The best NAS for backup in Canada
By Ryan Fournier · Reviewed by Claire Bergeron · Updated As a backup target, the priorities invert: you want capacity, fault tolerance and reliability, not a fast CPU. The four-bay Synology DS925+ is the best all-round backup NAS — SHR, ECC RAM, and Active Backup for Business built in to pull whole PCs and Macs automatically. On a tighter budget the two-bay UGREEN DXP2800 does the job well. And if the box is only ever a backup destination, an ARM UGREEN DH4300 Plus is honestly all the machine you need — no transcoding, no containers, just reliable storage.
Backup-target picks, by capability and live CAD price
| DS925+ | DXP2800 | DH4300 Plus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live price (Amazon.ca) | CA$900 | CA$555 | US$374US |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen V1500B (4 cores, 8 threads) | Intel N100 (4 cores) | ARM 8-core (Cortex-A76 and A55, 2.4 GHz) |
| Bays | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| RAM | 32 GB max, ECC | 16 GB max | 8 GB soldered |
| M.2 NVMe | 2 × M.2 | 2 × M.2 | — |
| Network | 2 × 2.5GbE | 1 × 2.5GbE | 1 × 2.5GbE |
| Plex transcode | No iGPU — software only, not for 4K | 4K HDR via Intel Quick Sync | Direct-play only (no HW transcode) |
| Third-party drives | HDDs open; NVMe locked | Any NAS drive | Any NAS drive |
Rows marked US are not currently stocked on Amazon.ca — the price shown is the live Amazon.com (US) listing in US dollars. It ships to Canada, but budget for the exchange rate, any duty and brokerage, and a cross-border return path before comparing it with a Canadian price.
The verdict: which should you buy?
Backup changes what 'best' means
For a backup NAS, the specs that cost the most money — a fast CPU, an iGPU for transcoding, 64 GB of RAM — barely matter. A backup target mostly receives data on a schedule and sits idle otherwise. What actually matters is capacity (enough to hold every device's backups plus versions), fault tolerance (so a drive failure in the backup does not cost you the backup), and reliability over years. That is why a modest box with big CMR drives beats a powerful box with small ones for this job.
It also means the honest budget move is to not overspend on the enclosure and put the money into drive capacity — a backup you outgrow in a year is a false economy. Size it generously: aim for at least two to three times the data you are protecting, to hold version history.
3-2-1: the NAS is one leg, not the whole plan
The rule worth internalising: three copies of your data, on two kinds of media, with one off-site. A NAS is a superb second copy and a terrible only copy. So the NAS holds the on-site backup of your PCs and phones, and then the NAS itself replicates off-site — to a friend's NAS, to a cloud tier (Synology's Hyper Backup and Active Backup, UGREEN's tools, or Backblaze B2/Wasabi), or to a rotated external drive kept elsewhere. A RAID array is not a backup: RAID survives a drive failure, but not a fire, theft, ransomware or a fat-fingered delete. Redundancy and backup are different jobs.
Software that makes it automatic
The reason Synology leads for backup is Active Backup for Business: free, agent-based imaging of Windows PCs, Macs, VMware/Hyper-V and file servers, with a single console and deduplication. It turns "I should back up" into a set-and-forget job. UGREEN and QNAP have capable equivalents and both handle Time Machine over SMB and scheduled folder sync well. Whichever you choose, the drives underneath must still be CMR NAS drives, and you should size the array in the drive-count calculator for the whole household plus versions.
What this costs in Canada
The prices in the table above are live from Amazon.ca in Canadian dollars, so there is no exchange-rate guesswork. That matters more than usual for NAS boxes: the same model carries a wide, moving spread across Amazon.ca, Best Buy, Canada Computers, Newegg.ca and Memory Express — a two-minute cross-check before you buy is worth real money on a $600–$1,600 purchase.
Importing the enclosure from Amazon.com rarely wins once you add exchange, duty, brokerage and a harder warranty path. The honest metric is total landed cost plus how easy an RMA is — and a NAS you will run for years is exactly the device where local warranty support pays for itself.
Read more
Frequently asked questions
What is the best NAS for backup in Canada?
The Synology DS925+ for a whole-household backup target — SHR, ECC, and free Active Backup for Business to image PCs and Macs automatically. The UGREEN DXP2800 is the budget two-bay pick, and an ARM UGREEN DH4300 Plus is enough if the box is only ever a backup vault.
Is a RAID NAS a backup?
No. RAID protects against a drive failure, but not against fire, theft, ransomware or accidental deletion — all of which take the whole array. Follow 3-2-1: the NAS is one copy, and it should itself replicate off-site to cloud or another location. Redundancy and backup are separate jobs.
How much NAS capacity do I need for backups?
Aim for at least two to three times the data you are protecting, so there is room for version history and growth. Size the array from that target in the drive-count calculator, and buy large CMR drives rather than a bigger enclosure — capacity is what a backup target runs out of first.
Do I need a powerful NAS for backups?
No. A backup target mostly receives data on a schedule and sits idle, so CPU, iGPU and large RAM barely matter. Spend the money on capacity and fault tolerance instead — a modest box with big CMR drives is the right backup NAS.
Ryan Fournier covers home-server hardware and efficiency at nasdrives.ca: the right power supply, the UPS, and what a NAS actually draws running around the clock, priced against Canadian hydro rates.
Reviewed by Claire Bergeron, Editor-in-chief