The one we point most people at: two drive bays, brilliant software, and a genuine set-and-forget backup target that lives in your house.
Best for: Home users & families. Price: ~£290 (diskless, 2-bay).
If the cloud is the offsite half of the 3-2-1 rule, a NAS like the DS224+ is the fast, local, in-your-house half. Synology’s DSM software is why it wins — it turns a box of drives into an automatic backup target, a private Dropbox, and a photo library, without a monthly bill.
Two bays give you redundancy (mirror the drives and one can fail without data loss), it’s quiet and sips power, and it backs up every device in the house automatically. Pair it with a cloud backup and you’ve nailed 3-2-1.
It ships diskless, so budget for two NAS-rated drives on top. And a NAS is a weekend-project level of setup, not a five-minute app.
Anyone who wants a local backup + private photo cloud at home without a subscription.
People who want zero setup — a NAS is more involved than a cloud app.