transfers around 400–500 MB/s regardless. The switch: UniFi Flex 2.5G (eight 2.5GbE ports plus one 10G port for the NAS, $159 on 2026-11-03) for a small office; TP-Link's Omada 2.5G PoE switches with SFP+ uplinks (about $230–420) for more ports.
The bill
NAS $619.99 (DXP4800 Plus) or $639.99 (DS925+ list) + four 8 TB NAS drives (IronWolf or WD Red Plus ran about $300–350 each in 2026 guides, with lows near $170) + a $159 switch: about $1,460 to $2,200 all in, 24 TB usable. File sharing carries no per-user licence on any of them; Synology's Drive and Active Backup are free, with paid ActiveProtect packs only beyond three backup servers.
Sources
- UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Plus — ai.ugreen.com
- needtoknowit: UGOS Pro review (snapshots, backup, software) — needtoknowit.com.au
- Dong Knows Tech: UGREEN DXP6800 Pro review (Domain/LDAP wizard) — dongknows.com
- UGREEN forum: domain join failures (German) — ugreen-forum.de
- techtest: encrypted cloud backups from a UGREEN NAS (Duplicati) — techtest.org
- Synology DS925+ — www.synology.com
- Synology: Active Backup for Business — www.synology.com
- Synology: Hyper Backup — www.synology.com
- Synology: Snapshot Replication — www.synology.com
- Synology: join a Windows domain (tutorial 483) — www.synology.com
- NASCompares: Synology Prime Day prices (June 2026) — nascompares.com
- QNAP TS-464 — www.qnap.com
- QNAP: Security Center (QTS 5.2) — www.qnap.com
- NASCompares: TerraMaster TOS 6 review — nascompares.com
- UniFi Flex 2.5G switch — store.ui.com
Published 2026-11-03; figures for other brands read on 2026-11-03; our prices verified 2026-11-07. Corrections welcome at [email protected] or /feedback.