Compared to the likes of Netgear's ReadyNAS NV+ the QNAP TS-409 Pro Turbo is significantly cheaper - over £150 - but the Netgear has upgradable DDR2 memory, bigger flash memory, a bigger (and potentially quieter) fan, a small LCD screen and basically looks better. The Netgear X-RAID similarly corresponds to the RAID migration and expansion on the TS-409 and if you don't care about upgrading it or how it looks - grab the TS-409 Pro and save yourself a ton of cash.

What about doing it yourself though? We've already showed you how to Build your own server and then improve on it - and you can have whatever hardware combination you like as long as it's got drivers for Linux. Old CPUs, motherboards and small amounts of memory are dirt cheap now and modding is our thing, yet while it's incredibly fun to do this kind of project a lot of us just want a complete solution and you're unlikely to make anything this compact and easy to use without either a significant time and skill investment.

It's certainly seems expensive on the surface but in actual fact it's quite a bargain compared to other 4-disk NAS drives worth owning. There are many external drive solutions ranging from local USB and eSATA, but if you've ever felt the need for a completely independent and self sufficient NAS, the TS-409 has become one of those things that once we've used it, we'll find it hard to go back. Having owned a two disk NAS myself and now using this, my Thecus N2100 now feels woefully insufficient and while £420+ is a lot of money, if you're serious about managing your data properly, it's certainly a case of getting what you pay for.