Review: Synology DS918+

by Parm Mann on 11 September 2018, 14:01

Tags: Synology

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Conclusion

...a powerful entry point into the world of NAS, or a meaningful upgrade for anyone making do with a basic single- or dual-bay unit.

The Synology DS918+ can be either a powerful entry point into the world of NAS, or a meaningful upgrade for anyone making do with a basic single- or dual-bay unit.

Armed with a quad-core Intel processor and 4GB of memory, the four-bay server offers up heaps of storage, simple external expansion, solid all-round performance and 4K transcoding capabilities with full support for third-party services such as Plex.

Synology's hardware covers most of the essentials that small businesses or home enthusiasts will care about, and both the spare RAM slot and M.2 storage bays are helpful additions, however at this price point it's a shame not to see HDMI output nor a provision to upgrade to 10GbE connectivity.

The hardware can be described as safe rather than cutting edge, yet get to know the accomplished DiskStation Manager operating system and you soon discover that you can achieve plenty with a Celeron CPU and a bit of DDR3.

Bottom line: on the lookout for a highly capable four-bay NAS that's easy to setup and a joy to use? The Synology DS918+ is an excellent choice.

The Good
  
The Bad
Excellent DSM operating system
Dual M.2 slots for easy SSD caching
Media transcoding with third-party apps
Simple expansion via optional DX517
Comprehensive app store
Three-year warranty
  
No option to upgrade to 10GbE
Plastic drive trays
Not the quietest



Synology DS918+

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The Synology DS918+ NAS is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.


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HEXUS Forums :: 14 Comments

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Posted by Darkedge - Mon 17 Sep 2018 09:10
I'd say hands down beaten by the Qnap.. plus at least Qnap talk to other people and support them, Synology third party support is woeful.
Posted by peterb - Mon 17 Sep 2018 09:25
Interesting comparison - in terms of performance, its hard to judge given the different disks used - but the power consumption of the Synology seems far higher than the nearest equivalent QNAP and that may be significant for a device that would be expected to run 24x7. Again that could be down to the different disks, but double the on load power consumption seems to be odd.
Posted by Zak33 - Tue 18 Sep 2018 15:48
peterb
Interesting comparison - in terms of performance, its hard to judge given the different disks used - but the power consumption of the Synology seems far higher than the nearest equivalent QNAP and that may be significant for a device that would be expected to run 24x7. Again that could be down to the different disks, but double the on load power consumption seems to be odd.

yes the new hard drives the review team are using are much higher power use than the previous models. The older WD red drives were 4gig and low power use but the new Seagate Ironwolf models in use now are 8gig and use more power.
the Drobo review used the older drives but had 5 of them.

A user can choose the type of power vs speed use they need.
Posted by peterb - Tue 18 Sep 2018 16:19
Zak33
A user can choose the type of power vs speed use they need.

True, but for comparison/review purposes you need a standard configuration to compare like with like - doesn't matter what the drive is (or how many) just so long as they are the same! (ideally two configurations so you can calculate the power consumption of the basic unit alone - eg power consumption with one and two drives.
Posted by jimborae - Tue 18 Sep 2018 16:25
In other news I have recently found out that Synology have terrible support model. I recently needed to have the firmware updated on my DS612+ NAS. The only way to get this done was for their support agents to remotely access my device and perform the firmware upgrade. However in order for them to do this I had to divulge to them my username & password for the device & my synology account!!!!!!!!!!!!! This didn't seem legit so I questioned this via another channel and was assured that this was the only way to get the firmware upgrade done.

In the end after much deliberation I agreed and watched while it was done, then change all user account passwords, wiped the disks and started all over again and restored data from a previous copy. Massive PIA and surely a very poor user experience.

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