A consumer NAS from Synology, QNAP, ASUSTOR, or TerraMaster is a box of drive bays with a low-power processor and the maker's own operating system for RAID, file shares, backups, and apps. When one fails or can't keep up anymore, the usual move is to buy the next model.
Udon is home server software for Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 26 or later. It runs alongside macOS as a background service and adds a browser dashboard for containers, file sharing, Homebrew packages, remote desktop, and an AI assistant.
The main difference between a new NAS and Udon
Synology's DS225+ and DS425+, two- and four-bay models from 2025, run Intel's 2019 Celeron J4125 with 2 GB of memory; a 2020 M1 scores more than five times higher in Geekbench 6. With Udon, a spare M-series Mac shares folders over SMB and lets you manage files from a web browser, with power left for containers, Jellyfin or Plex as native Mac apps, Homebrew, and remote desktop.
Storage is where a NAS still wins. It pools its bays into one RAID volume, keeps serving when a disk dies, and rebuilds onto the replacement you slide into a hot-swap bay. Udon serves whatever drives macOS mounts, from the internal SSD to USB and Thunderbolt enclosures; drive pooling is on its roadmap. Until then, Disk Utility can mirror two drives, and some multi-bay enclosures run RAID in hardware and show up as one drive. If RAID across several drives is the point of the purchase, a NAS is the better buy today.
Selling a spare M1 MacBook Air would roughly pay for a new two-bay NAS before drives, and you would trade an M1 for a Celeron. Keeping the Mac costs $29 for Udon plus an enclosure. It idles at a few watts, and a MacBook rides out short power cuts on its battery. Drives taken out of a NAS use Linux file systems that macOS can't read, so copy the data over while the old NAS still runs, or restore it from a backup, before you reformat them for the Mac.
A new NAS vs Udon side by side
| A new NAS | Udon | |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | A new box of drive bays | The Mac you have, plus USB or Thunderbolt drives |
| Processor | A low-power chip, such as Intel's Celeron J4125 | Apple Silicon, M1 or later |
| Storage | RAID across hot-swap bays | The Mac's own drives, internal and external; pooling on the roadmap |
| Apps | The maker's app catalog, Docker on some models | App store plus Docker Hub and Homebrew search, on Apple Container or OrbStack |
| Remote desktop | None built in | Built in, to the Mac's screen |
| Price | A few hundred dollars and up, before drives | Try free for 5 days, then $29 one time per Mac |
Pick a new NAS when
- RAID across several drives is the point of the purchase.
- You want hot-swap bays and one maker supporting the hardware and software.
- You have no spare Mac, or yours is worth more sold.
- The maker's backup and photo apps cover what you need.
Pick Udon when
- An M1, M2, or M3 Mac sits unused and would sell for little.
- Your old NAS was too slow for media, photos, or containers.
- One or two external drives hold your data; pooling can wait.
- You want remote desktop, Homebrew, and the rest of the Mac on the same machine.
Try Udon on your Mac
Try Udon free for 5 days on your own Mac, then pay $29 to keep it:
curl -fsSL https://udon.sh/install | bash