Synology 6 bay NAS DiskStation DS1621+ (Diskless)

br>br>I've just finished setting up and configuring my new 1621. It took me about three weeks to install all of the software packages and figure out all of the settings, and while I'm still debating some of my choices, I'm ready to write a review. I purchased the DS1621 to supplement a QNAP TS-100. 453- I bought Be a little over a year ago to replace a QNAP TS-100. The motherboard on the 453 Pro died. This is the second time I've purchased a Synology product. My first experience was with a two-person team. It was my first NAS, a bay model. br>br>Here are some of the things I do with my server: br>br>1) Server Plex. Only music will be played. And the Synology is ideal for this purpose. br>2) Organize your photos Lightroom and Synology's photo organization software are what I use. I like having two copies of software installed because if one fails, I can switch to the other. Moments AI, a photo organization software from Synology, is excellent. Perhaps not quite as capable as QNAP's QuMagie, but it's close, and Synology will never fall behind in terms of software. br>3) Acronis and Time Machine backups of Windows and Mac computers. br>4) Windows 10 virtual machine for when I'm not at my own computer and need to get something done. And for using the disk indexer X1 to have instant access to all of my documents, no matter where I am. br>br>I never expected to return to Synology after purchasing a QNAP, but here I am with the 1621, and I find myself preferring it to my QNAP TS-100. 453- There are a few reasons for this. br>br>But first, let me state that QNAP is likely to win in terms of hardware. It's a close call, but QNAP appears to provide more hardware for the money; for example, you can get two for the same price. VMM-compatible, 5GB ethernet, Intel chip capable four-person team For less than the price of this 1621, which is limited to 1GB (unless a PCIE card is purchased), you can get a QNAP bay NAS. The QNAP would, of course, be a four-part program. The QNAP would have an HDMI port, more USB ports, an audio jack, and so on, in comparison to the Synology's six bays. QNAP is known for its hardware. Synology was purchased for the following reasons: br>br> br>br>First and foremost, Synology has a superior three-dimensional model. QNAP's newly-released products come with a one-year warranty. revised- two years of decline And my first QNAP died in a tragic accident last spring, shortly after reaching the five-year mark (resulting in my purchase of the TS-1). 453- BE), whereas my two-year-old two-year-old two-year-old two Even eleven years after I bought it, the bay Synology is still running. Finally, I will prioritize reliability over features, and I believe Synology is the more reliable option. br>br>The second reason I chose this Synology was because of the ongoing security issues that QNAP servers have had in recent years. It's difficult to blame QNAP for being targeted, and they've most likely beefed up their security measures. possibly even greater than Synology's- As a result, but due to the constant attacks on their servers, I've left my QNAP unplugged for much of the last year. The software, however, is the most compelling reason to purchase Synology. Synology software is simply superior to all others, including QNAP. It has a bulletproof feel to it. br>br>The Synology disk system, which treats all of your hard drives--was the most important for me. They can also come in a variety of shapes and sizes. as a single large storage pool across which RAID striping can be performed If you want to expand the storage capacity of your QNAP NAS, you must first back it up, then replace all of the hard drives, perform a restore, and then continue using your newly expanded capacity. You can't just replace one drive with a larger one; you can only address the amount of storage available in the smallest drive across all drives. For example, if your QNAP NAS has one 4TB drive and three 12TB drives, the maximum RAID storage will be 12TB, not 40TB, because only 4TB of each drive can be used for RAID. Synology allows you to use any size drive you want, grouping them all together into a single large pool that can be used for RAID striping. So, in the scenario above, Synology would have 40TB in RAID format available for you to use. Synology has a significant advantage in this area. br>br>I could go on and on about Synology's fantastic software, but I'll just say that if you want to run virtual machines on the 1621, you'll need more RAM. I also installed a 16GB ECC RAM module, bringing the total installed RAM to 20TB. I gave a virtual machine running Windows 10 10GB of RAM and it's pretty quick. I bought ECC RAM on Amazon for half the price of Synology RAM, and it works perfectly without any non-conformance reports. RAM that is standard. Here's where you can get the RAM I bought:.

Alia Lara

| Dec 03, 2021

I've had it for ten months and have maxed out the ram to 32GB, with WD Red Pro drives in all bays and a DX517 with WD Red Pro drives as well. The system drives are housed in an SHR2 array, while the DX517 is housed in a separate SHR2 array. I also have a SSD cache drive (I believe it's a Samsung EVO). br>br>The transfer rate between the system and external drives is around 120 MiB. Over my gigabit network connection, I'm getting roughly the same transfer speeds. br>br>In response to the reviewer's comment about USB speeds, You should probably add 10GB Ethernet, though if you're using spinning drives, it won't really matter because USB is faster than what the drives can provide. br>br>For the first time, I set up Plex server, which was relatively painless, though the service does appear to have a bug where Plex will hang and need to be restarted on occasion. I'm thinking about setting up a crontab to automate this check and restart. br>br>I've also enabled SSH. The Application Portal for reverse proxy is a great addition, but I've switched to using a dedicated Raspberry Pi for wireguard, pihole, and reverse proxy because Docker on this device is a pain, especially without docker-compose. compose. br>br>Overall, this is a huge improvement over my previous NAS. However, many of the applications I've tried to run on this device aren't worth running; if you consider anything other than file storage to be a bonus, you'll be very pleased.

Alexis Lopez

| Apr 03, 2021

If you can handle the ups and downs, this is the place to be. Purchase a Synology to save money up front. You could build a more powerful NAS yourself for less money, but it would use more power, take up more space, and (most importantly) take more time and effort to manage. My previous setup consisted of a Mac mini with USB storage attached. After about 9 years of mostly great service, I decided to upgrade the setup and looked into some proper NAS options. I've always been put off by the relatively high prices of NAS devices, especially Synology ones, but after reading about all the built-in features, I decided to take the plunge and try the Synology DS1621. It's a good thing I did! br>br>This device has a plethora of features, the majority of which I don't use, but the ones that I do use work flawlessly and (more importantly) were incredibly simple to set up. Here are some of my initial thoughts on the tools I've been using: Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR): Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) is a Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) that is a Synology Hybrid Raid that is a Syn SHR- is the software I'm using. It was easy to set up two for double redundancy. I like that I can easily add another drive to expand the pool in the future. If you're using the default BTRFS file system, it also supports checksum validation and correction via the "Data Scrubbing" feature, which I've set to run monthly to prevent bit-rot. rot. I don't have enough experience with it to comment on how it works in practice, but in theory, it's fantastic. br>br>Folders that can be shared: This is a NAS's bread and butter, and Synology DSM made it incredibly simple to set up and configure. Because it handles permissions correctly and everything "just works," it works SO much better than the shared drives on my old Mac mini. br>br>Backup to a time machine: This is essentially a shared folders extension, with the exception of one additional configuration required to make the folder appear as a native network time machine backup destination. It worked perfectly for setting up backups on a few Macs. Containers in Docker: br>br> I moved all of my Docker containers from the Mac mini's Docker Desktop to the Synology, and they now work much better than they did on the Mac. They run faster and have a decent built-in UI, making them easy to manage. I'd prefer built-in Docker Compose support, which I hope will be added in the future, but for my needs, configuring via the UI was sufficient. Application portal / reverse proxy: br>br>Application portal / reverse proxy: br>br>Application portal / reverse proxy: This feature is fantastic because it simplifies the process of routing requests to different services. I'm comfortable configuring nginx manually or via automation, but I prefer a simple UI like Synology's for home use. Certificates can be assigned to routes, and everything works perfectly with my custom domain. Certificates: br>br> I was excited about the built-in Let's Encrypt support, but it requires that the server be exposed to the internet (which I don't want). Hopefully, they will support the DNS challenge option in the future, but for now, the open source acme is a simple solution. sh, which has built-in hooks to register certificates with Synology's UI and supports a large number of DNS providers. I've reached the pinnacle of my profession. Synology's Task Scheduler is in use, and it's performing admirably. VPN Server: br>br> supports L2TP/IPSec, allowing you to use the built-in VPN on your iPhone or Mac without the need for third-party apps. This is the only thing I've ever put on the internet, and in my testing, it worked right out of the box with very little tweaking. Other ideas: br>br>
- Chat with Synology Slack knockoff, which, to be honest, works better than I anticipated! I turned this off because I'm not confident enough in the app's security to expose it to the internet.
- Backup in a flash: I haven't finished configuring it yet, but it appears to support a wide range of servicesbr>- Station for Files: a fantastic internet site There are many more features that I haven't even begun to investigate, such as the built-in Plex support, but I can say that so far this NAS has exceeded my expectations, and I expect that as I continue digging and configuring, I'll continue to discover new useful features. br>br>On the hardware front, I made the following changes:
- 32GB ram: Ethernet adapter for Synology 10Gbps: So far, I've used two Seagate IronWolf 8TB drives and two WD Red Plus 8TB drives, both of which have performed admirably. Because of a neat built-in integration with IronWolf drives, the Seagate drives have some extra diagnostic information available. Unfortunately, the WD Red Plus drives are listed as unverified because Synology hasn't added them to the official list of verified drives for the DS1621, but I'm sure this was an oversight because the WD Red Plus drives are officially verified with almost every other Synology NAS. In practice, it doesn't matter. br>br>Despite the high all-around score, it doesn't make a difference. In terms of price, I'm very pleased with my purchase and anticipate that it will serve me well for a long time.

Reed Schroeder

| Apr 14, 2021