Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This thing is fast/scalable/reliable/configurable/expandable/bulletproof and worth ten times what it costs. For the money you get a full function NAS with two drive bays, Linux OS with plenty of really top shelf apps, support for raid arrays and JBOD, thru-the-internet accessability, dlna media server, audio and video apps, excellent disk management apps, solid group/user creation and mgmt, a web server app, ddns with 'no-ip' support and a host of other very useful file/data sharing utilities. Call Synology tech spt and you won't get a tier-1 zombie - rather you get a very knowledgeable competent tech who knows the product inside and out - very impressed! I've used most of the network apps and so far they work perfectly.
Cons: This is not a con but be advised: if you're populating the NAS with large drives (I populated my NAS with two, 2TB drives for a max capacity of 4TB), initial drive preperation will take 8-10 hours to complete - for each drive! I called Synology tech spt to find out if there might be a problem and they explained that the NAS drive prep utility goes thru an excruciatingly detailed surface scan at the outset thereby eliminating issues with bad sectors and other related problems once the drive is placed into operation. THere is a less time consuming drive prep offering but they recommended the full scan - and so do I. Find something else to do while the scan is running. Also; I bought my NAS to use primarily as a DLNA media streamer. It does that flawlessly - this thing is bulletproof, I have purposely tried to add and delete shares/folders/users/etc etc to try and confuse this box. It continues to operate flawlessly - I'm amazed and impressed! The Synology folks surely did their homework.
Other Thoughts: There is one anomaly I found with the DLNA function that I find rather annoying; Once the DLNA server is activated in the command interface, it creates three separate media folders (Audio and Video and Photo) and places them at the root level of Volume 1 (ie disk 1). The DLNA server will only look into these folders to find media to serve up. So, unless you Raid-0 your two drives and create one large volume, you will be stuck storing all your media files on only one drive - OR WILL YOU. There are several workarounds for this, and they work (although a little cumbersome). Once the three media folders have been placed on your vol 1, you can manually move one or more of them to vol2 and the op sys will work just as effectively with the folder on vol 2. You can also use a 'root' login to access the linux opsys and mount pointers to other shares you've created on vol2. Both techniques are explained on the Synology website. Maybe an update to DLNA file structure and searching is due Synology(hint hint).
Network streaming speed is more than ample. I have the NAS attached to a gig switch which is then attached (gig enet uplink) to a Linksys 3000 gateway. As a network bandwidth and NAS performance test I have run the following: one HD video stream to Samsung dlna enabled TV -and- one HD video stream to second TV using HP DLNA-enabled client -and- one audio stream to my Iphone (Wireless) -and- a second audio stream to my dlna-enabled V-Tech radio (also Wireless), all streams were running concurrently without any hesitation, skipping, pauses or any other anomalies. THis, plus all the other very useful functions make this box a real keeper!
Click Here to see more reviews about: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS211J (White)
Synology DiskStation DS211j is designed to provide a cost-effective file storage and backup solution with RAID protection for your home environments. The operating system, Synology DiskStation Manager, delivers rich features for multimedia enjoyments, worry-free backup, Internet sharing, and energy-saving options.
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