Synology 4 bay NAS DiskStation DS918+ (Diskless)

It's confusing. As you will see, this is my second attempt at updating this review. I submitted my first update about a week ago and it never appeared. I have not received an answer from Amazon as to why my order failed to get posted, but I am submitting it again in the hopes that it will be accepted. As a Synology fanboy for many years, I am no stranger to this company. endured the DSM issues and poor hardware choices because I was able to get it to work and it worked well for my needs. When I first got it, I loved every aspect of it (two have since retired, one is still in the network chugging away). This is my fourth unit (two have retired, one is still on the network). This is the original review, and you are free to read it if you so desire, but for this update, I am going to offer what has been my biggest disappointment to date and why I will be doing away with This unit was purchased with the intention of using it to record video, music, and other media. This server works like a charm with Plex, and it can also serve as a music server. As you can see, the NVR setup was easy but I ran into trouble when I attempted to access it. Specifically with this unit, you can connect two IP cameras out of the box, if you want to add more, you have to buy licenses for doing They cost a lot ($57 for 1 $200 for 4 or $370 for 8). You can purchase the licenses individually, in a 4 pack or in an 8 pack. Since I know that some people are wondering about what I am complaining about with regards to the licenses, here's what I am complaining about. In addition to allowing you to connect additional cameras to YOUR NAS, these licenses do nothing more. Unlike most cloud-based security cameras, these do not include any external monitoring services. It is simply a fee for the convenience of using YOUR cameras, on YOUR NAS, on YOUR network, all of which you are responsible for. I consider this to be nothing more than a money grab by Synology, since I cannot see any reason as to why I need to pay. It is possible to go on, but I will continue on with the next money grab instead. This is a dishonest strategy to trick you into using the eSata port! It was interesting to see what Synology has to say about the expansion of this NAS, and they said you can do so via USB or eSATA, but I think the USB port is the key, you can plug whatever you like into the USB port and continue using it. While the eSata port is a different story, it does function at a higher rate. In their advertising, they say you can expand your NAS with eSATA. But what they fail to mention is that you can only do that if you purchase an expansion bay from Synology. The other eSata device you hook up will not only not be recognized, but it will not even be registered as connected. have read the fine print and even went onto the synology website to see if there is any mention of this. As of today, I have not been able to find anything that says that the eSata port is limited to To get that information, I had to call technical support, which had to be done after I had just bought an external eSATA drive specifically designed In my honest opinion, I am saddened to see Synology move into the Apple world of exclusivity (which is really not a world at all) and lack of transparency. Synology seems to be trying to find more ways to drain me dry of money because they only seem to care about getting their money from me, so once my Synology range of NAS has reached end of life I will move on to another brand that is centered on the customer. This is a travesty from Synology, shame on you! I want to be clear that my issue with synology NAS is not with the functionality of the device, but with the lack of transparency in their advertising and product descriptions. As far as I'm concerned, this company is doing everything possible to lock you into their product line by limiting what you can do with their product after you have spent money on it and not disclosing all the limitations and/or additional costs upfront. Shame on you, Synology! ** Original Review**
__________________________________________________________________________ **This was an upgrade from my original Synology NAS, which was very slow and didn't stream video very well. It is a great system, but the memory upgrade was what made it perfect, along with the SSD's for cache. Migrating my old DS 414j files from it was a little difficult due to the time it took. However, I can confirm there was no data loss and the computer was in perfect working order by the next day. Yes, of course. The next day, I said. Furthermore, I was surprised to discover that for it to be as smooth and as effective as a video server, I needed to make the changes I did. Along with a premium price of $550, one would think that it would work at least as well without the upgrades as it does with them. In my opinion, I'm just glad Synology thought of making the 414j upgradeable, something the 414j could have benefited from considering that it cost me almost $400 to buy. When choosing a NAS, this is one of your options if you're looking for an out of the box NAS that's solid, but you will need to upgrade if you are doing heavy streaming, especially with something like Plex. As a whole, I rate this NAS at a solid 4 stars, it could have been 5 if the upgrades didn't need to be as extensive.

Beckett Nunez

| Feb 08, 2021

It is a powerful little box that can handle just about everything you could ever hope for. My files are served up quickly and with every protocol I have ever seen by it. It not only serves up all my files over the network, but it does it fast and well. Does SMB matter? You should check. Is iSCSI possible? You should check. Does NFS exist? Does FTP work? What is rsync? It's all good. In addition to running virtual machines (and Docker containers), it has the ability to run network caching. As soon as I stepped out of the box (as I usually do), I was able to grab control of it- As well as an unattended VM running on a remote VPS that I was paying for, I have a hefty PC. In the end, it will save you power and the monthly costs of the VPS will cover the cost. There is a lot of functionality built into the interface. The user interface is very easy to use, and the product is The system provides a large array of packages that can be installed on your network to provide various services. Customer support is also excellent, though maybe not as fast as I would like. It was able to remotely fix a problem with the virtual machine manager that I had come across. In spite of the fact that it is not officially supported, the DS918+ can also use 16GB RAM. When you plan to run virtual machines, upgrading the RAM is a wise move. Several people recommended this kit, so I did a little research Then read on!.

Isaac Atkins

| Jan 12, 2021

Although it has a light weight feeling to it, including a light plastic frame and hard drive housings, later when it is loaded with drives, the weight savings will become apparent. In addition to my drives, I also installed a M2 NVMe drive for the setup of my cache. When you set it up, you will find that a single cache SSD optimizes the read speed, while to get the best read and write performance you need to comprise the cache with two SSDs. There is still a lot of testing and research to be done. It's bound to have been figured out by someone else by now! As part of my first boot, I mounted drives into the slots in about five minutes and unboxed the system in two minutes (not fully set up but I was able to access the web utility within the first minute). After installation, you will be prompted to create an account and install the Therefore, after you order, you should go ahead and get your PDFs and the DS Manager from Synology, having it ready for installation. According to the DS Manager setup, the countdown would be 10 minutes, but it took 5 minutes on my unit. It is very nice to navigate through the admin site, which is as easy as browsing a desktop OS. Installing apps is possible with Package Center. A Control Panel and File Navigator are available in the 'shell' to help you get started. Before you can set up your drives, you need to go to Storage Manager. Because I got this more as a media storage system, I opted for Raid 5 on my new drives so I could maximize their use. We ran the Parity Consistency check for about 12 hours. When I checked after about 2 hours, there was plenty of space available, so I started copying a few things over to start. There were menus and guides along the way to help folks new to setting up a NAS, as well as a very active community on the Synology boards for research. Overall, setup was easy I'm not a novice, but I'm not a super expert. In the future, I will add an update if I notice anything noteworthy about the performance or experience, but for now, it does what it's supposed to and I am satisfied.

Gemma Holland

| Feb 18, 2021

The NAS I had been using for the past 2 months failed after operating smoothly. I just lost the ability to access the website. My support requests to Synology are not being answered, and I have tried to RMA the NAS several times. My RMA had been in process for over a week at that point. In case of failure of your device, beware of their technical support.

Cara Daniel

| Oct 03, 2020