That's a LOT of hard drives! | Synology DS1821+ NAS review 

Hahahahaha for sure.

Synology and their 'pivot' to enterprise will go poorly, I suspect.

It’s apparently still able to be retrieved through the CLI, but that’s definitely not a convenient option.

Would love to know that command!@@ThisDoesNotCompute

​@@hawks48I would probably just remove the drive safely from the pool and put the drive in a dock to pull the SMART data using CrystalDiskInfo at that point. I'd hardly trust what Synology reports.

The consumerification of technology. Start by being powerful and easy to use, then take away all the useful controls and data because "oh, don't worry your pretty little head about that, we'll handle everything for you." Cost is one thing. But THIS is why I always just build my own. Supported drives are the ones that fit and work, and the controls available are any and all of the ones the OS and installed applications have.

​​@@nickwallette6201Here's your cookie. I think it's important to remember that in most instances consumerification happens because consumers are not into messing around. They actually do not want to worry their pretty little heads most of the time. So if you want to throw ire at someone, make it the consumer who is forcing the market to meet them where they are. It's like getting mad at Apple for selling most people what most people want. Number one handset maker for a reason. It just works.

Sounds like you need a new roommate! who doesn't want a NAS in the house?

And your roommate opposes this... why?

@@nuclearchef-san8304 mate is it not that deep. ive already cluttered the place with my "trinkets"

@@austist Well that’s a better explanation! Your first comment says they don’t understand the potential.. You should have said they just don’t want more shit cluttering up the place! My wife says the same thing about my “trinkets”😂! Buy a larger NAS such as this one, and put it on top of the refrigerator!😜Just too piss off your roommate!

Truth.

I mean, $999 is pretty reasonable for 8 bays, a PCIe slot, and honestly some of the nicest included software I’ve ever used in a NAS.

price is NOT high.

@@RobertoCarlos-tn1iq for the average consumer it is.

Can you build your own for that price with removable hot swap bays? Also nice gui front end? Just trying to compare apples to apples. And they are still not as bad as Apple.

@@glynnetolar4423 The NAS costs around 1000€. For this kind of money, you can easily build a high-end server with a nice case. I would get a case whose front is full of ODD bays where you can put real hot-swap bays or the caddy style like in the video. You also get a system that is way faster, has much more back IO, and if you want front IO, you can put an ODD IO adapter in, giving you much more flexibility. Also, you can use many more PCIe cards and actually cheap 10 Gbit cards. The ones from Synology cost a fortune, hence the Apple price comparison. You can also install many more NVMe SSDs without worrying about compatibility. Software is also a big thing. It is true that it is more difficult to install it yourself and choose the right OS for your NAS. It also offers much more flexibility and knowledge over your system. There is great NAS software out there, just look at FreeNAS or UNRAID. You can also just install Windows Server for free as an EV if you want to stay in your comfort zone. The OSs are also great hypervisors, especially because your system is way more powerful, allowing you to install services like Nextcloud with excellent performance. I'm an Apple user in the smartphone space myself because I wanted something simple that just works and would receive frequent updates, so I can keep it as long as possible. So, I understand why TrueNAS might be the right product for a certain person, but if you're a tech guy, I think you're missing out on a great project when you don't build your own NAS.

Excellent customer support, phone apps, ease of use. For a home user like me, synology is a good choice even though it’s expensive compared to rivals.

@@glynnetolar4423 Yes. I have a ThinkServer TS430 with hotswappable bays I got off ebay for $200. TrueNAS is free and entirely managed through the GUI.

@@4879daniel forgot about the phone apps. That's another plus.

That's very strange. There's a lot to be disappointed with. Weak hw, poor mobile SW, Synology drive client hiccuping every once in a while, vendor lock advances...

Buy a box powerful enough for your needs. The web interface is good, it's just regular Linux underneath. There is no vendor lock in. Linux is the opposite of vendor lock in.

@@JamieBainbridge Synology is actively pursuing vendor lock. They're starting to show non-qvl drives as not-green in the diagnostics, showing popups for non-Synology ram, disallowing use of non-Synology m2 SSD for storage. Or are you speaking of building a diy nas?

Okay fair enough, I don't have hardware that new I guess.

Exactly why when I needed to upgrade my DS418 I went with a DS920+ and not the 923. I wanted more than 4 bays but they seem to all have AMD chips now…. 😢

can you tell me what you actually need transcoding for? Like, what device do you have that won't play an mp4 but will play a real-time "digested" video file? I ran jellyfin on freebsd and ubuntu (never got transcoding to work) but found I never needed it using web and amazon fire players. So if you have some crappy 1st gen roku, wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy a $30 firestick or whatever than insist on transcoding, or is there some other workflow you need?

@@mcpr5971 yeah for instance I'm running my Plex server on an old 2012 AMD machine and it works fine even for modern 4k stuff mostly because the client machines around my house are all modern Apple TV's that natively decode x265 HEVC 4k. Plex just spits it out without transcoding all the client Apple TV's can handle it natively so even my ancient Plex server from 2012 running an old 4 core AMD chip have no problem streaming 4K videos out to multiple TVs. You're right, the best solution often is just to get some decent new client devices so transcoding isn't needed; that'll breathe new life into even old Plex servers since they just have to do a simple data dump that's it!

Yea don't even think of using tdarr it has destroyed many of my movies

​@@mcpr5971Depending on how high the video frame size and quality is, it may be too high bandwidth or too high resolution to play on lower end devices natively

You might want to look into Unraid, it's a Linux NAS running off an USB-stick with great support for Docker. What makes it special is the way it uses disks, allowing for unparalleled flexibility when it comes to using a mix of existing disks.

Raspberry Pis are awful at being a NAS.

@@Deses now I know 😂

oh it's a glowing review alright! How easily glossed over the fact that if you use any 3rd party m.2 drive it wont work fully (just work as a cache drive) and then claiming this company is DIY friendly (only just this one feature missing) says it all about how critical the review is!

​@@AshrakAhmedhave to consider the review from the POV that he got everything for $0, which makes any problems with the hardware nearly irrelevant! Ofc the way its framed is that it is not a biased review, when it cannot possibly be unbiased due to the free hardware. I would also be using a Synology over my DIY shitbox nas if they sent the stuff for free and made me do an inherently biased review of it haha.

For days I've been surfing sites and watching videos about medium size NAS, and came to the conclusion that I probably don't need this many bays (and 90% of the apps), but.. I still WANT it!! Damn, I guess NAS are my cars/shoes/purses...

@@KnokkelmanTrust me, You do need that many bays! I thought the same thing 4 years ago, Now my NAS is full and I knew I should have went for not only more bays but larger capacity hdd's! Always go overboard when it comes to storage, Better to have too much than not enough, Costs you more later on to replace smaller drives to larger ones or have to buy an expansion bay to add to current NAS when you could have just got the bigger NAS to begin with.

Jonsbo N1 or N3?

anything from Startech is overpriced AF

Hide that massive tower full of hard drives in the basement and run TrueNAS or Unraid in it. I had my old 4670K + motherboard + RAM and my old BitFenix Ghost collecting dust, and I recently repurposed it as my NAS server. I just needed a new PSU. I removed all my HDD from my current computer and tossed them to the old one + some new EXOS drives. I basically have all the functionality of a Synology NAS for 50€, as I only needed to purchase the new PSU. And adding more drives is as easy as getting a SATA or SAS controller. You can even repurpose an old GPU (nvidia) as transcoder or AI accelerator. Possibilities are endless.

Of course they do. Is there any NAS brand that doesn't? Excluding flash specific models like ASUS FlashStor.

@@dustojnikhummer because a lot of these companies tried to phase out mechanical hard drives for solid state drives, but they reversed their decision due to costs and reliability concerns.

I wish they would hurry up with it, Can't hold out much longer on my 98% filled DS1019+, It's done well since 2019. Would rather buy a new 8 bay instead of slowly replacing 8TB drives for much larger ones, 1821+ is a little too old for me to buy now.

My 1819+ has been running strong for four years, 8 drives

@@Supercon57 Thanks for the follow-up! Under MacOS you can show previews of every file in a folder, and that causes pulsating on the power supply, which it often doesn't like.

Was thinking that myself, love the channel but something like this NAS @£1K+, then factor in all of the storage is probably well out of the reach of us normal peasants unfortunately.

All too many RU-vidrs pull this line and it bothers me. And I'll bet they don't declare it in their taxes either.

1. I’m legally required to disclose where the unit came from. I also take the extra step to be clear about the relationship between me and any company for the sake of transparency. Too many RU-vidrs do *not* do this. 2. I disclose all income on my taxes.

Yeah, they might not have given him money, but all those drives, nvme and the 10G card total more than 1k for sure.

@@ThisDoesNotCompute It's still a source of bias. If you completely shit on things you get for free (and don't send back) you risk people not sending you free stuff.

If you don't know what to do with Docker containers, then you shouldn't ask a question about it

Hell for $600 before drives you could have a 12900k 32GB DDR5 NVMe boot disks and probably find a used 25gbps NIC, sure you can splurge a bit more for a case with hot-swap bays but still way under $1,000 and way more performant.

You are obviously not the target customer of this relatively ready to use NAS boxes. Ofcourse you can do it easier or you can do it better and cheaper.

In my experience, these units age well - Synology tends to support models for a long time, for example my DS916+ from 2016 is able to run the latest version of DSM. Retailers occasionally put them on sale too.

You could directly connect to another NAS if you want, sure.

@@ThisDoesNotCompute Thanks Colin your videos are ace, you explain things amazingly.

That is the Intel NVME in the system it gives you the warning as you use the same screen for adding / creating pools

Because people yell at me when I use a pair of scissors lol

You can buy a different nas or follow a tutorial to make your own or buy an opensource nas that probably works the same if not better for less/the same price with more options and maybe features the commercial nasses dont have

@@309electronics5 Though in my case the only things I'm backing up are games I dont want cluttering my NVME SSD or that dont need its speed, as well as modpacks I dont want to setup again. I dont do anything that I would want a NAS or serious backup solutions for.

very different use cases since the DS1823xs+ is designed more for intense usage from Creator Professionals. The Ds1821+ is for the tier below that. Also pretty big price difference ($800)

@nickthenasguy it's a lot more than $800 in price difference, more like $3k when paying the synology brand premium on enterprise 18tb drives, ram, pci card, 2x800gb ssd, etc...but...it's definitely worth it. I have both an moderately configured 1821 and a max configured 1823. Because of the cpu, better network ports, better drives, components, extended long term support, etc ..box feels like 3x-4x better performing than 1821 and synology unlocks more dsm features on the 1823 and provides better support. Volume briefly peaks at 1.2-1.7GB/s and easily sustains 800+MB/s sustained combined read/write. If I remember correctly, 50k-70k raw disk IOPS. Might be just my cheap disk and network selection, but I get 1/3 that on the 1821. Furthermore, the cpu on the 1821 is too limited to deploy more than 1-2 intensive docker containers. Depends what you are looking for, the 1823 will be the main server at its location for next 10yrs. 1821 adds a small amount of redundancy and failover, while handling utility tasks like surveillance that we don't want to bog 1823 down with.

only 2 days to rebuild when you add a drive!

@@RobertoCarlos-tn1iq Yea. Lol. Plus NAS drives of any meaningful capacity aren't exactly cheap either.

Perhaps I misunderstand, but there is no need to connect the NAS to the internet if you don't need/want to. It is connected to the network usually via a router and can be accessed by devices on the network.

@@Martin_Edmondson I don't sure if I understand what you saying? You mean I don't need to connect it online? Even though it's connected to ethernet?

@@dotapark Yes, that is what I am saying. DAS means that it is directly attached to a computer (usually by a USB cable.) NAS means it is connected to a local network (usually via a router, by a ethernet cable.) To make it so that you can access your files when you are outside your local network many people use Synology quickconnect. There are other ways, and you usually have to open ports on your router. It is possible (and probably advisable) to turn off quickconnect and close all ports that the router needs. This means you can only access the data while at home. Only while connected to your local WiFi network. I basically have mine like this.

Power consumption tho...

​@@The-Cata quad core haswell system with a sas card for more drives would idle at around 30w with the drives spun down. So for about $200 you have pretty good idle power consumption (file servers are idle most of the time)

But again, this isn't for you if building a diy nas is an option. These Synology boxes are intended to be plug and play, not plug and configure / throubleshoot for 5 hours.

TerraMaster F4-423 - it's basically an Intel NUC fused to a RAID controller. They have an internal USB slot with a flash drive which you can swap to install e.g. OMV. But yes, it doesn't look quite as shiny as the Synology.

​@@mbirthabout the same price as Synology in that drive size. Yeah may be a little faster. Can you load what you want in it? Don't know.

@@glynnetolar4423 Yes, you can. It has HDMI video output and USB for keyboard/mouse in the back, normal BIOS, etc.

look at HAT3300 drives, not their enterprise drives. they're the same price as all the other industry leaders