Best NAS Boxes For Less Than $1,000

Price: $760 and up

Available space: 2.88Tbyte

Pros: Includes 10 licenses of backup software, TeraSearch, print server, FTP server, Time Machine support, virus scanning.

Cons: No device content backup support, slightly more bulky than others.

Price: $830

Available space: 2.71Tbyte

Pros: Best information display, unlimited back software licenses, text search for stored files.

Cons: Power brick

Price: $875 and up

Available storage: 1.3Tbyte

Pros: Five-year warranty, device backup via rsync and secure rsync.

Cons: 2Tbyte unit costs as much as most competitors' 4Tbyte unit

Price: $500 and up

Available storage: 2.68Tbytes

Pros: Lowest cost per terabyte of usable storage.

Cons: No information screen, only one Ethernet port.

Price: $700 and up

Available storage: 2.7Tbytes

Pros: Bare metal restore software included, Wiki software for internal use.

Cons: Power brick

Price: $849

Available storage: 3.6Tbytes

Pros: Two eSATA ports, Apple-type design

Cons: System only backs up to attached USB or eSATA drives, power brick.

Price: $825 and up

Available storage: 2.95Tbytes

Pros: Most available storage of 4Tbyte devices.

Cons: No information screen, need to configure access to default volumes for all users.

Price: $899 without drives; resellers set loaded price

Available storage: 2TB model using 4 700GB drives, 2.06TB available

Pros: Best admin utility, above average password security, Web server and app software included

Cons: One-year warranty