Review on 💾 Diskless Synology DS118 NAS DiskStation with 1 Bay by Emily Oakes

All in all, this is an incredibly powerful NAS and if you buy one you won't be disappointed! I've been looking for a replacement for my Drobo FS NAS for several months. I considered just buying a newer version of Drobo, but I was never happy with the read/write speeds. One feature I really liked was their BeyondRaid technology, which, among other things, allowed me to mix and match drive size, speed, and manufacturer in the same disk array without sacrificing capacity. However, the number of apps I was able to use was terrible and the speed was very slow again. I was able to copy to Drobo at 15MB/s and download at 20-30MB/s. Since I've been using it as a media server and for backing up large data files, this has been an issue. The only way to deal with it was to restrict access to Drobo, but it did what it was supposed to do. However, after 10 years of service, it's finally time for an upgrade. I work in IT so I wasn't afraid to analyze all the file server/NAS options available to me, including building my FreeNAS server. After about a month of research and talking to colleagues, I found Synology NAS devices to be highly recommended. They also had their own version of BeyondRaid called Synology Hybrid Raid, which had many of the features I needed to back up a single drive and had the ability to use drives of different sizes. So I decided to try them. I chose the DS418 because of the two gigabit network cards and four slots, which is enough for me. The setup process was surprisingly easy. I literally backed up my files from my Drobo, removed the drives from my Drobo, plugged them into my Synology and powered on the device. I accessed my Synology NAS via a web browser, completed setup in about 5 minutes, and had immediate access to the storage pool. It took about 48 hours to complete some parity checks, but the memory was available the whole time. A key feature I was interested in was the creation of a dynamic LAG (Link Aggregation Group). For convenience, the LAG setup lets you connect two gigabit ports to effectively double the throughput of your NAS. You need a managed switch to set up a LAG, and if you have a managed switch, you most likely have the skills to set up a LAG. After setting up LAG, I started transferring files and was amazed at the speed. It was 5-7 times faster than my previous NAS. I've regularly recorded upload and download speeds in excess of 150MB/s and an average sustained transfer rate of 90MB/s. There are also over 50 apps that you can download and install with the click of a button, which really opens up the possibilities for that. US. This NAS can be used in my mother's jobs, which is deceptive as it hides all the advanced features available to an advanced user if you dig just a little deeper. Again, I highly recommend the Synology DS412 and really covers the entire product. It's worth every penny.