Synology DS220+

[HEXUS]

Small steps forward for a promising dual-bay NAS.

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[Spreadie]

Again, no pcie expansion or USB-C and only GbE LAN.

For £330? They're having a laugh.

[LSG501]

I've been looking at getting a new 5+ bay nas and as much as I like the Synology OS the lack of 2.5GbE as standard is major negative for me at the moment.

I might not have anything 2.5GbE at the moment, and it might not exactly be 'popular' network speed (I blame the cost), but a nas isn't something you replace every year so you want it to be at least a little future proof....

I've got to be honest and say that I'm actively researching Qnap's OS more at the moment because the hardware on Qnap's side is arguably better overall.

[Spreadie]

I've been looking at getting a new 5+ bay nas and as much as I like the Synology OS the lack of 2.5GbE as standard is major negative for me at the moment.

I might not have anything 2.5GbE at the moment, and it might not exactly be 'popular' network speed (I blame the cost), but a nas isn't something you replace every year so you want it to be at least a little future proof....

I've got to be honest and say that I'm actively researching Qnap's OS more at the moment because the hardware on Qnap's side is arguably better overall.

QNAP hardware is usually better but, in my opinion, Synology's DSM software trumps QNAP's QTS OS.

That said, QTS isn't bad by any stretch.

[matts-uk]

I might not have anything 2.5GbE at the moment, and it might not exactly be 'popular' network speed (I blame the cost), but a nas isn't something you replace every year so you want it to be at least a little future proof....

I don't quite get the obsession with 2.5Gbe on review sites. Outside of high end servers very few devices are capable of sustaining that kind of throughput. The DS220+ certainly isn't.

I've got to be honest and say that I'm actively researching Qnap's OS more at the moment because the hardware on Qnap's side is arguably better overall.

Qnap devices are better built with better hardware features compared to the Synology devices, IMHO. Whether that is a good thing depends what you are trying to achieve. Ultimately hardware exists to provide a platform for software and software is where the Synology leaps ahead. The difference is not always obvious by merely comparing feature lists - You have to actually use the things. I currently have 1 QNAP and 5 Synology devices in production, spread over 3 locations.

[Saracen999]

....

Qnap devices are better built with better hardware features compared to the Synology devices, IMHO. Whether that is a good thing depends what you are trying to achieve. Ultimately hardware exists to provide a platform for software and software is where the Synology leaps ahead. The difference is not always obvious by merely comparing feature lists - You have to actually use the things. I currently have 1 QNAP and 5 Synology devices in production, spread over 3 locations.

And that, in a nutshell, is precisely my current quandary. While I'd obviously rather a selected solution was £150 as opposed to £300+, I'd also rather pay £300+ for the right device than £150 for the wrong one.

In other words, within reason, getting it right is a much higher priority than what are still pretty small differences in pricing. After all, £150 difference iss, what, 50 cups of coffee in a High Street chain? So, over five years (and I do expect five years, at least, out of a home NAS) that £150 is about one cup of coffee, per month. A low price for the right kit.

But what is the right solutionn?

My need is really rather mundane. First, a data store. Increasingly, I'm moving from PC's spec'd for specific purposes, to 'lightweight' devices (laptop, Surface Pro, phone) and want to be able to get at some common data from all. Other data will remain on unconnected and entirely isolated hardware and is ignorable for the purposes of a NAS. Also NAS-based will be a media collection consisting of music, PDF, some photos and probably some digiitised vide, but SD or HD will do with no interest in 4k, etc. But only ever a max of two users and mostly, just one. It's also not intended for gaming.

In other words, pretty modest demands and neither hardware nor network throughput are likely to be pushed to limits.

What is important is being able to get it running, and keep it running, with minimum effort and/or learning curve. I don't want to be doing a masters in network administration to get it working. And from what I read. Synology scores over QNAP in that regard.

Does your 5 to 1 ratio of Synology to QNAP repeesennt an active decision to go that way, or just how things happened. If you were buying that lot right now, which way would you go? And given your experience, would you think Synology (and I was at 220j, 220 Play sand now 220+, already) is the right direction for me?

[3dcandy]

And that, in a nutshell, is precisely my current quandary. While I'd obviously rather a selected solution was £150 as opposed to £300+, I'd also rather pay £300+ for the right device than £150 for the wrong one.

In other words, within reason, getting it right is a much higher priority than what are still pretty small differences in pricing. After all, £150 difference iss, what, 50 cups of coffee in a High Street chain? So, over five years (and I do expect five years, at least, out of a home NAS) that £150 is about one cup of coffee, per month. A low price for the right kit.

But what is the right solutionn?

My need is really rather mundane. First, a data store. Increasingly, I'm moving from PC's spec'd for specific purposes, to 'lightweight' devices (laptop, Surface Pro, phone) and want to be able to get at some common data from all. Other data will remain on unconnected and entirely isolated hardware and is ignorable for the purposes of a NAS. Also NAS-based will be a media collection consisting of music, PDF, some photos and probably some digiitised vide, but SD or HD will do with no interest in 4k, etc. But only ever a max of two users and mostly, just one. It's also not intended for gaming.

In other words, pretty modest demands and neither hardware nor network throughput are likely to be pushed to limits.

What is important is being able to get it running, and keep it running, with minimum effort and/or learning curve. I don't want to be doing a masters in network administration to get it working. And from what I read. Synology scores over QNAP in that regard.

Does your 5 to 1 ratio of Synology to QNAP repeesennt an active decision to go that way, or just how things happened. If you were buying that lot right now, which way would you go? And given your experience, would you think Synology (and I was at 220j, 220 Play sand now 220+, already) is the right direction for me?

Got fed up and built a NAS box myself and it currently runs XigmaNAS. Was cobbled together from spare parts and cost me just for the 3 x WD Red 3tb and runs ZFS for some protection and ECC memory. The XigmaNAS webgui isn't amazing, but it gets the job done. Only thing is it doesn't do RTMP so had to cobble together something for that lol

[LSG501]

QNAP hardware is usually better but, in my opinion, Synology's DSM software trumps QNAP's QTS OS.

That said, QTS isn't bad by any stretch.

That seems to be the view I'm getting from what I've seen so far.... luckily I'm in no rush, hard drives seem to have gone up in price (one of the ones I was looking at jumped 50 quid, and wasn't on offer either...) recently and I'm not one for paying 'more' for something I know was 'less' lol

I don't quite get the obsession with 2.5Gbe on review sites. Outside of high end servers very few devices are capable of sustaining that kind of throughput. The DS220+ certainly isn't.

IMO it's not just 'obsession', it's about 'future proofing' and arguably just keeping up with other connections etc on the pc... when you have m2 gen 4 ssd's capable of 7GB/s (I know it's not sustained), usb 3.2 capable of 20Gbps (according to specs) and even some wifi listing 1Gbps+ speeds, you'd think the least you'd be getting on ethernet is 2.5Gbps by now seeing as it can still run on decent 5e cable.

[Saracen999]

Got fed up and built a NAS box myself and it currently runs XigmaNAS. Was cobbled together from spare parts and cost me just for the 3 x WD Red 3tb and runs ZFS for some protection and ECC memory. The XigmaNAS webgui isn't amazing, but it gets the job done. Only thing is it doesn't do RTMP so had to cobble together something for that lol

I did something like that years ago, repurposing an old PC and using FreeNAS, but it was mainly an .... experiment, a 'ptoof of concept' type thing. I never got around to rebuilding it as a "live" system. In part, it was because I got offered some old supermarket back-office servers at a ludicrous price, and it gave me a 6-drive RAID5 SCSI dual-processor server with enough spare parts to replace all 6 drives at least once, and everything else from mobo/processor to the hotswap SCSI RAID cages at least twice. Including spare PSU's. It still works too, but .... drives are two small for media serving, it eats electricity, and .... well ... dual Celeron 550's. And, if I empty the case out, well, not saying it's big but I could rent it out as a bijou 1-bed apartment.

Seriously.

Celeron 550's. Anyone here expected those were still in use?

And the whole lot cost me £50, about 15 years ago. It doesn't owe me much.

But now, I want simple, small, quiet and absolutely minimum fuss, hassle and effort. My ideal process is order, arrives, unpack, plug in power, plug in network, hit 'autoconfigure' and .... use.

Getting lazy? Moi?

[3dcandy]

I did something like that years ago, repurposing an old PC and using FreeNAS, but it was mainly an .... experiment, a 'ptoof of concept' type thing. I never got around to rebuilding it as a "live" system. In part, it was because I got offered some old supermarket back-office servers at a ludicrous price, and it gave me a 6-drive RAID5 SCSI dual-processor server with enough spare parts to replace all 6 drives at least once, and everything else from mobo/processor to the hotswap SCSI RAID cages at least twice. Including spare PSU's. It still works too, but .... drives are two small for media serving, it eats electricity, and .... well ... dual Celeron 550's. And, if I empty the case out, well, not saying it's big but I could rent it out as a bijou 1-bed apartment.

Seriously.

Celeron 550's. Anyone here expected those were still in use?

And the whole lot cost me £50, about 15 years ago. It doesn't owe me much.

But now, I want simple, small, quiet and absolutely minimum fuss, hassle and effort. My ideal process is order, arrives, unpack, plug in power, plug in network, hit 'autoconfigure' and .... use.

Getting lazy? Moi?

To be fair it wasn't hard at all.... just work through it. Also serves media files to our little android box that does 1080p really really well (projector and tv are still at 1080p as 4k not quite there for me). The wifey has no issues with the setup and it just works 24/7

Yes I could have a little box, yes it would *probably* be quieter - but for me no need to sidegrade just yet

[Saracen999]

To be fair it wasn't hard at all.... just work through it.

....

"Work"? I thought forum rules prohibited four-letter expletives.

But seriously, that's what I am seeking to avoid, in so far as possible.

....

Yes I could have a little box, yes it would *probably* be quieter - but for me no need to sidegrade just yet

Agreed, but it's not a sidegrade for me. It's more like uupgradiing my transport from horse and cart, to a Ferrari EV.

[Phage]

Id recommend a 2nd hand Synology. I picked up a DS213 2nd hand with no disks. It is small, and quiet.

[Xlucine]

Considering you can get an odroid H2+ and a 2-drive case for about half the cost (and that has dual 2.5Gbe!) then anyone wanting this has to be really faff-adverse. Installing OMV onto some eMMC really isn't that hard!

The backup button on the front is nice (although OMV lets you backup automatically on drive connection...)

I don't quite get the obsession with 2.5Gbe on review sites. Outside of high end servers very few devices are capable of sustaining that kind of throughput. The DS220+ certainly isn't.

Single bay NAS's can bottleneck 1Gbe connections

[matts-uk]

IMO it's not just 'obsession', it's about 'future proofing' and arguably just keeping up with other connections etc on the pc...when you have m2 gen 4 ssd's capable of 7GB/s (I know it's not sustained), usb 3.2 capable of 20Gbps (according to specs) and even some wifi listing 1Gbps+ speeds, you'd think the least you'd be getting on ethernet is 2.5Gbps by now seeing as it can still run on decent 5e cable.

Between storage interfaces and network interfaces is a CPU. Within a small business/home NAS the CPU is soldered to the motherboard and that's where the bottleneck is likely to be felt. AC1200 is 1.2Gbps shared by all devices connected to the segment for Tx and Rx. Switched 1GBe Ethernet provides up to 2Gbps max throughput per device pair; 1Gbps Tx + 1 Gbps Rx in full duplex.

Single bay NAS's can bottleneck 1Gbe connections.

How exactly. One fast client doing a sustained sequential read? Portable USB disks are much less expensive.

I don't doubt the limit of a 1GBe NAS can easily be found when by setting out to do that. Using the devices for the general purpose tasks they are designed to fit, it's much more difficult in my experience.

[Spreadie]

I don't quite get the obsession with 2.5Gbe on review sites. Outside of high end servers very few devices are capable of sustaining that kind of throughput. The DS220+ certainly isn't.

A pair of reasonably fast NAS HDDs in RAID 1 can almost saturate a 2.5Gpbs link for reads - certainly far in excess of a single gigabit link. RAID 0 will saturate it, read or write, but it's hardly a likely setup in a two bay NAS.

A pair of SATA3 SSDs in RAID 0 can, pretty much, saturate a 10G connection - this was a pair of 2TB SATA3 SSDs in RAID 0 on my 4 bay QNAP NAS:


Writes were slower but still consistently north of 750MB/s.

You don't buy a new NAS every year, or every few years for that matter. Within a couple of years, 2.5Gbps will be standard on consumer-level motherboards and switches, so why would you buy into GbE LAN now?

[LSG501]

Between storage interfaces and network interfaces is a CPU. Within a small business/home NAS the CPU is soldered to the motherboard and that's where the bottleneck is likely to be felt. AC1200 is 1.2Gbps shared by all devices connected to the segment for Tx and Rx. Switched 1GBe Ethernet provides up to 2Gbps max throughput per device pair; 1Gbps Tx + 1 Gbps Rx in full duplex.


How exactly. One fast client doing a sustained sequential read? Portable USB disks are much less expensive.

I don't doubt the limit of a 1GBe NAS can easily be found when by setting out to do that. Using the devices for the general purpose tasks they are designed to fit, it's much more difficult in my experience.

I can saturate a 1Gig connection with my workflow and while I'm not your typical home user as I work from home, I do fall under the 'small business' banner which is where the plus models are aimed imo, not that any business would buy a 2 bay if they've got any common sense.... the thing is that even the 5, 8 and 12 bay models don't come with 2.5G as standard. They do have pcie expansion at least but that's not exactly a cheap thing to upgrade.

If this was the non plus or the J model I/we'd have no issue with the lack of 2.5G connection but when their main competitors, sometimes even cheaper, are starting to fit 2.5G as standard, the fact they haven't added one is a negative.