DIY NAS vs Synology: Which Is Cheaper?
Published: July 20, 2026
Pulling live prices…
📊 As of August 2, 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.com is $44.94/TB or $0.045/GB, widest choice around $39.58/TB, with some as cheap as $23.81/TB across 309 live listings.
📊 As of August 2, 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on eBay.com is $30/TB or $0.03/GB, widest choice around $27.8/TB, with some as cheap as $20.75/TB across 111 live listings.
📊 As of August 2, 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Newegg.com is $50/TB or $0.05/GB, widest choice around $43.4/TB, with some as cheap as $34.22/TB across 189 live listings.
📊 As of August 1, 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Seagate.com is $36.12/TB or $0.036/GB, with some as cheap as $35.83/TB across 4 live listings (based on only 4 listings).
📊 As of 2 August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.co.uk is £43.09/TB or £0.043/GB, widest choice around £44.34/TB, with some as cheap as £23.43/TB across 207 live listings.
📊 As of 2 August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on eBay.co.uk is £26.25/TB or £0.026/GB, widest choice around £23.54/TB, with some as cheap as £12.5/TB across 35 live listings.
📊 As of 2 August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Overclockers.co.uk is £43.75/TB or £0.044/GB, widest choice around £43.5/TB, with some as cheap as £37.5/TB across 24 live listings.
📊 As of 2 August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Box.co.uk is £43.75/TB or £0.044/GB, widest choice around £45.12/TB, with some as cheap as £35/TB across 25 live listings.
📊 As of 2. August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.de is 44,98 €/TB or 0,045 €/GB, widest choice around 40,56 €/TB, with some as cheap as 12,49 €/TB across 202 live listings.
📊 As of 2. August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on eBay.de is 51,87 €/TB or 0,052 €/GB, with some as cheap as 41,5 €/TB across 7 live listings (based on only 7 listings).
📊 As of 2. August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on getgoods.de is 52,14 €/TB or 0,052 €/GB, with some as cheap as 48,91 €/TB across 6 live listings (based on only 6 listings).
📊 As of 2 August 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on eBay.com.au is $70.98/TB or $0.071/GB, widest choice around $84.19/TB, with some as cheap as $41.07/TB across 46 live listings.
📊 As of 2 août 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.fr is 50,82 €/TB or 0,051 €/GB, widest choice around 52,23 €/TB, with some as cheap as 28,56 €/TB across 187 live listings.
📊 As of 2 de agosto de 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.es is 50,29 €/TB or 0,05 €/GB, widest choice around 48,13 €/TB, with some as cheap as 28,56 €/TB across 200 live listings.
📊 As of August 2, 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.ca is $66.13/TB or $0.066/GB, widest choice around $56.02/TB, with some as cheap as $40.5/TB across 95 live listings.
📊 As of August 2, 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on eBay.ca is $39.37/TB or $0.039/GB, with some as cheap as $36/TB across 3 live listings (based on only 3 listings).
📊 As of August 2, 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Newegg.ca is $64/TB or $0.064/GB, widest choice around $58.35/TB, with some as cheap as $49.58/TB across 63 live listings.
📊 As of 2 augustus 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.nl is € 50,58/TB or € 0,051/GB, widest choice around € 42,02/TB, with some as cheap as € 28,56/TB across 60 live listings.
📊 As of 2 agosto 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.it is 50 €/TB or 0,05 €/GB, widest choice around 48,12 €/TB, with some as cheap as 14,12 €/TB across 258 live listings.
📊 As of 2 agosto 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on eBay.it is 44,25 €/TB or 0,044 €/GB, widest choice around 44,4 €/TB, with some as cheap as 16,67 €/TB across 17 live listings (based on only 17 listings).
📊 As of 2 augusti 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.se is 575 kr/TB or 0,575 kr/GB, with some as cheap as 463 kr/TB across 7 live listings (based on only 7 listings).
📊 As of 2 sierpnia 2026, the typical CMR SATA HDD (4TB+) on Amazon.pl is 249 zł/TB or 0,249 zł/GB, widest choice around 176 zł/TB, with some as cheap as 154 zł/TB across 67 live listings.
Sourced from real discussions on r/homelab, r/synology and r/DataHoarder, cross-checked against live PricePerGig listings.
DIY or Synology? Go DIY if you like tinkering and understanding how things work, along with having the time, space (DIY is almost always a physically larger setup) and are willing to ask a few questions or do a little research, it’s not difficult, but it does take a little more time. Synology is for you if time is short, it costs a little more but you’ll end up with a physically smaller, more ‘professional’ setup - although not necessarily more powerful, with DIY you may well end up with a full server setup, Synology are great and powerful enough for being a NAS and even a modest Plex server with a few other apps on. At the end of the day, the actual hard drives are the same, and that’s where your precious data is going, regardless of DIY or Synology, you’re going to need some large data drives, CMR too.
The table above shows live prices for CMR SATA drives of 4TB and up on your marketplace, and since drives are the biggest cost either way, that number matters whichever path you pick.
Where DIY wins: cost and control
Build your own and you control every penny.
You pick the case, the parts, and crucially your own drives at the best price per TB from the live table above. No markup, no locked-in ecosystem, no paying for software in the hardware price.
At low bay counts the gap is modest. But the more drives you want, the more a DIY box pulls ahead on cost, because prebuilt units charge a premium for every extra bay.
Free software like TrueNAS or Unraid runs the show, and it is genuinely excellent. You also get to upgrade and repair anything, forever, instead of being tied to one vendor.
Where prebuilt wins: it just works
I am not knocking Synology and friends, because convenience is worth real money to a lot of people.
A prebuilt arrives, you slot in drives, click through a friendly setup, and you have a working NAS in twenty minutes.
The software is polished, the apps are easy, support exists, and you never think about hardware compatibility. For someone who wants storage and sharing without becoming a part time sysadmin, that is a fair deal.
You pay a premium, but you buy back your weekend.
The honest cost picture
Let me lay it out plainly.
- DIY: cheaper hardware, your choice of cheap drives, free software, more setup effort.
- Prebuilt: higher up front cost, premium per bay, polished software, near zero effort.
Either way, you still buy the drives, and at the best price per TB they are the same drives. The price difference is mostly the box and the software experience.
So the question is really, how much is your time and hassle worth?
How I would decide
A simple gut check.
- Want it to just work, low drive count, value your time: buy a prebuilt.
- Want maximum value, lots of storage, or you enjoy tinkering: build your own.
- Either way: buy CMR drives at the best price per TB above, run redundancy, keep an offsite backup.
The bottom line
A DIY NAS is cheaper, more flexible and more powerful for the money, especially at scale. A prebuilt Synology costs more but trades that for polished, effortless convenience.
Both run the same drives, so chase the best price per TB on the live table above regardless. Then pick DIY if you want value and control, or prebuilt if you happily pay a premium to skip the setup. Neither choice is wrong.
So your data is sitting on the same drives whether you go Synology or DIY. Synology offer a neat setup, physically smaller in most cases, although with a DIY setup you can always ‘add just one more drive’; even if it is left hanging out the side for a few months while you find the right bracket to hold it in the case properly (it will happen!).
