Synology 2 Bay NAS Disk Station DS218+

Most people have more than one computer these days, and they likely need to share files and services between each other. This is where a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device comes in handy. Most consumer NAS devices have a lot more than just sharing files.

Synology is the most popular consumer NAS manufacturer and their devices support everything from File Sharing, Network Backup, Web Server, DNS Server, Docker Server, personal Dropbox solution, SQL Database, and lots of other things you might find a need for but don't want to run a dedicated server for.

Synology

Synology runs a proprietary operating system called DiskStation that offers File Sharing, Backup, and Package installation. These packages are where you get a lot of the value from a Synology NAS. Synology products range from a little over $100 to Enterprise network solutions in the tens of thousands.

RAID

The device I mention above is a entry level home NAS server that supports two drives in a RAID 0/1 configuration. RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is a hardware solution where you use multiple hard disks to provide real time protection from disk failure or additional performance over a single drive.

With theDS218+ it supports RAID 0 or RAID 1. RAID 0 is when you have two drives working together with no redundancy for performance reasons. You have increased risk of data failure because you have a complete loss of data if either drive fails.

RAID 1 is the more common use in a 2 drive NAS such as the DS218+, this provides a mirror of all your data across two disks. You generally lose about 15% write performance doing Raid 1but you have better read performance. The key benefit is a real time synchronization of data across multiple drives.

RAID is not a backup

A lot of people get confused thinking RAID is a backup solution. While RAID redundancy focused RAID options will provide you real time protection against a drive failure, it will not protect you against data corruption or deleted files. It is recommended to use a reliable backup solution (on-site or off-site) to backup your NAS or use the NAS as a backup for other devices on your network.

DS218+

While the DS218+ is a good NAS device, it is an entry level device. It has 2GB of Ram and a Dual Core 2.5GHz processor. It is rated for around 113MB/s read/write which is around the maximum you can expect off Gbit Ethernet. All Synology devices offer similar features for what packages are available and what services you can run on the device. Although the newer devices do a much better job at this as the old devices suffered from under powered energy efficient CPUs.

You can find the DS218+ on Amazon for around $298 shipped. This does not come with hard disks, you would need to purchase two similar hard drives to complete the system. I recommend using Western Digital RED NAS hard disks as they are designed to run in NAS devices that are typically running 24/7.

_{All images are from Amazon product pages}