14.12.2018

Synology DS218+Being my first NAS I spent long enough trying to decide which one to get, and eventually decided that I would get one that was somewhat more powerful than I needed, because there was so much I didn't know about a modern NAS, so much they could do, that I might well regret buying a less powerful model.My primary use for the NAS is backup, but I want to experiment with all the other goodies they offer.The NAS arrives very well packed and is very well presented. There is a short installation guide that tells you how to insert a disc, connect the NAS to your network, and log in using a web browser. Once you are logged on, again the presentation is excellent.The environment is very Windows like ~ very friendly and simple. Digging in the menus you soon you very soon start to realise that this machine can do a tremendous amount.I felt most of the help missed out the very basic stuff for real noobs like myself. The help tends to be business oriented and so assumes you know something about a NAS and the language. For example, after initialisation, although the device web page was visible on my Windows network, the storage space was not. When I finally found the configuration setting to make it visible, I couldn't create a folder in it. ...no guide as to how you should create any. It assumes you know that all folders are called Shared Folders whether they are shared or not. Lol. Another example is that various applications often have guides on how to set them up, but not how to use them. So they tell you how to configure a backup task but miss the critical information of how you actually trigger a backup. The simple fact is that you aren’t going to get this up and running in one day without some knowledge, and it really does help if you can talk to someone who already has one! It's baffling, but you make quick progress. You can do almost anything, it just takes a while to find out how and overall it's pretty enjoyable albeit time consuming.It took me about four to five hours or so to get the NAS on my network, folders constructed and my backups started. At the moment I am actually using my old backup software, simply because it works. You can do that, you don't have to use any of the apps Synology provide. The NAS has a number of backup solutions you can download, including ones for the PC, but as per everything else, noob information on these is scant, so I just stuck with what I knew. Incidentally, I elected not to pre-install the most popular apps, during setup, missing that step out it's really simple to add them later. Turned out to be the right decision, there was a lot they wanted to add that I didn't need. Also, you don't need to create a Synology account if you don't want one.Right there on the main window is an icon you click and all the available apps appear for you to download if you wish. Couldn’t be easier. These is a wide selection of apps from backup software, video and music servers, all the way to an Office suite similar to Microsoft Office. There are calendars, photo apps, even development apps like an implementation of the programming language PHP. So there is a wide variety of tasks you can perform with the device, other than just file serving!One very interesting thing I noticed is that the USB ports support dongles, so it would be possible to set the NAS up wirelessly although I think you would certainly have to start with it plugged in to your router ~ only after you have plugged in the dongle and configured it could you go wireless. Wireless is of course really handy if you want to locate the NAS out the way, somewhere safe. Anyway, I am off to investigate more of what this device can do!I have to say that for mere file operations this NAS is probably way more powerful than I need. So far I have not seen it use more than 12% of the 2GB of RAM it has nor more than 53% of it's CPU. Mostly it uses about 11% RAM and 15% CPU. So I think the 218 or even the 218Play would have been more appropriate for me. But having said that, this device can just do so much, I will very probably find new things for it to do, and the extra power and memory will come in handy. I had also planned on buying the RAM upgrade but now having seen how little it actually uses I will leave that to another day! Oh, mind you, another thing you really need to check if you are buying something less than the + is whether the application you want is supported by the NAS you are buying. The + gets all the apps but some are not supported by the cheaper models. So if you intend to buy something other than the +, CHECK!The only word of warning I would give you is that the NAS automatically sets up a single HDD as SHR. This may not be what you want. You may in fact need Basic and there is no way to convert one to the other without wiping the disk, so you need to know the difference and change it as soon as you log on to the user interface. So one thing I would do is read a guide to Raid that include SHR (Synology Hybrid Raid) and decide what you want now and in future before you set the NAS up, or you may have to do it all again later when you realise what it's done is not for you.I set my NAS up for maximum power saving so I configured it to power down the discs after 20 minutes and enter full sleep mode each night, waking itself up automatically in the morning. The auto power-on is very useful indeed. It means it's always ready in the day and saving energy at night. Also of course it's extra security if it's off at night.Anyway, this is a first class device. Buy it!

10.2.2020

This is my 2nd Synology NAS. 1st one was a DS110J which I have literally only just sent to the glue factory (better known as my parent's house. It's had a good life) and the fact I bought it 10 years ago and have not NEEDED an upgrade should tell you what you need to know about the quality of these boxes. That PSU and that old WD 1tb Green drive kept going for ten years non-stop without a fault. Incredible.It's a testament to the old DS110J that things have barely changed. On the new box I do get DSM 6.0 and with that comes a lot more options, but the functionality is the same. When you have a great formula, why change. The DS110J is out of support and is no longer getting updates,so it's only a matter of time before some hacker figures out a way to spank it. Hence why i've decided to go for a nice new 2-bay NAS with plenty of CPU and memory. It really is plenty for home use.The performance between old and new is night and day, though. The old one had a Marvell 800mhz CPU with 128mb of RAM, this one has a 2.5ghz Intel CPU with 6gb (mine's 6gb) of RAM. When the old one was doing something, anything, that's all it was going to do. This new one can download, file share, play audio, perform remote backup and sustain a VPN connection without a problem.Like a lot of users here, I realize what a fully featured box it is, but you tend to boil it down to a few key features you really need. I'm not going to use it for a Plex server (although it is nice) as an CIFS share is fine for me, I'm not going to use Mail Server, or RADIUS, or join it to a domain. I really don't think I'll use Video Station and I'll probably have limited use for Media Server and iTunes Server. All of these products are great, I have installed them and I can see how they could be useful, but I really can't see them being useful to me.What I do love about this NAS is how you can tailor it to literally any role you require. I make heavy use of the VPN server as it is BRILLIANT for spoofing your location when travelling. I was abroad and I could happily pick up UK TV web services like iPlayer without paying a penny to some VPN company. As it's a Linux box it has a lot of really useful Linux features like rsync and SSH. I have been using my old box as an rsync client and server to provide a remote backup service so I can off-site my data and vice-a-versa with friends and family. The old box could do this, but that's all it could do. This, paired with a VPN server, allows me to check in on backup progress and correct any issues from my phone if need be and makes it ideal for my geeky needs.And you can run full virtual machines from it. This was an unexpected bonus. I can quite happily create a new VM running Win10 or Linux and get to it remotely if need be. This has been surprisingly useful at times, especially when I'm abroad, using a communal device or just using it as a virtual desktop from work. If you've forgotten to download something, just RDP on and get it downloading. Not sure about some software? Run it on the VM. Fancy learning Linux but don't want to wipe your main machine? VM it. I've got a lab running on it at the moment and it seems pretty capable so far. It comes with a full set of snapshotting tools too. Bonus.The one thing I have noticed that really does knock a star off is the speed of writing to a USB external HDD. I bought a brand new Seagate 4tb drive as a nightly backup and the speeds were pretty shocking, even when formatted to EXT4. I really thought Synology might have nailed this by now, as the DS110J was a bit of a dog, but this one is very disappointing. As long as you don't plan on running full USB backups all the time you should be fine. The USB backup via Hyper Backup is incremental so once you have a full backup you should be okay. But still quite disappointing.With DSM 6.0 comes support for SMB3, which is another good reason to upgrade. SMB1 is widely regarded as unsecure and it probably won't be too much longer before holes have been found in SMB2. Windows 10 supports SMB3, Windows 7 doesn't, so if all your devices are at least Win10 you can make the most of the added security and set SMB3 as your minimum level.And this is the thing with these NAS boxes. I started off wanting a NAS so I could save my videos, music and photos centrally and just be a bit of a geek. I wanted Audio Station so I could play music at work, I wanted Photo Station to browse my photos, I wanted SMB shares that Kodi could connect to. When you get one of these boxes and you take an interest and have a play you can really start to exploit it and find new things to do with it. If you are looking to make a start in IT getting one of these will teach you all kinds about firewalls, DNS, DHCP, VPNs, virtualization, domains, RAID, Linux, rsync backup management, web hosting and lots more that really is applicable in business.And I can still listen to music at work with it. Well done Synology. Fix the USB write speeds and you'll get 5 stars.

27.12.2017

I've had this drive for 2 weeks now, sat in my kitchen and connected with Cat5e cables into my router via Powerline adaptors (I know, not really the best idea so I expect I can probably get better performance out of this product if I improve my setup!)Negatives:1. A lot of people say this is an easy setup. That is true, to an extent. Unfortunately I'm a newbie to all this though, and even though I'm fairly tech-minded, I had to read the synology forums to find out that only using the mounted drive in my finder does everything start to work much quicker. Infact, there quite a few things I needed to refer to the forums for - like setting up PLEX.2. Logging in to the iOS apps.Took me about 3 days to work out what I was supposed to be putting in the 3 required fields to log in to these via the internet. Synology should make this a bit clearer!3. I haven't found a streamlined way to add my entire Apple Photos library to the NAS in one hit yet. There doesn't seem to be a built in way to do this, a little frustrating. But I will get round this in time as I add folder by folder (sigh).Positive.1. This is a slick interface. Once you get past the setup stage and you are running media to your iOS devices or to your DLNA tv, it starts to work brilliantly and quickly. I can sort out most issues in the control panel using the web based interface as its mostly quite intuitive.2. The iOS apps are great. My wife and I both have DS photo and it is set to upload all our photos and videos to the NAS whenever we are connected to WIFI. We can see the progress then delete the media off the device once it's all uploaded. At the moment I still have to sort through those photos on my NAS into individual folders when I get some spare time- but I'm sure there may be a better workflow I haven't yet worked out. When you are on the same WIFI as your NAS, the speed of those uploads is miles quicker than over the internet, naturally.3. Sharing files - whether media or work or whatever- is great. You can get a shareable link for any file or folder and send it to the persons you are sharing too- they will then access the file(s) directly off your drive. Really simple.4. Photostation 6 - Not used it much yet but it looks nicer than Apple photos in my opinion. No it can't do the editing, but that's ok, i will do that elsewhere. It's purely for organising and viewing.5. Audiostation - Although it doesn't seem to drag up as much content from the metadata as PLEX does, it runs very smoothly and I've had it streaming my music library on several long journeys to places like Somerset where signal is not so good- but the music has only buffered for about 5 seconds so far. And that's at 192kbps streaming quality. I'm so very pleased with this functionality.6. Really quiet, unless under heavy use. That's with 2 3TB red drives installed. Although I would not have it in a room you want to keep deliberately quiet.I could add more but so far the positives outweigh the negatives- and those negatives are all at the setup stage. After that the experience gets better and better, as others have said. I am expecting more positives to come my way as I explore more of the software...

20.12.2017

I bought this Synology DS218+ enclosure to replace an elderly and no-longer supported dLink dual-disk enclosure I'd had for many years. First impressions on opening the Synology were slightly disappointing. It was lightweight and mainly plastic compared to the metal housing of the dLink. It was also the dreaded 'piano black' high gloss plastic that retains finger marks forever as soon as you have touched it once. I transferred the two disks from the dLink in to the Synology (a simple enough task) and switched the Synology on. Oh dear, further disappointment! I could now hear the disks! That noise had been very well shrouded in the dLink. Anyway, I proceded with the connection and set-up.And from this point on my satisfaction began to grow. The browser-based front-end for this device is really simple and easy, and the actual network performance is very much faster than I was used to. I decided to create a brand new RAID set-up with the Synology software, and the disks whirred and clattered all through this process. But ever since then I've been surprised at how little they intrude in normal usage, compared to my expectations. I haven't made full use of all the software applications that are provided by Synology (all accessed through the same browser front-end) and I suspect there are some that I never will, but those that I have used are simple, clear and work well.It's a speedy network storage device - what more can I say? It does its job well so far, and I'm very content with my purchase. (And having handled it on day 1, I may never need to touch the piano black plastic case for a long time again :-) I obviously can't compare it against any other modern NAS's. It was slightly more expensive than I'd expected when I started searching for a replacement for the dLink, but the strength of many other positive recommendations and reviews convinced me. At present I like it and it's working well. I tend not to throw 5 star ratings around for items that simply do their job, unless there is some real extra reason for surprise and delight. On this basis, 4 stars is a good score from me. I'm happy.UPDATE - 18 months later-------------------------------I've just upgraded the two disks in this from 2x 3TB to 2x 6TB and the whole process could not have been easier. No screwdrivers or other tools needed. Shutdown the NAS (from the browser), pull out one disk, replace it with larger disk, power on. Let it build the new disk to match the contents of the remaining old one. Then shutdown again, pull out remaining old one, insert second new larger disk and power on again. Very simple and very little downtime. And while all the changes were taking place internally, the DS218+ kept me up to date by sending emails to me with status reports (or it could have been SMS to my phone if I'd configured it that way.)It's a great unit and my satisfaction with it is almost enough to justify a supreme upgrade to 5*.

31.12.2019

I bought the DS218+ to replace a NAS that I'd had for 8 years (a custom built HP Microserver running Windows Home Server 2011).The NAS is very small and the fan is quiet. Even under load, the 'quiet' fan mode is sufficient and the temperatures remain good. Most the the noise comes from the operation of the 2 hard disks I have installed. SSD's would be silent.The NAS was very easy to set up. The hard disks install without tools, you need a screwdriver if you install SSD's. RAID, disk management, networking and everything else set up via the Synology web interface - all very easy.I backed up all data from my original NAS to a 4TB USB disk a have, then from there to this NAS. On the NAS,

6.12.2018

I purchased this with 2x2TB drives to replace my linux server. Primarily I wanted a NAS with backup, some kind of photo viewing software and web cam control.It handles those functions perfectly. As a NAS drive viewable on windows PCs it is very easy to use. The photo app it comes with, linked with the android app, is perfectly good (nothing cutting edge there). It drives my two foscam web cams perfectly well. Backup to synology cloud is straightforward. Previously I used crashplan, which isn't supported, but synology cloud is much the same price currently.Internally it's just a linux machine with a sophisticated web GUI, so you can ssh on and tailor things if you want - this was very useful when I migrated over my photo collection,

19.3.2019

I bought the DS218+ to replace a DS215J that was a few years old. The older device was working fine, and was populated with 2x4TB hard drives, which we're mirrored for robustness.Setup of the new NAS device with the old drives was an absolute snip (actually much easier than I could have imagined),and I was guided by the clear paper instructions from the box and on-screen prompts. Essentially, it was a matter of powering off the old NAS, before removing the hard drives. Installing the drives in the new NAS drive, connecting to the network, powering on, logging into the NAS and clicking the mouse a couple of times! The new NAS recognised the fact that the drives had been used in another Synology model,

25.5.2020

After looking for a NAS drive for a while, finally opted for this with the 8TB RED drives. This was mainly because I wanted reliability and a device that could be used to transcode movie files to the TV and tablets. There are a lot of options that can be configured, with the panel showing the main ones, but clicking advanced showing all options. I installed the basic ones and also PLEX, which took a while to set up correctly. The main problem is that the TV is so old it cannot see the files - it sees the folders but no files. It can see the portable HDD connect to my iMac on the network and stream from that, but not this. I managed to get around it by using a Fire TV stick and downloading PLEX.

1.5.2019

I'm an enthusiast photographer and film maker and urgently needed to install a new back up system at home after the manufacturer of a previous system went bust and took down their servers that formed an integral part of their system.I did a lot of research before deciding to go for the Synology DS218 with two 4Tbyte recommended disk drives.What at first appeared a daunting task to set up a home NAS system with RAID actually turned out to be very simple and I was up and running and more importantly backed-up in no time at all. The system has been running not stop since I got it and hasn't missed a beat.If you have valuable data, and who hasn't, a good multiple copy, back up system is essential.

14.9.2018

Replacing my DS216j with this DS218+ was much easier than I was expecting. All I had to do was swap over the hard drives and the USB flash drive containing the encryption keys from the previous device and then run the Synology assistant, which migrated all my settings across automatically. The only extra thing I had to do was select "Repair All" in the package centre, which downloaded all my previous packages and I was ready to go. I've only knocked off a star because I am having some issues with security certificates when accessing the iDrive package, but that was occurring on my previous device as well. If iDrive and/or Synology can sort this out for me,

1.3.2018

Very easy to setup (admittedly I am quite technical), it just works without issues, I have it set up to sync multiple Onedrive accounts and dropbox so I don't need to install the clients on my PC but can use it as an online backup solution. This means that I can just copy large files to the NAS and it will deal with all the synchronising in it's own time without my main pc needing to be on, I then just access those drives via mapped drives on my pc. Previously I had my 2x4TB drives in my old pc and I was able to easily move one over, move the relevant data over and then add the other drive to the NAS and extend the array, it all went very smoothly.

25.1.2020

This is my second Synology NAS and was purchased to replace my old DS211J. The speed difference is very noticeable and the processing power in comparison to my old NAS. Setup was a breeze as I just moved the drives from my old NAS to the new and this was completed in a very short space. What makes this product stand out is the software which is great and so easy to use. Not long after setting up one of my drives started to struggle and the NAS messaged me to warn me of this. Bought a replacement drive and thanks to the Raid1 configuration it replicated the good drive and everything was back to normal. Gave my old DS211J to my son and he is still running it with his music files on.

28.1.2020

I tried the much cheaper DS120J before opting for this. The cheaper Synology NAS boxes are all rather lacking hardware wise, you are told this is because Synology is better on software than competitors and while that is correct - it doesn't mean they can under-spec devices by so much.The DS218+ is very powerful and will happily munch through multiple jobs simultaneously where other ones (like the DS120J I mentioned earlier) would struggle to do more than one at a time. I have had ZERO disconnections or the dreaded "session timed out" errors, unlike the other model I tried.Worth spending the extra money for a faster CPU on NAS boxes,

6.10.2019

Just gets better and better. Owned it for 18 months now and still learning. From wanting a separate home based non-cloud secure physical back up for photos, music and several computers and other storage devices such as a Naim music server, this does so much more. Takes a while to set up, but if you think it should do it it probably does! The Apps are amazing for managing data. Accessible anywhere you have internet access, it works seamlessly in the background and provides a whole new level of functionality. DS Audio for example can efficiently access ALL backed up music while in the office miles from home and output WAV quality music multiroom to several streamers without a glitch using Airplay 2.

24.1.2020

So the DS218+ is my first NAS drive,however i looked at many reviews and found this to be the best for 4k and 1080p media by far,it has solved many problems in one go, i now can "in home stream" to both my TVs with the official app "DS Video" and "video station" on the device and "audio station app" to my hifi and phone,i can see why so many say Synology is the best,its very easy to set up and i did add the extra 4GB ram (so total 6GB RAM) but not sure if this is needed,films look and sound great and audio just WOW for music,i got 2 x 3TB WD Red drive (total 6TB) which im sure is ok for my media needs,if this is your first NAS and you just looking for a good solid NAS for media buy the 218+

Synology DiskStation DS218+ - Reviews

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