Synology Diskstation – which one should I choose?

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Synology Diskstation – which one should I choose?

Full disclosure: I have a Synology Diskstation DS1515+ (now deceased since its motherboard died for the second time in 7 years).  I love Synology (their OS is really nice and easy to use) and my Synology Diskstation was an awesome NAS while it lasted.  I am probably going to buy a Synology Diskstation DS1618+ or the DS1520+ (depending on how many drive bays I want). I just wanted to compare the 1618+ with a higher end NAS to see how much difference there is in the two and if one was worth almost twice the cost of the other one.

Now on to the article.

Background

Synology is a Taiwanese company that produces Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.  They are head quartered in Taipei, Taiwan and have been in business since 2000.  The company was founded by two former Microsoft employees.  The two wrote a new operating system called Filer OS based on the Berkeley Software Distribution System (BSD) which is very powerful free operating system. You can install it on pretty basic hardware. Check out Free BSD here.

Synology released its first product called the DS-101 in 2004.  The diskstations are sold without hard drives and have only base level RAM installed. They include a suite of software and apps that are easy to use and configure and include companion apps for smartphones.

What can you do with a Synology Diskstation NAS?

The short answer to the above question is you can create your own private cloud. You backup and save files to your Synology Diskstation NAS and can then access them from anywhere using your laptop or smartphone.  It is a very cool thing.  On top of that, you can backup your backed up files to the cloud.  This gives you double redundancy on your backups.  It is an awesome thing!

You can also serve up your own photo station (backup photo files off your phone), your own music streaming platform (rip you CD’s and host them on your NAS then access them from you phone from anywhere), your own movie server, host virtual machines, view your security cameras and more.  It is a very powerful and versatile platform.

Which Model of Synology Diskstation Should I buy?

Synology has a wide range of diskstation products including desktop type products, rack mounted diskstations and more.  I am not going to go through all the possibilities, but I will say that the first decision to make is how many bays do you want?  The minimum number of bays I would opt for is 4.  They do sell a 2 bay diskstation (DS2xx series).  That is really fine if it is for personal use and you can afford to get large enough drives.

Personally I wanted at least 5 bays. That is what I already had, so I wanted at least the same number of drive bays.  That would put me into the DS1520+.  I still might opt for that, but right now I am going to dream about the 6 bay series Synology Diskstation.

DS1621+ vs DS1618+

Deciding to get a 6 bay Synology Diskstation leads you to the DS16xx series.  Lets start with the DS1621+ first.  This is a really nice, really fast diskstation.  It is loaded with great features and speed. Take a look at the specs.

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You can see from the table above that the DS1621xs+ includes more features than the DS1618+ but these are the ones that stand out:

• included M.2 SSD card so that you can upgrade the Synology Diskstation cache without using a drive bay and without buying an option card.
• more included RAM (8 vs 4GB of DDR4)
• VM Hyper manager included to easily manger VM’s
• included 10GbE RJ-45 port.

Now look at the specs for the DS1618+:

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The DS1618+ as noted above has fewer included features than the DS1621xs+. The ones that stand out include:

• no M.2 SSD card. You need to purchase an M2 add on card to upgrade the speed of the diskstation’s cache.
• lower amount of included RAM (4GB). You can still upgrade it to 32GB for only $114.66 on Amazon.
• No VM Hyper Manager. This is a really big deal because Hyper Manager is expensive.
• optional 10GbE RJ-45 – you have to purchase the add on card, but you can do it.
• slower processor – Quad Xeon 2.1 GHZ processor vs a 2.2GHZ Xeon on the DS1621xs+.

The DS1618+ does have 4 1GbE ports that you can connect in fail over and port aggregation modes.

Conclusion

If you need the VM capability and have a 10GbE switch, go with the DS1621xs+. If you don’t need those features, save a little bit of money, buy the 32GB of RAM upgrade and get the DS1618+.

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