Synology 2-Bay DiskStation DS723+ (Diskless)

I needed to replace my aging WD NAS, which was struggling to keep up with my needs. After quite a bit of research and product comparisons, I decided to go with the market leader, and bought a NAS that seemed likely to be able to support my needs for several years, and offered some options for expanding the ways I use a NAS. For context, I mainly use my NAS as "network-attached storage": I back up files, and I share files for use on our multiple home computers. I don't use it for remote access (security concern: I'd rather use cloud storage services for that), and I don't use it as a repository for a media server, or anything else like that. I decided to use WD "Red" drives for this unit: based on specs and user and professional reviews, they seemed most likely to run reliably for as long as I needed. My previous experience with WD black, blue, and red drives has been consistently positive, whereas other vendors have let me down. Installation and setup was very easy: I had the unit up and running within a few minutes. Copying files over from my old NAS took some time, but the performance of this Synology unit exceeded my expectations. I was also pleased with how much faster my backup jobs were. I was especially pleased when apps that use network files began running much faster: so clearly both read and write performance were much improved in comparion with the old system. I also set up a USB backup. It took a little bit of reading in the Synology KB to learn how to do it right, but after that it was a breeze. I plugged in a USB hard drive in the back port (the front port can be configured for use with the USB Copy button), opened up the Hyper Backup app, and ran the initial backup to copy the entire NAS contents to the USB drive. Then I scheduled it to run incremental jobs every day, so now my paranoid backup demon is happy. (I save backup drives in a secure location to provide "disaster recovery"; overkill perhaps, but it buys peace of mind.) One criticism: the unit came with only 2GB memory, which seems cheesy. And what makes is super-cheesy is the way they price their branded "compatible memory" at ridiculous multiples of the market price. I was able to buy a 4GB Samsung memory card for under $15, and it worked just fine. You can do a web search and see that others have upgraded using larger memory cards. The Synology KB website is very good: it's well written and comprehensive. There's also an active user community, so there is a ton of information easily available. Overall I'm very happy with my Synology purchase, and would buy their NAS products again without hesitation.

First of all, let me start by saying, a RAID is NOT a backup in itself, as RAIDs can also fail, corrupting some or all of the data. This can happen at anytime, in year 10 or year 1 and depend on the hardware, which are a combination of the RAID device (NAS, DAS, etc...), de storage medium (Hard Drive, SSD, etc...), power supply, etc.... However the chances of that happening all at once are less than having no RAID at all. My advice, if you are able, is to constantly replace the olders/smallest drive in your (RAID) array with a newer one. Similarly to changing (pairs of) your road tires on your vehicle, before even 1 shows signs of failure or fails at all. Drives in these devices can get into a sleep mode, but are otherwise constantly on and or running/spinning and thus wearing out. Above is basic knowledge for storage and not just Synology. While there are drives and devices (and cars) that can reach a 20year lifetime, certainly not all can or will. There is a "3-2-1 Rule" for data storage/backup out there, which is: - There should be 3 copies of data - On 2 different media - With 1 copy being off-site (aka at different location) As for the purchase of this device, Synology DS 723+, I'm very satisfied with the performance and features. The price reflects that also, even for home use. My previous NAS/RAID devices are a Buffalo Linkstation (2 drive) and a Drobo 5N (5 drive), both are around 10 years old and an 8 drive Drobo at work, still in use. The 5 bay Drobo for it's time had a nice feature of being able to use all (or most of) the usable space when using drives of different sizes, and also being able to swap out any drive out for any other drive (smaller or larger) and the Drobo device would take care of it ALL (called BeyondRaid). No messing with pools or volumes. You only have to make a folder share. For it's time, this was VERY sophisticated and worth the investment then. Even today with Synology you have to specify manually if and how you want to add a drive to a storage pool, and how you want a volume on one of these pools, and then define your shares. For the home user, you'll need some basic knowledge or just read the manual of course if you have not done this ever before. It's just not as straight forward as with a Drobo. However this is not a bad thing in itself, as you may want to configure this Synology device for different uses and keep multiple volumes on different storage pools for different uses etc... I consider this a Pro, but it will require some more knowledge of the workings of this device. It has many other features and plugins (apps) which I will not go into in this review, but again there is a use for each and every one of them for a specific use(r), depending on your needs. Synology now also has a RAID mode capable of using drives of different sizes, they call it SHR (Synology Hybrid Raid) and works similar to Drobo BeyondRAID. Hardware wise, it has 2x Gigabit ports, which can be used individually, as a fallback or bonded. Some other brands have 10Gigabit networking built in, with this particular Synology it is an optional plug-in upgrade at $110 at the time of writing this. I don't have a 10Gigabit network at home at this time, but I will be upgrading down the road, I think. There are also 2 NVME slots which you can utilize for cache (and storage) and you can also upgrade the RAM (memory) if you plan on using more apps (plugins). For basic nas use, this is not required. 1 con for me is the flimsy plastic of the device and the trays. It might be fine for you, and even if made from titanium would not affect the performance of this device at all. However coming from Buffalo (Metal + plastic) and Drobo (full metal), this is a step down. This is also true with the very flimsy plastic disk trays and clips.......... (Drobo uses a trayless design, you just pop in the drives like a VHS cassette in a VCR !). Other bonus features new to me also are the web interface, which is quite snappy. There are also apps/plugins for remote login etc, you can enable this if you want it. I'm still figuring out many of these. All in all I'm satisfied with my purchase so far and will update this review down the road. Purchased in october of 2023.

What can I say, we all know why we consider Synology. They are basically the "Apple" of the NAS space. Positives: -User friendly interface -Robust options for safety nets (notice how I said how it's not a backup) -A large userbase with many helpful resources to guide through some of the few nuances. -Optional NVME SSD expansion for caching -Optional RAM upgrade -Optional 2x 5 Bay enclosure (should only be used as it's own, separate volume) for a total of 15 drives of storage. I love the features of BTRFS and SHR1, which are flexible "safety nets" that help protect you from losing all of your data from either a ransomware/crypto attack (BTRFS Snapshots), or a failed drive (SHR1 providing parity data). The advantage of SHR1 vs other RAID configurations is that you are not bound to replacing ALL drives in order to acquire more space. You can simply replace 2 drives with larger capacity drives, to start progressing into more space. These swaps into higher capacity must be done one at a time if using SHR1. Look into Synology RAID calculator if you need more info on how SHR works. Many of the integrations the Synology DSM software brings to the user are also nice (but could be improved on still, such as their Cloud sync application). Negatives: -I wish it had natively faster than 1gb ethernet connections, but it has the option for a 10gb expansion NIC. -If you are looking for a Plex server, this isn't the one you want, because there isn't integrated graphics. I believe the best one right now from Synology is the DS920+ but I have no intention of going this route so I did limited research on it. Do I recommend Synology? Absolutely Do I recommend this unit? If it suits your needs, absolutely. There are many options, which cater to different users/needs, so take your time and do your homework. I honestly couldn't be happier so far. If you want to learn more about this unit, I recommend a couple of channels on YT, which I watched for a couple of months leading up to my purchase. SpaceRex and NAScompares Good luck! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just to elaborate on some of the features I am using as it pertains to my specific use case, this is not really part of the review, but more so for people interested in knowing how I use my Synology and why. System specs: i9-9900k 5ghz OC 32GB DDR4 3200 RAM RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB 1x M.2 NVME 2TB 2x SSD 2TB DS1522+ with 5x 8TB HGST Ultrastar He8, using BTRFS and a LUN (2TB allocated) I am using it to sync my Photography company's Dropbox files, create Lr catalog files from the files, and then store our active (not yet approved) client files. The Cloud Sync isn't as flexible as the Dropbox application in terms of visibility of "Only online" files. Your files can only be syncd as "Available offline" or in other words, stored locally. You do have 3 options of syncing, one way sync (either way) and two way sync. I didn't like being unable to view my "Only online" files and then choosing to sync them through my windows file explorer like I would have liked. This made me instead create a LUN through DSM, which created a drive that appears as local on my windows file explorer, so that I could set it as a target location for the Dropbox desktop application. My workflow is as follows: -Once dropbox is placed on a LUN, I syncd our entire photography file system to the LUN in Online Only mode. This took a while, since there were about 1.6 million files for just our photos. -I select which clients I want to sync that need to be built into a catalog, and download the files to the Synology LUN -Once they are downloaded, I copy these locally stored files to my M.2 NVME local storage (May not be necessary once I upgrade the Synology to have the 10Gb NIC), import the images to my master catalog file on Lightroom Classic, and build them into a seperate Catalog with Smart Previews. -I assign the catalog + smart previews to an editor by simply copying the zipped smart previews and catalog to the Dropbox folder assigned to the editor. -The editor then begins their edits to the catalog directly from their folder which syncs to me, and if they are not currently working on it with Lightroom running (which I know when they are clocked in or not), I can open the catalog and see their progress or make corrections if they are needing to be made, the next time they clock in, they see the changes I made to it. -Once the catalog is done I pull it from the syncd folder, open my master catalog file, import from another catalog (the one that was just turned in), and then export as JPEG. -Once this is done, I then move all of the RAW image files, off my M.2 NVME drive, to a home folder (accessible on Windows explorer using SMB share) on the Synology, then set the Dropbox files that they originated from, back to Online Only status. -In my master catalog file, I relocate the missing folder that was just moved from my local storage, to the Synology home folder (which is still viewable from Lr), and now I have access to all those RAW files in Lr still, without the need to keep them on my M.2 NVME local drive. -If during review from one of my admins, certain images are needing to be replaced due to a poor cull, I can still pull up the catalog, make the necessary changes, and export as a JPEG while the RAW exist on the Synology SMB Share folder. That is where I am at now. This is where I want go next in due time, and it highlights just a couple features that the Synology offers to improve my workflow efficiency, and save money. Once I upgrade the Synology with the Expansion slot for 10Gb ethernet, and add a PCI NIC for at least 5Gb (maybe I'll also go 10Gb there too), I may not even need to move anything onto my local NVME, since I will be able to access everything from the Synology at a fast enough speed that I'll be bottle necked by my CPU rather than the disk read/write. This will need to be tested once I acquire those 2 pieces of hardware. Another improvement I can make, is instead of syncing my editors catalog files and smart previews through Dropbox, I could do it through Synology Drive, which is their version of Dropbox. What's the advantage? My editors will not require a Dropbox account to be able to use the Dropbox application sync feature. I could save some of them a monthly subscription (or save ourselves that money for the veteran editors on our team), by just using my NAS as the cloud provider for the editors. I have not gone this route yet because I have not yet had the time to research the best way to open my Synology up to the internet in that way. This is one of the few things that (from my understanding) Synology seems to be doing the best with in comparison to other NAS solutions, but it's a risk that I am not willing to take without educating myself fully on the best approach. Who knows what other optimizations I will discover as I use the Synology more.

The DS224+ arrived 4 days earlier that originally promised. I'm pleased with how the process(es) have gone. NAS disks have been here for 2 weeks, and extra 4 GB ram, longer than that. The NAS server (my 3rd Synology NAS) went together super fast. The 2 Ironwolf 8 TB drives plugged into the removable drive carriers, are accessible from the front, and are apparently hot-swappable. The whole drive and RAM installation went together in less than 30 minutes. I'm using a stick of Crucial 4 GB (less than $17 from Amazon) and it's running fine so far. I know the warranty requires use of Synology or other approved RAM, but the Crucial had good reviews and it's cheap. I needed two tries to get the little memory board in its proper place, but once done (a little extra but careful push in the initial placement) and clicked down, the NAS Control Panel/Info Center acknowledged and is now using the extra memory. Less than two hours in the door, the NAS is in its rack spot, being populated with bike racing videos coming over from an earlier device (218j). As a test, I streamed a race MPG while the other files were being loaded, and the performance was excellent. To summarize: The Synology DS224+ arrived earlier than promised, went together very quickly, and setup was simple. It's in productive operation 2 hours and 20 minutes after I picked it up off the porch. If things change much, I'll come back and update/edit this review. Right now, I'm very pleased with all parties.

I have 4 Synology DS Series NAS Servers for both home and work purposes. I use them for standard file servers, VPN servers, Plex Media Servers, and backup servers. The suite of tools for Synology DSM is impressive and covers all I need without having to purchase 3rd party software. Knowing all my data is safe with the raid array allowing for disc failures is worth the price alone. I have had to rebuild/restore several computers and have not lost a single byte of data. Speed of transfer has been great, even while the DS is under a heavy load. Streaming 4k video has not been a problem to multiple displays simultaneously. I keep these in dedicated spaces so noise is not a consideration for me. I will say that these are very quiet even under load. The build quality is very good and I love the way the discs can be hot swapped without issue. I did have a disc failure on one of my servers. I provided another disc of the same capacity, clicked replace and the system rebuilt the RAID with the new disc. Very easy and did not require any downtime. For me, the price, ease of use, DSM operating system and suite of tools provided puts Synology above all other NAS servers I have used.

It works well, but there's one annoyance. Whenever my router restarts, I get an email saying it has lost its connection to my network and I have to go and manually restart my NAS. There's no way for me to connect to it so I have to go across the house and manually shut it down and restart it. Other than that, it's a great starter NAS for me. I'll likely upgrade to a larger one eventually, but this one is my first ever NAS and has made the experience pretty easy to get used to. I do wish I could upgrade the RAM more than 6GB, but it's whatever. That's just me being greedy I guess. I just expected more for a piece of hardware like this in 2025 considering a lot of smartphones have more.

I purchased the Synology DS224+ NAS primarily as a media server. My requirements were pretty straightforward. I was in the process of transferring and consolidating years of analog and digital multimedia. I was not comfortable with sticking with cloud storage. Unpredictable internet speed demanded local storage for performance. So, I decided to get a networked storage device that was fast and simple to set up and maintain. After considerable research, I settled on Synology's DS224+. I had some experience using Plex on my PC with an external drive, so the built-in Plex Server app was a bonus. The setup of the RAID 1 (other options are available) dual drive (drives purchased separately) was straightforward using the Linux-based DSM 7 operating system. My knowledge of networking is limited, so it took some poking around to figure out how to map a shared folder on the NAS to a lettered drive on my PC. Transferring all of the media files from my PC to the NAS was incredibly fast once the setup was complete. Performance using LAN Plex clients on my PC, Android tablet, Roku, and phone was better than I expected. The DSM 7 OS has a rich set of apps for backing up, taking snapshots, and setting up a cloud-based drive service. Those were very easy to set up on both the NAS side as well as the PC client side. I decided to take it one step further and set up remote access. The DSM 7 NAS OS has options for VPN service. So, I decided to set up the OpenVPN server. This is where things get sticky. Without getting into all of the details, the default VPN configuration makes some minor security compromises, perhaps to accommodate older client configurations. I had to make some tweaks to the configuration and regenerate the security certificate key to get a sold VPN connection with no warnings. So, you may want to have someone handy who knows a bit about VPN setup to help out, or be prepared to do some research! Alternatively, you can connect remotely using Synology's QuickConnect. The setup is straightforward. It may not be entirely as secure as a VPN connection since it relies on Synology's servers, and you can't access other devices on the LAN remotely. All that being said, if you simply want remote access to your NAS, I would recommend using QuickConnect simply based on easy of setup and use. The Plex performance was so good that I decided to ditch my Tablo and purchase an HDHomeRun quad tuner as an add-on to the Plex server. That was super easy to set up. Now, I have an Over The Air DVR setup that integrates with all of my other media. So far, I have found the Plex's performance and reliability to be far superior to the Tablo, especially when accessing it remotely. If you are simply looking for a simple home NAS and media server setup, the Synology DS224+ provides a solid solution at a reasonable price. Add on a multi-channel network tuner and you end up with a setup that will seriously tempt you into cutting the cord on cable and paid streaming services. If you are willing to fiddle around with the setup a bit, you get the added functionality of a secure VPN connection into the NAS and Media Server as well as other devices on your home LAN. Bottom line: The Synology DS224+ is solid winner in the entry level NAS arena.

Ever since Apple discontinued the Time Capsule a few years ago I have been looking for a worthy successor to handle backups for my Macbooks. The Time Capsule just worked, and although it did little else but Time Machine backups, it did them well and with little effort on my part. First I tried building one with an old computer and FreeNAS. It was a FrankenNAS assembled from the corpses of PCs past, and although it worked okay, I wanted something more compact and with better components. When I originally started shopping for a NAS I had quickly narrowed it down to two devices, IIRC, the Synology DS218 and the Buffalo Link Station. I made the mistake of trying to save a few bucks and went with the cheaper Link Station. I limped along for about a year or so. It needed to be reset on a near daily basis and it would always drop connections in the middle of backups. On the occasions that I could get a backup to save, it took all damn day and I felt like I had to babysit it constantly. In short, it just wasn’t working out for me. Fast forward to 2022 and I have a new Macbook coming. My preference is to use my Time Machine backup to perform the migration from the old Macbook, so I was already placing a renewed scrutiny on the Link Station. Fed up and frustrated with an oft-failing device, I happened to see the DS220+ at a rather steep discount during the Prime Day sale. It was a no-brainer purchase. The difference was night and day. Every aspect of the DS220+ was an improvement on the LInk Station. Where the DS220+ really shines though is a software suite that Synology has developed called DSM (DiskStation Management). It’s an OS in it’s own right, including a web interface and various mobile apps. It has SSH terminal access if you absolutely need a command line, but honestly, DSM makes that entirely unnecessary. The feature set on this is beyond anything that I will ever fully utilize, and this device would be equally at home in a multi-user business setting. There are numerous pros, and I have yet to really encounter a con yet. * It has a package manger to install third party software. There are servers for days; mail servers, web servers, media servers, chat servers, etc. Like web development, install LAMP with Docker. * Security is covered. It has virus scanners and has it’s own firewall. Just run the security scanner and it tells you where you need to shore up protection. It even supports MFA for those admin accounts you want to keep locked down. * Did I mention Docker? You can run VMs on it. * It is very well documented, with a robust support system to match. I haven’t even scratched the surface with all that it can do. It’s an impressive device, and probably a bit more than I’ll realistically need, but it just works and so far it does everything I need it to well. It was well worth the money and I would wholeheartedly recommend this NAS to anyone in the market for one.