Synology DS212J DiskStation 2TB (2 x 1TB) 2 Bay Desktop NAS Solution

I decided to write a review of the DS212J for two reasons: the first was to reinforce the overall view that this is an excellent product in its own right. The second half gives a few hints/tips on setting up, and problems I've overcome.

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A) THE UNIT ITSELF

I did a lot of review reading before I purchased the DS212J. After weighing up a lot of options (including one or two of its bigger brothers), I came to the conclusion that it is in the sweet spot for price vs. performance. I think the single biggest limitation of the DS212J is that it supports only two drives. However, this is offset by the USB sockets - you could connect two more external hard drives if need be. Also, the way the prices scale means you can always buy a second DS212J (if you really need it) and you won't have spent much more than if you had just purchased one 4-bay NAS. (And since they'll each have an Ethernet connection, there'll be less of a bandwidth limit with multiple users connecting, which is actually a bonus.) So from a price perspective, the DS212J is definitely justifiable.

I had no problem installing the 2 x 2TB drives I had into it. The box is sent out ready to slide open and install the drives, and once you're done you just use a couple of the screws supplied to seal the box. It's remarkably quiet. The amount of noise you can expect to hear from it will depend only on how noisy your hard drives are. I agree with other reviewers that it does feel a bit plastically when it's empty, but once the disks are installed and they give the box a bit of weight, it feels sturdy enough. (Also, once you're done installing everything, it's only going to sit somewhere in your house unattended, so it's not exactly a big issue.)

An Ethernet cable is supplied, although I'm not sure if it's CAT5 or CAT6. When connected directly to my computer, I achieved read/write speeds of ~480mbps (gigabit Ethernet, obviously) and I'm not sure if that figure is limited by the NAS or the disks. At any rate, it's plenty enough. When copying smaller files en masse (such as pictures or mp3 files), the transfer rate drops to about 120mbps, but again that is to be expected.

With regards to its performance under load, I have to say that for the entry-level box it is absolutely fine, but I would also seriously consider the network you are placing your NAS into. If you only have one or two computers connecting to your NAS, then really as long as it is connected via an Ethernet cable to your router, you should have no problems at all. However, if you have many computers/ DLNA TVs/ media streamers in your home (I have three computers, 2 streamers, 1 PS3 and 1 TV that are all capable of connecting to the NAS)...

DO:
* Try and ensure you have a gigabit Ethernet network. If your home network runs at 100mbps, this equates to about 12MB/sec throughput (i.e. only about 25% of the performance I've seen from my NAS). The disks and the NAS ought to be able to handle several HD streams being accessed, but only if there isn't a data bottleneck accessing the NAS. If your main router is cheap one, the easiest solution would be to buy a gigabit switch (eg. TP-Link TL-SG1005D 5-Port Gigabit Unmanaged Desktop Switch) and connect your router, NAS and computer(s) to that. This will overcome your router's 100mbps data transfer rates.

DON'T:
* Use a wifi dongle to connect your NAS to your network. That's just lunacy. Even wireless-N isn't great (high latency, relatively low speeds) and only delivers good performance in ideal conditions. This issue is especially problematic if all your computers also connect by wireless too, as the total throughput of the network is shared (i.e. if you could achieve 100mbps [unrealistic], that 100mbps would be shared across all wireless connections).

* Use Ethernet over Power options to connect your NAS to your network. Again, while they are getting much better (I use Devolo dLAN 500 AVmini (IEEE 1901/ HPlug AV) Ethernet and their speeds aren't far off 100mbps), it is still a bottleneck, for the same reasons as with wifi: any transfer rates available are shared across all current connections. The only exception I would make for this rule is if you are someone who wants to locate your NAS outside your home (e.g. in your shed) for data safety, in which case EoP is definitely a better option than wifi (but inferior to just routing a network cable out to your remote location).

Basically, if you place your NAS in a gigabit network and have good quality disks installed, you should be able to achieve all of the following:

* I have set up 8 accounts for various family members who access DS Audio remotely. All 8 can connect simultaneously and access the music collection on there (all at 320kbps) [needs a good internet connection]
* All of my computers, TV, PS3 and streamers can simultaneously access SD video (for example 350MB avi files) simultaneously with ease. Each is usually 1.5-2mbps, and the CPU & network controller don't seem to struggle with this at all. To be honest, I need more computers available to find out what full load is, but I assume the above covers most home users!
* I can have between 4 & 8 of the above access HD video simultaneously, depending on the bitrates of the files in question. Certainly 8 x 1.1GB 720p mkv files is very much do-able. I don't need that much, but it's good to know how it responds. The number begins to reduce when I go for higher quality videos, but I suppose that is to be expected. It can handle 4 x 35mbps (blu ray spec) streams, but only in a gigabit network otherwise it exceeds the 100mbps limit. (As a small aside, I have my data spread across two disks. You may find using a single disk throttles this number of concurrent connections.)

The NAS is feature-rich, especially compared to other entry-level NAS boxes. The iTunes server (I'll touch upon this later) works just fine, the DS apps work well; it is relatively straight forward to enable ftp/http access to the box from the internet too. I haven't set up the Cloud feature yet, although having read the spiel about it in the manual on the way to work I do prefer the sound of my own personal Cloud storage than using Google/Apple to store my personal stuff in some server thousands of miles away.

The USB ports on the box serve many more options than simply plugging in extra drives. The NAS can host a USB printer and make it networkable - so it can turn any printer into a network printer. To be honest you can plug virtually anything into them... except a USB hub.

Overall it is rock solid performance, reliable and quiet. I'd avoid the entry-level D-link and spend a bit more money buying this. It's worth it.

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B) HINTS AND TIPS

Okay, I'll try and list all the issues/obstacles/tricks that I used in setting up my NAS box. Hopefully some of them will help you too.

a) The box wipes your disks when you install them, so make sure you back up whatever you have beforehand. This was a little tricky for me as I have about 2.5TB of stuff, so I did a lot of copying/moving and I only had one 1.5TB drive to help me. With this amount of data, it takes time, so set things copying overnight.

b) I had previously been using a media streamer as a pseudo-NAS, with an external HDD plugged in. Given this more permanent solution, I opened up my external drive and used that disk directly in my NAS. So if you have an external drive and don't need the disk for anything other than in-house storage, don't go and buy another disk, just use the one you have already! :)

c) If you don't have a gigabit network at home, but *do* have a gigabit Ethernet adapter in your computer, I'd strongly recommend initially connecting the NAS directly to your computer. You don't need a crossover cable or anything, Ethernet sockets these days make that leap for you, so you can just use the cable provided. This will make your initial copy of all of your data to the NAS a lot quicker.

d) When you first begin the NAS setup, it'll ask you whether you want a static IP address or use your DHCP server at home (i.e. your router). I'd definitely recommend a static IP address. You don't have to do anything special to your router settings for this. Just select an IP address for the NAS that you know the router won't dish out to any other device on the network. (For example, I used 192.168.0.4, and my router only assigns in the range 192.168.0.100 - 192.168.0.254, so there definitely won't ever be an IP conflict.) By assigning a fixed IP address, it'll make accessing your NAS from the internet much simpler - as port forwarding rules map to IP addresses not to computer names. Also, some media streamers (I own two PlayonHD streamers) sometimes have a little difficulty accessing workgroups, so if you have a static IP address for the NAS, you can just create shortcuts based on that and they'll always work.

e) The iTunes server built in to the NAS is good, and generally it does work, but it has its limitations. Basically, I wanted my entire music collection stored centrally so that on any given computer in the house I just use iTunes' sharing facility to access this central repository. This is fine (and it works well), but if you own an iPad/iPhone/iPod and want to sync music to it from this collection, it's not immediately obvious how you can do this. The reason is that to sync to one of these products, you have to plug it into a computer that actually stores these files locally, and you can't plug an iPhone into the NAS and expect this result. Read more ›

So I've had this unit for around a week now and I have pretty much got my head around it. Let me start by saying that this NAS will take a little time to work out and you will need some computer experience. Having said that you don't need to be the head honcho in an IT Department, the instructions are pretty good (you can download them from the Synology site before purchase if you like) and as long as you put some time aside you should be just fine.

I purchased mine with two Western Digital 2TB SATA 6Gbps Power Saving Internal Hard Drive OEM - Caviar Green which work perfectly in this unit. Installing the drives is very simple, all you'll need is a Phillips screwdriver.

I'm not going to go into all the technical details and setup procedures, these details can be found in other reviews and on the Synology website.

Before buying this unit I was using a number of external HDs, on one of the HDs I had my entire iTunes library, including movies, iPhone/iPad apps, Podcasts, Books etc. My main concern was if that drive was to fail I'd be stuffed as I had no other backup. That was the main reason for my purchase of this DiskStation, I wanted to use it in a RAID 1 configuration (for those that don't know what RAID 1 is, it basically copies the data to both drives so you have 2 copies of the information, if one of the drives was to fail the other drive has exactly the same information) giving me peace of mind. I have now copied my entire iTunes library on to the Synology and it works perfectly, I use a Sonos system and it accesses the NAS without issues and plays all my music. Not only that but I can also stream my movies to my Apple TV without having my computer on (this was a bonus, I didn't realise I'd be able to do this) by downloading the free DS File Synology app from the App Store and then using AirPlay to send to my Apple TV via my iPhone or iPad....excellent.

Another bonus for me was being able to access my iTunes library no matter where I am (bearing in mind I didn't buy it for this reason), Synology also offer another free app called DS Audio which allows you to access your music library through your iPhone, I didn't think streaming my music via my phone using 3G would work, I was expecting constant buffering and dropouts but it works fine, I can stream albums via 3G without issues and if was a major problem you can just download an entire album to your phone...brilliant idea. It's like having iTunes Match but on your own server!

I would also like to point out that I'm using the DiskStation wirelessly (as in I haven't hardwired it to my computer) and the speeds are more than acceptable when transferring files, I thought it may be much slower. It takes around 5 minutes to transfer 3GB which I think is pretty good.

Before buying this thinking it will solve all your backup needs be aware that it only gives you stability against on-site drive failure. What it won't do is keep your files safe if say for example your house caught fire! If you want the best protection possible buy this to ensure you have 2 backups of your files and then make sure you have off-site backup such as online backup. I use an external HD drive and backup my Synology drive to it once per month and leave it at my friends house. I'm not totally convinced by the online backup services for many reasons but that's an entirely different topic altogether.

I'm very happy with my purchase and would definitely recommend it, it's also nice and quiet which helps as it is in my living room! If you're looking for a NAS I don't think you can really go wrong with the DS212J.

(I have only had this unit for two days, so bear in mind this review is based on initial impressions - I'm also using an old and relatively slow 250GB drive, as I'm not prepared to pay the current post-flood prices for TB drives!)

The DS212J has only been on sale for a few weeks, but it builds upon a well regarded line of NAS devices, and shares Synology's mature DSM operating system.
I've bought the unit as a backup device and media server.

Day 1 thoughts:
- looks cheap and cheerful, no problem with the aesthetics.
- comes with an ethernet cable, which is good, as I've run out.
- case construction is flimsy, and buckled alarmingly when I first opened it (I subsequently learned the knack of avoiding this problem).
- inner drive bays seem well made and sturdy enough.
- acceptably quiet, and my HDD is quite old so this should improve when I get a new one
- windows install software on CD didn't run from Windows 7. The package I downloaded from Synology's site did though, and also contained newer firmware, despite the one on the website saying it was the initial release.
- the installer warns you it will wipe the data on your drives. There may be a way to avoid this, but it wasn't immediately obvious. So, if you plan on using existing drives you will need space to archive the data from them elsewhere before installing them in the Diskstation.
- logging in for the first time isn't covered by the quick guide, necessitating a quick Google search to find out what the default username is (it is "admin") - I did find out later on that the user manual does walk you through this though.
- the web admin interface is quite nice, giving a browser based GUI to the device's OS and apps.

Day 2 thoughts:
- my Robocopy backup works fine with the NAS's mapped drive.
- I'm liking the DSM3.2 interface, it's really rather slick - basically a nice little desktop that runs on your browser.
- free iPhone / iPad apps are useful and easy to setup. There are apparently even more offerings for Android. Sysadmins will especially like them, you can even make the device beep so you can find it in a cluttered server room :-).
- DSM renders great on iPad in mobile mode, and is even acceptable in desktop mode.
- streaming 1080p from my PS3 is flawless, even using my old test drive. Note I have a wired connection - PS3 wi-fi streaming can be flakey anyway, but I haven't tested it with this device.
- if the PS3 is turned on and has previously accessed data, the device periodically wakes itself up even though the PS3 isn't being used. This isn't a serious problem though
- Synology community forums are packed with enthusiastic ideas and good advice. This is an extremely versatile device that can be hacked and played with in the knowledge that community support will be available.
- basic system logging and "email admin" notifications seem to work well.

Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase so far. My next job is to move my iTunes library onto the NAS, hopefully that will go as smoothly.
Note that if your computing experience is limited to installing Windows occasionally, that there is a learning curve associated with this product (this applies to any NAS). Provided you allocate yourself a few hours and read the manuals though you should be fine.

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