SynologyDS220j 12TB 2 Bay Desktop NAS Solution | Installed with 2 x 6TB Toshiba N300 Drives

I bought this to replace a failed external drive. I paid more to have the disks installed, but it arrived with the disks inside the case but not installed. And I didn't have a scredriver that fitted the tiny screws.Other than that, with a bit of planning, it was easy to get going. I had to get onto Synology support a few times, partly for advice about which apps to use, but also because of a problem syncing with my laptop. They generally got back to me promptly and were able to sort out my issues.Hopefully, from here on, it will just sit there and work.

This is my 5th Synology DS but this one has been confusing to set up. Online guides don’t cover the issue however, using a Mac I’ve got it operational via Finder and after a few weeks now can manage the device with the Synology Assistant or via web interface.

Great. Got the 2 bay version. Stuck it up in the loft where I have a network point and put all my stuff on it.it's a bit noisy to be put anywhere habitable in my opinion. Even if you turn the fan down to minimum, you can still hear the hard drives rattling around like a bag of glass marbles in the corner of your room. Hence why I banished mine up to the loft, and even then I had to place it on foam to drown out the low pitched hum down below the ceiling.Other than that, all good. Now I've got an 8TB cloud in my home that all my devices can connect to.Using my Nvidia Shield as a Plex server for it's progressing power, and the data paths are all pointed to the NAS.One thing that took me a little while to figure out is how to access your shared folders from a Windows PC.Basically once you've created your shared folders on the NAS, you just open a file explorer folder in Windows and enter the address \\YOURserverNAME and click enter. It will ask you for your NAS login, so click the remember me on re-connect and then you will see your shared folders. Right click one of them and select MAP NETWORK DRIVE and then it will stick it in MY COMPUTER on your PC always so you can go straight to it.I just found out that I can actually download files from the internet to it, from my mobile phone in the living room which is kinda cool...

Works pretty much straight out of the box, set-up that was required was well documented and straightforward - one of the "industry standard" brands.

Arrived when stated, well packaged. I found the set-up straight forward (but I do have a little experience) and it works well. Reasonably quiet, in fact more quiet than my old expired Buffalo terastation. Price is fair for what you get (went for the Toshiba N300 drives as they were immediately available). Speed is good enough for me (home use). Overall I would recommend. Not sure what Warmth means in the overall ratings so mark it on the basis the casing remains cool and it doesn't appear to throw out much heat, but as thy say, power in / heat out!

This is the first NAS drive I have tried. Many great points, but two cautionary points I think should be highlighted. Firstly, and maybe not a deal breaker for most, but this is a rather noisy piece of kit when indexing files. I have this in my living room and the noise overnight when it goes into indexing mode can be heard throughout the house.Secondly, the lack of onboard RAM is a big issue when trying to do multiple tasks at the same time.The Synology operating system (DSM) is top draw though, it is easy to use and I have no doubt that when I upgrade, I will remain with a Synology device. I would highly recommend the backup subscription for piece of mind.

This is the third synology NAS drive we have added to our data cabinet, over two locations. They all work together, each one was super easy to set-up, the interface is easy, and actually if there's something you're not sure about youtube is full of helpful videos. Very reliable too and quiet! Set it up, get going and requires little user-maintenace after that.

On the surface, this is a pretty great entry model NAS. It will do everything you need if you're after something for your home and don't plan on too much heavy usage. It holds up well streaming 4k movies, but you will notice a performance dip if you do too much while streaming.If you're not overly technical, it can be a bit tricky to set up to back up your files and folders properly, but there are super useful guides on the web that will walk you through how to prevent the two-way sync on folders you don't want all over your network.BUT, the biggest issue by far is that the WD Red version that is less than 12TB comes with SMR drives. WD have been shipping SMR drives out to smaller NAS installations, which aren't good at all for NAS or RAID. They take up to 14 days to resilver, which is far from ideal. In fact, WD are facing a class action law suit for this because it's not shown in the spec sheets... Amazon should make buyers aware of this.If you buy a smaller capacity Synology NAS, avoid the WD Red. Iron Wold doesn't use SMR on smaller sized drives, so consider this option as you will be fuming when you try to replace a drive and it takes 14 days to resilver.WD Red drops the SMR and goes to SMR over 6TB drives i believe, so the 18TB and upwards options are fine for the WD bundles