A friend called me last spring because his 4K movie library kept stuttering off a brand new Synology, and he was convinced the drives were bad. They were fine. He had mounted the share over NFS on his Linux box, then mounted the exact same folder over SMB on his wife's MacBook, and the two protocols were fighting over file locks every time both machines touched the library at once.
That is the whole problem in one sentence. Both protocols move files perfectly well. The trouble starts when you pick the wrong one for your mix of devices, or worse, run both against the same folder.
So let me save you the two weeks of guessing I went through the first time.
What these two protocols actually are
SMB (Server Message Block) is the sharing protocol Windows has used since the 1990s. It is what you get when you type a path like NASMedia into File Explorer. Every Synology, QNAP, and TrueNAS box speaks it, and modern versions (SMB3) are fast and encrypted.
NFS (Network File System) grew up on Unix and Linux. It was built for machines that trust each other on a private network, so historically it leaned on the client to enforce who you are rather than asking for a password.
That single difference in how they handle identity drives almost every decision below.
The side-by-side comparison
Here is how the two stack up on the things that actually matter in a home, not a data center.
| Factor | SMB | NFS |
|---|---|---|
| Windows support | Native, zero setup | Pro/Enterprise only, clunky |
| macOS support | Native (default in Finder) | Works, but finicky |
| Linux support | Good (cifs-utils) | Native, first-class |
| Permissions model | Username and password | Client IP and user ID |
| Speed on 1GbE | ~110 MB/s | ~110 MB/s |
| Speed on 10GbE | Very good with SMB3 multichannel | Often slightly ahead for big files |
| Setup effort | Low | Medium to high |
Notice what is missing from that table: a giant speed gap. On a normal gigabit home network, both protocols saturate the wire at around 110 megabytes per second and you will never tell them apart with a stopwatch.
Speed: the myth that will not die
People love to argue that NFS is faster. On paper, with jumbo frames and 10-gigabit gear and huge sequential file copies, NFS sometimes edges ahead by a slim margin.
In a real home? I have benchmarked both on a QNAP TS-464 and a self-built TrueNAS box, and the difference was inside the noise. Your bottleneck is the 1GbE port on your router, not the protocol.
SMB3 also added multichannel, which lets one transfer use several network paths at once. If you ever move to 2.5GbE or 10GbE, SMB has quietly caught up and often pulls ahead for the mixed small-file workloads a home actually generates.
Permissions: where the real pain lives
This is the part nobody warns you about. SMB asks every device for a username and password, so a stranger on your Wi-Fi cannot browse your files. That model maps cleanly onto how families already think about accounts.
Classic NFS is different. It often trusts whatever the client claims about itself, keyed to an IP address and a numeric user ID. If your laptop says it is user 1000, the NAS believes it, and you can end up with files you cannot delete because the owner IDs do not line up between machines.
The first time I hit this, I spent an hour running chown commands trying to fix a folder my own account had somehow locked itself out of. Newer NFSv4 with Kerberos fixes a lot of this, but setting up Kerberos at home is a weekend project most people should skip.
So which one should you pick
Forget the benchmarks and answer one question: what devices open these files?
- Mostly Windows and Mac (most homes): use SMB. It is native everywhere, it handles passwords sanely, and Time Machine backups work over it.
- Mostly Linux, or a Proxmox and Docker setup: NFS is the natural fit for mounting storage into VMs and containers where you control every client.
- A genuine mix of everything: use SMB as your one shared protocol and stop worrying. The consistency is worth more than a rounding-error of speed.
The SNIA overview of SMB is a solid read if you want the deeper technical background on why the protocol behaves the way it does.
The special cases worth knowing
Docker and virtual machines change the math. If you run containers that need a storage backend, NFS mounts are common because the whole setup lives on trusted Linux hosts you already manage. Synology and QNAP both document how to enable NFS in DSM if that is your world.
Time Machine on a Mac is the reverse case. Apple builds its NAS backup flow around SMB, so if a family Mac backs up to the NAS, SMB is not optional.
Media servers like Plex or Jellyfin genuinely do not care. They read files the same way over either protocol, so let the client devices decide.
What I run at home
My own setup is boring on purpose. Every folder on the NAS is shared over SMB, my two Windows PCs and my wife's MacBook connect with proper accounts, and I sleep fine knowing the guest Wi-Fi cannot see any of it.
The one exception is a single dataset that feeds my Docker host over NFS, on its own folder, never touched by SMB. One protocol per folder, chosen for the device that uses it.
Do that, and the stuttering movie library and the un-deletable files simply never show up. Pick for your devices, keep the two protocols off the same folder, and you are done thinking about this forever.
Frequently asked questions
Is NFS actually faster than SMB for a home NAS?
Not in any way you will notice on a gigabit network, where both saturate the wire around 110 MB/s. NFS can edge ahead on 10GbE with large sequential files, but SMB3 with multichannel often matches or beats it for the small-file workloads a home generates. Choose based on your devices, not raw speed.
Can I use both SMB and NFS on the same NAS?
Yes, most NAS units let you enable both at once, and it is fine as long as each protocol serves different folders. The problem is pointing both at the same folder when multiple machines write to it, because the two protocols do not share file locks reliably. Keep one protocol per shared folder.
Which protocol should I use for a Windows and Mac household?
Use SMB. It is built into both operating systems with no extra software, it handles usernames and passwords cleanly, and it supports Time Machine backups on the Mac. NFS on Windows requires the Pro or Enterprise edition and is genuinely awkward to set up.
Why can I not delete files on my NFS share?
Classic NFS ties file ownership to numeric user IDs that must match between the client and the NAS. If your laptop user ID does not line up with the file owner, you get permission errors even on files you created. Aligning user IDs or switching that folder to SMB usually solves it.
Does Plex or Jellyfin care whether I use SMB or NFS?
No. Media servers read files identically over either protocol, so the choice comes down to the devices doing the mounting. Pick whichever protocol suits the machine running the media server and its network.
Is SMB secure enough for a home network?
Modern SMB3 encrypts traffic and requires a username and password, so it is a reasonable default for a home. Make sure you are not forcing the old SMB1 protocol, which is insecure and disabled by default on current systems. Give each family member their own account rather than sharing one login.
