13.4.2020

In many ways the Synology DS918+ is a decent NAS and is a massive upgrade over earlier models, such as my old DS215j, that it replaced. The difference in performance is simply night and day and you also get some neat extra functionality with the addition of Btrfs File System support, Docker containers and Virtual Machine Manager.The DS918+ is a light and compact NAS but it has an entirely plastic construction which is a little disappointing at this price point. The drive trays are also plastic and there is very slight play in the trays which causes the disk noise to resonate. I addressed this issue by sticking some strips of Velcro loop part on the bottom edge of the drive caddys.Upgrading from the old NAS was a simple as pulling out the disks and inserting them into the DS918+.After powering up the DS918+ it detected the drives, including which model they came from and gave the option to migrate them. Migration took a few minutes and it was all up and running, retaining my existing configuration and data.Being a 4 bay NAS the DS918+ allows for varying types of RAID levels, including RAID 0,1,5,6 and Synology's Hybrid RAIDs SHR and SHR 2 (based on Linux RAID 6). My drives from the DS215j were previously configured as SHR which is essentially a RAID 1 mirror but more flexible with regards to future upgrades and migrations. After importing my disks to the DS918+ I was able to either add an additional 1 or 2 drives to the SHR to gain 1 drive fault tolerance (RAID-5-like redundancy) or add 2 drives and upgrade the SHR to SHR 2 which has 2 drive fault tolerance (RAID-6-like redundancy). Although SHR makes upgrading and migrating very easy, some users will prefer to use the standard RAID 1,5 or 6 levels which are based on Linux software RAID and much easier to recover from a failure.There are 2 NVME slots which can be used for cache. This will be a welcomed feature for certain scenarios i.e. databases and other random I/O workloads but for things like image based backups and large file storage it may not prove that useful. Unfortunately you can't use the NVME drives as storage which would have been really useful. I did find a forum where someone managed to get the NVME drives working as storage but it involved a lot of messing in the CLI to hack it and it sounds like the volume disappeared after a few days so I decided to give that a miss!Performance-wise this is a pretty impressive NAS and with just 2 drives installed it doesn't struggle to max out one of its gigabit ports with a single client connection. With the 2 gigabit NICs bonded together with Link Aggregation it is possible to max out both NICs and achieve a little over 200MB/s with 2 or more clients connected. Unfortunately this is the fastest network speed you can achieve from this NAS as there is no option to upgrade the NIC to 10GbE and Synology has no native support for 2.5 or 5.0 GbE USB NICs either. I did have a play with some 2.5 and 5.0 GbE USB NICs using some drivers created by bb-qq but the performance was really inconsistent and not recommended for any kind of production use.I really liked the idea of running Docker and Virtual Machine Manager on the DS918+ and was one of my reasons for purchasing the DS918+ over some of their other models. On the Docker side I'm running a UniFi controller by jacobalberty which runs absolutely perfectly and uses very little resources. I tried playing with Windows Server 2016 and 2019 in a VM on DS918+ but struggled to get it work reliably at all with it being so slow it was unusable. It turns out that the version of QEMU used for Virtualization on DSM is quite old and Synology don't seem to be keen on keeping it up to date. I guess we'll have to wait for DSM 7 to come out and see if that's any better. Running Linux in a VM seems to perform quite well though, with Linux being much lighter weight than Windows.I upgraded the RAM on the DS918+ to try to get the most out of it. I initially tried to use a Corsair memory kit that a few forums has reported success with (CT2K8G3S186DM 16 GB Kit 2x8GB) but my DS918+ restarted itself twice in a day and reported unexpected shutdowns. Not good. I ended up purchasing the genuine Synology D3NS1866L-4G 4GB module instead which works perfectly but is incredibly expensive for a 4GB module.Overall this is a great NAS with some really neat features but I feel it's let down by the heavily plastic construction, lack of 2.5/5/10GbE NIC upgradeability and poor Virtual Machine performance. For many users these won't be an issue but you might be better spending your money on a different model such as one of the DS418 models or a QNAP instead.Pros:- Synology DSM (Disk Station Manager) software is excellent- Easy upgrade from another Synology NAS simply by inserting the drives- Decent upgrade from 2 bay Synology models- Quad core CPU- Upgradeable RAM from 4 to 8GB- Btrfs File System support- Dual NICs for teaming/load balancing- NVME SSD cache support- Expandable with 5 bay Synology DX517Cons:- Quite expensive- Very plastic construction which feels cheap and resonates drive noises- Only supports expensive Synology branded RAM- No option to add 10GbE- Poor Virtual Machine performance- NVME drives can't be used for storage

5.12.2019

It's hard to believe a NAS with raid and built-in ready to use dozens of server packages is so consumer-friendly.Literally plug in the power, plug in an ethernet cable. Then get however many hard drives you have available to you and slide it into the screw-less bay, and that's it.There's a ridiculously customer-friendly web ui which will also act as a tutorial to show you what to do if you want to customise things and how to set some shares up. Within about ten minutes, you have a reliable and powerful NAS just waiting for your data.The power consumption is very low, and with only two drives in it, it was less than 20W, and with all 4 bays installed, less than 40W.For those of us that want to maximize the potential of this thing,there's an incredible amount you can do with it. If you want a VM farm, a file server with optional built-in antivirus, a plex server, Jenkins, docker, an LDAP server, A Radius server, a web server, a VPN server... hell you can pretty much do anything out of the box. And then you have the ability to install 3rd party package repositories such as synocommunity!It's actually hard to comprehend all the things you can do with this. So far I've just got it as a backup fileserver, and even with just that I'm thrilled. Initilly I only had 2 drives, so I had that set up with all my devices automatically backing up to my Synology. Also my home cameras all saving to my Synology. I then got 2 more drives on Black Friday and shoved them in. The synology automaticlaly expands and adapts for the new drives. It's raided so I have redundancy in case a disk fails.the whole thing uses little power and is silent so i can just forget it's there. If anything goes wrong I get email reports if a drive fails or anything needs investigating. I can rest peacefully knowing my data is safe. There's even a cool app to automatically copy my data to external usb storage for offsite backups. Thre's a Replication Sevice to auormatically copy my data somewhere else, and a snapshot package to make regular snapshots of my data if anything changes so that I can roll back to older copies of files (like Apple's Time Machine).The only thing to bear in mind is this is a little pricy. I paid £400 in a sale, but it's usually £500, and that's without any storage included. Conversely, I previously bought an HP Proliant MicroServer for £100, which also houses four hard drives, and can pretty much do all the things the Synology can.. but you'll have to do all that yourself, you'll have to raid yourself, you'll have to customise how you want things backed up and how to replicate, or snapshot, you'll need your own Operating System. You'll have to set up your own monitoring and notification system...If you just want a great, reliable device that you can be up and running in ten minutes, and just throw your data to it and never have to worry about it again (until you need an emergency recovery then this is your thing.

10.8.2020

Added 4 x 12TB Ironwolf drives. This is our second Diskstation. The other is a 414+. 6 years old and never missed a beat. This one seems just as solid. Using it for file server, internal web server, and just hooked it up to some surveillance cameras..Simple connection to Office365 for automated backup of all our O365 docs.The ironwolf drives are a bit noisy - some clicks and rumbles, but seem OK. Previous Western Digital red drives were quieter if this is important to you.By the way it only has a single USB port - the previous one has 2 USB ports allowing automated backups to 2 separate external drives quite easily.Formatted with BTRFS - this lets you take regular snapshots allowing roll backs of files.

3.5.2019

Better value than the DS1019+ if you never expect to need more than 4 disks (e.g. 4 x 10TB in SHR BTRFS is about 27TB usable with one drive for protection from data loss from a drive failure) -- the expansion unit to add 5 extra drive slots is expensive.Hopefully a future DSM software will have more built-in assistance or suggestions with setting up non-obvious things like firewall rules (Reddit appears useful for Synology and Plex Q&A)Downloaded and manually installed the 64-bit Intel Plex for Synology from the Plex website (don't use the 32-bit Plex in the package centre).Plex Pass allows the transcoding hardware acceleration in the DS918+ processor to be enabled.Bought 2 x ST10000NM0086

5.7.2019

I bought this to replace a Drobo Gen2. I wanted to have a standalone device that doesn't require a PC to be on to access the files. In that respect, I'm very happy with is.Actually, all in all, I'm very happy with this. Just a note: be thoughtful about your disk setup. With the Drobo, I didn't care much about which disk I was adding, what size or in which order. Here, it happened to be a bit different. I understand why but I didn't know beforehand.1. To get extra space on an existing volume, by adding a new drive, that drive must be the same size or bigger. I started with one 4TB drive. During my data transfer from the Drobo, I was getting close to running out of space, so I added an old 2TB that I had.

1.5.2019

I have equivalent models from both QNAP and Synology in two different businesses so thought I'd write a comparison. Overall, so far, I think I prefer the Synology because the software and service seems a little more complete and integrated (although the hardware itself is less robust feeling than the QNAP). I upgraded both to 8GB RAM and that task was easier on the Synology (you can get at the slot just by removing the disks but you need to remove the cover on the QNAP, not a big deal and at least the QNAP cover is metal vs plastic). Synology has its own cloud backup feature (plus 3rd parties) whereas the QNAP only supports 3rd parties like. Maybe I should blame the 3rd party I chose (Backblaze)

22.6.2020

I am using it 4months so far... 3 hard drive ...raid 5(3x8TB, 2x toshiba enterprise and 1x seagate ironwolf) with available space 14.9TB, I did upgrade the memory to 12GBtotal. The 8GB crucial settled down very well.I do like the operation system and apps available.It is very easy to use it.Used mainly for storing importat documents, music, videos and movies.Streaming to 3 4k tvs and mobile phones.Using plex or local shared media..By the way Plex is very hungry for memory so if do want to use plex on any synology or any nas you will not be happy with just 4gb..It says it can play 2 4k at the same time..

23.4.2021

Let me start by saying I'm an IT engineer and int he past I've always built my own file server to use as NAS and to run services for my LAN such as DHCP/DNs, Plex Media, backups etc - and yes it's definitely the cheaper route in cash terms.However....with a small child and less time on my hands I just got fed up with endless amdin required for a DIY solution, OS updates, and the huge configuration timesink. So I thought I'd bite the bullet and buy a NAS appliance.It's data we're tlaking about, so I wanted a good brand and the best support possible - I considered QNAP as they're a bit more "techy" than Synology but in the end I plumped for this model and I;m very impressed.

8.8.2018

I took my 4 x 3Gb drives out of my DS413+ when they announced it was "end-of-life" and slotted them in this DS918+. The DS413+ was working fine but didn't run the latest software and I really wanted to run Drive and try out Moments.The process was so easy - it just sorts itself out and upgrades software as necessary.The new box just runs everything faster. It has been worth it for Drive alone - it may be relatively new but it seems well sorted and just runs silently backing everything up as it changes. It replaces Cloud Station which was fine but Drive is so much cleaner and simpler to use. Versioning is easy to set up and great for recovering from one's mistakes.

19.2.2021

If you're looking to take control of your data then nas drives are a great way to do that, as long as you set up correctly, follow the Synology tutorials and YouTube videos for guidance. Took me about 3 hours to set up the way I wanted. I have 3 x4tb drives in with a bay spare for a fourth drive when i have some money. It might take longer for those with less tech experience but the wizard and online guides definitely help.The only reason I've given it 4 stars is because of the noise when running at night. Now there are ways to get around it like setting a schedule and shutting down every night and starting up again in the morning. Some of the noise might be down to the drives themselves when they are spinning,

3.11.2019

This is a great NAS, very versatile and future-proof. It is a bit dear, and the packaging could really be sturdier for the price. As I was walking home, within 15 minutes the handle broke. Relying on a poorly made piece of plastic to hold a 600 quid worth of a device, just isn't acceptable.Other than my issue with the handle breaking, this is a solid NAS, and the software that comes with it even more so. I have the DS218+ as well, and after about 16 months of use I felt I needed one that allows for 4 bays so went for this 918+. Transition from the 218+ to the 918+ was as simple as moving the drives from one to the other.

26.5.2021

Synology are one of the leaders in the field of NAS technology, but the OS is slow, cumbersome and most of the apps are basic. If you just want to sling a bunch of discs in a box and do nothing with it, then there are other options. If you want to extend your NAS, then there are better options (only one possible option with this, so add in another £550), the setup software is not entirely intuitive, so it is easy to make mistakes in choosing your configuration. The frame rattles like you would not believe, so couple that with loud NAS HDDs, it does make quite a bit of noise. The fans in this are cheap, but at least they can be replaced with better quality and higher airflow ones if you know what you are doing.

6.8.2019

There is more to this than just a storage box, it's a magic box, this is my first Synology NAS storage Enclosure and there is a lot to learn about this product, Synology has gone out of there way to help you get the most out of this storage box, and with loads of software and tutorials to download for free to suit all types of users.If you are new to this type of product whether you need it to store all your videos music and photos for your personal use or a small business looking for a great all-round storage device for your data this is a great starting price and it will have software to suit all. It gets the Yorkies'

11.8.2018

This is the second synology box I have owned, bought as an upgrade to an older 2 bay nas I was using (DS212J)This NAS is noticeably faster than than the older one and that performance leads to me using it more and more. I have since installed a Windows VM on there and started using it as a Mail Server and Surveillance Station.Along with that it runs PLEX brilliantly - as long as you're not transcoding and only direct streaming. The Download Station is used almost daily as well as the file station.All in all, as the interface you interact with is a desktop-esque layout, it makes it a joy to use. Practically idiot proof, but also powerful enough for someone from a tech background to enjoy.

3.6.2020

Excellent fully featured NAS. I also have an older 4 bay Synology NAS but this one is a vast improvement - very responsive when in DSM or one of the client apps. I have added in some extra RAM, because you can, plus a couple of NVME SSDs for read and write caching.The whole thing is so responsive. I semi gave up on my old NAS because all the apps would be so slow and crash a lot of the time and sometimes I couldn't even log in. In the end, I just set it up as an iSCSI volume as that's about all it could handle.Anyway, back to this NAS. I've got it running a couple of HD surveillance cams 24-7, DS Audio, DS Video, PC backups, Drive and probably some other bits! No glitching at all. Great stuff.

Synology DiskStation DS920+ - Reviews

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