Synology DS218+ Review: Fast, Secure and Value For Money

One of the leading Data Storage and management company Synology launched its DS218+ NAS. Synology is the leader in Network attached storage devices and cloud computing. Synology was kind enough to send us their most valued NAS product DS218+ the all-around storage solution optimized to safeguard your data.

Storage is one of the biggest concern for an one be it a business or a homes users, one of the most challenging part which often users tackle is accesing their content from a remote device or mobile access to Windows file server requires VPN, Sharing files through email attachments or FTP. Also, challenges like weather they can share, access, download and manage their data on cloud along witha sync of cloud storage.

There are many other challenges which a small business and homes users come across like high costs of software and Client Access License, Recurring subscription fees, Data privacy concern and Slow file transfer speed when accessing the cloud storage and the answer for all these issues is this Synology DS218+ NAS.

The Synology DS218+ NAS sports a powerful dual-core CPU which is next generation storage device with some amazing features like 4K Ultra HD video transcoding and ultra performance. Synology DiskStation is perfect for home users or small businesses looking for a compact and reliable shared storage solution to process intensive workloads.

Engineers Corner attended many press meetings with Synology Team be it Technical or marketing they were very much passionate about their product launching for consumers and since then when they launched this product we thought of reviewing this device they were kind enough to send to us for testing. The packaging and the box is really nice and they did took care of the environment with ths practice. The cardboard material is excellent and portable. When you will open the box you will get DS218+ Main Unit, Welcome Note, Accessory Pack, AC Power Adapter, RJ-45 LAN Cable.

DS218+ Hardware –

The DS218+is very powerful when it comes to hardware wise, it has excellent top notch build quality and design. If we see the physical body of the NAS Device, It is beautifully designed keeping tech aspects in mind, The front panel has the two bay for putting your hard drives. These hard drives are covered by a pop-up front panel which can be removed and put on the device very easily. If we look at the front side we get LED indicators like Status indicator, LAN indicator, Drive status indicator, USB 3.0 port, USB copy button, Power button and indicator which denotes the DS218+ NAS status when it is powered on.

On the back side of the Synology NAS we get Fan to vent out the hot air and keep your NAS running for a long time, 2 USB 3.0 port at the back so in total you get 3 USB 3.0 ports for quick and fast data transfer and accessing your file on the go and you can use multiple hardware’s, Reset button, eSATA port, 1GbE RJ-45 port, Kensington Security Slot, Power port can be seen at the back panel of the NAS.

The DS218+ equipped with a 64 bit Dual-core 2GHz Intel Celeron J3355 processor which burst up to 2.5GHz and also sports AES-NI hardware encryption engine. This NAS device is capable for real-time H.265/H.264 4K video transcoding provides hassle-free and high-quality video playback among various devices with maximum resolution of 4K (4096 x 2160) at maximum 30 frame rate per second (FPS).

The DS218+ has memory of 2GB DDR3L which is enough to handle the tasks. However it has a total 2 memory slots which is expandable up to 6 GB (2 GB + 4 GB).

Talking about the storage part of the DS218+ it just went above our expectations when we initially getting our first hands on because that is what most important thing for any network attached storage device. The Synology DS218+ integrates the Btrfs, ext4 file system which can deliver the most advanced storage technology to meet the management needs of small businesses or home users. It has a total of 2 storage bays to insert your hard drives. Synology was very kind to send us the hard drives for initial testing, We used 2TB seagate hard drives in both the storage bay racks for our testing. The DS218+ is compatible with 3.5″ SATA HDD, 2.5″ SATA HDD and 2.5″ SATA SSD apart from this you can even use USB hard drives and eSATA external storage type.

DS218+ Software –

Coming to the software part of the DS218+ it works on their very own intuitive platform Diskstation management software, It is a web based portal which is the center of all your data and management tools that the NAS provides. 

We will talk more about the Synology DS218+ Software in details below in UI/UX issue. But, There are so many features that Synology DS218+ provides us

• File Sharing – It is a versatile file manager in which you can share files on your Synology NAS to anyone and from anywhere and customize access permissions.
• Synology Video Station – The Video Station helps you manage all the movies, TV shows, and home videos on your Synology NAS. it can stream videos to various devices computers, smartphones, media players, and TVs

DS218+ User Interface/User Experience –

DiskStation Manager (DSM) is an intuitive web-based operating system for the Synology DS218+ NAS which is designed to help you manage your digital assets across home and office. The DSM UI is a very user friendly we based portal DSM provides fast and secure ways to share your critical digital data.

While using the DSM web based software we found it very easy to use and user friendly interface. It also have Package center where you will find all the required application for synology NAS, not only this you will get all those necessary important application in the package center according to your need, this also includes application from third party vendors. It is like an apps store for anything and anyone as per your requirement.

Synology NAS is a very powerful device in terms of hardware as well as Software. Synology NAS also works as a server to host your client websites for CMS like WordPress and Joomla integrations.

How to use Synology DS218+ NAS –

Let me quickly take you to the simple steps on how to use and configure the Synology DS218+ and how it works –

• First Step is to visit the DS218+ NAS Device URL with the IP address and alternatively you can create your quickconnect id and visit through the website name of your server followed by quickconnect.to URL.
• On the next screen when you have created your account, you need to login to the Quick connect portal to enter into the dashboard of the DSM (Diskstation Manager), See the below picture of the DSM login page of your NAS server.

• Once you are logged in you will see your DSM home screen dashboard where you can find package center and all the synology apps, you can also check your NAS Status and health check.

• From the below picture you can see that the DS218+ is already set default on RAID 1 in which one of the drive works as a back up of the other primary drive. So, that in case of data loss or disaster you have a backup for everything. That’s why we tested it with 2TB hard drives in both racks we got space only 1.74 because the other one is working as a backup drive for the main primary hard drive.
• However, if you do not like RAID 1 you can change the RAID type in settings anytime as per your requirement because apart from RAID the DS218+ comes with so many features and settings that you can make any changes or tweaks.

See the below RAID type and Total storage capacity of the Synology NAS.

The DS218+ also has a dedicated USB Copy button to copy any USB device to your NAS be it an external hard disk, pen drive or any USB storage device. The DS218+ is capable to copy it by just pressing the USB Copy button or getting this done by the Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) web based software. The data copying speed is quite good and we tried it with the pendrive as well as the external hard disk and the speed was really nice and performing well.

Before you copy any data through external USB storage you need to got to USB Copy program in DSM and set the default folder so that all those copied data from the external USB disk can be saved in that particular folder. You can see in the below picture how the DSM shows that it is copying which file at this point of time. However, you cannot see any speed details over here. Also, there are various settings where you can change for this USB Copy task like Trigger time Setting, Task setting for File Filter.

The Synology DS218+ also have the DSM Android and iOS app on play store. Once you will download and sign in to the app, it will show your current server name on the network and all the information about your Synology DS218+ NAS.

In the App as well you can do everything on just a single click on your phone now from anywhere when the NAS is on the network. You can manage your storage settings, capacity, manage data, user management, IP blocking and other lots of applications provided by Synology. The company has came up with a bunch of application like DS Audio, DS Cam, DS Cloud, DS file, DS finder, DS get, DS note, DS Photo, DS Router, DS Video, Drive LiveCam, MailPlus, Moments, VPN Plus etc.

In the Synology DS218+ you need to turn On through the power button but to shut shutdown you can also do it via DSM to make it properly turn off. One of the very important and best part is that if the DSM is shutdown due to power failure or any other issues you will get a notification on your registered email every time. You will get all the timely updates and important notifications on your registered email from the server as an automated email, for example in USB Copy or Cloud sync once the task is completed you will also get an email about the completion of the task and event details.

Some of other interesting features of Synology DS218+ NAS-

• Synology Drive – It is the same as any other cloud storage provide like Google Drive, Dropbox, overdrive etc. Synology Drive is tool which will provide you your own cloud host with 100% data ownership at no extra cost or subscription fee plan. Synology Drive gives you the seamless syncing and backing up data experience
• Virtual Machine Manager – The Synology DS218+ provides Virtual environments of high performance and reliability with iSCSI storage solution for VMware, Citrix, Hyper-V, and OpenStack. Virtual Machine Manager Easily host multiple virtual machines on your Synology NAS and a Docker software containerization solution.
• Synology Moments – This is one of best feature if you love taking photos on your phone or any camera, Moments is awesome application which can organize and edit your pictures intelligently.
• Synology MailPlus – This feature will help you to create a secure mail server on your NAS to boost up your productivity. It has all the in built features like, user policies, mail migration etc.
• Surveillance Station – It is yet another great feature of this NAS which protects your valuable asset by delivering intelligent monitoring and video management tools like Live View and Alerts, Recordings and playback etc.
• There are many more things you can do like integrating with Alexa device.

Synology DS218+ Data Security –

Data Security is one of the biggest concern for any one be it business or home users and synology can be trusted on this because from the security point of view the Synology DS218+ is power packed with advanced security measures to protect your data. It is equipped with AES 256-bit military grade encryption technology not only this it has account protection to safeguard you from brute force attack, Firewall, HTTP 2.0 technology, IP Auto Block, Multiple SSL certificates etc.

The Synology DS218+ NAS is also integrated with Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificate to ensure your secure connection. It has IEEE 802.1X compatibility technology and comes with 2 step verification for extra layer of protection. The NAS server also sends the system health reports timely and keep checking if the all the security measures has been implemented.

Verdict –

So, after reviewing the Synology DS218+ NAS product for quite sometime. I can tell you that this is the value for money product. The way Synology has designed, build and developed this product is just awesome. Coming to the question weather you should buy DS218+ or not, Let me get this straight that no other product is available in the market which can give you these many features in a single NAS. The best part of the synology is their own DiskStation manager (DSM) software and it’s apps which will give you a seamless experience. There are lots of knowledge base articles, tutorials, RAID Calculator, Community forum available which will make your work even better and easier.

So, If you are a Home user, Youtuber, blogger or a small business and looking for a NAS we would recommend this DS218+ NAS device for your daily usage and to manage your content. The Synology DiskStation DS218+ Network Attached Storage (NAS) is available on amazon at just MRP ₹ 35,300. Buy Now from Amazon at – https://amzn.to/35Z5i79