Synology DiskStation DS220+ NAS Review

[Budza]

Thanks for the opportunity to review this little gem!





The unboxing:


Note the Schuko plug - those should come with an SA replacement in the box. And an eWaste Tax to boot.

Now, let's look at what we're replacing: [hmm- cables ]


That's one of these:


With a NUC8i3BEH stashed in the 5.25" Bays (with old heatsink on top ) and my old HTPC, an ASUS E35M1-M Pro in the same chassis.- E35 to possibly be retired.




That has 5xSATA headers, so greater capacity but takes an age to get started and transfer speeds aren't amazing with that slow CPU. Reading from my SSD on NUC & writing to 2xHDD on the E35 gets around 80MB/s.

Anyway, that little E35 has been in service until it couldn’t keep up with HEVC playback or Plex server duties. Now it has old HDD for cold storage & media backups. Gets used infrequently. HDD assortment is something like:
2x2TB
1x1.5TB
1x500GB
1x250GB

The 2x2TB are migrating to the NAS. The drives need to be formatted for use in Synology devices, so I cleared one and installed it and then fired up the DS220+

 

[Budza]

Startup:

With my router, the find device page didn't work:
View attachment 887494


Plugging it into laptop directly it's found though. Also shows up under network devices, if clicked on it goes to the management page:
View attachment 887496


Plugging back into Router & looking at DHCP devices in settings, I can get the IP: shows up as DS220Plus - when accessing that via browser, it sorts out the port and I get to http://192.168.1.107:5000/ I bound the IP & saved that and hopefully the IP is reserved for this thing going forward.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm DSM 6.2 downloaded and installed.

Some updates required:


Installing Plex:


Plex apparently already has an update:


4k Plex server tests to come

Throughput tests

Copy speed from 2x HDD + 1x SDD. One large file each & using both LAN Ports:


IO Wait:



Disk Transfer Rate:




Combined Write speed: - almost 190MB/s




To 2xHDD & 1xSSD


CPU Usage for the above test:


Perhaps higher than expected? That's flat out across 3x interfaces though…

RAM usage barely budged, so I don't think I'll need to make use of the expansion slot for now:




Some Nifty features- the front panel detaches with a light pull. No tools required. Held in place with these rubber feet/grommets:

 

[Budza]

The dual LAN ports face different directions for easier cable removal:


Thanks also to @rpm for the additional treat:


2KG - never seen anything like it!

Any questions or further tests/benchmarks you'd like to see? Tag me here I'll see if I can get them.

 

[Budza]

Test setup was the 2X2TB HDD + this SSD in the front USB 3 port:

 

[brianj74]

Comprehensive test! Good job

 

[garyc]

Bought the similar DS218+. For once a product which is actually more capable than what the manufacturer claims on the website.

The intention was to use this in parallel with my HP Microserver, but it has completely replaced it instead.

 

[fish]

All these Synology reviews but am I missing where to buy them???

 

[garyc]

All these Synology reviews but am I missing where to buy them???

Takealot still have some models.

 

[Budza]

Some Plex tests:

CPU is hammered with 4k transcoding- it basically doesn't work:


RAM spikes a bit, but still coming in around 50% usage:


I'll need to play around with codecs to see if there's a flavour this CPU can deal with.

 

[Budza]

Hmm.

After the above test [see network & disk utilisation]

CPU is still being klapped, with no activity on the other metrics:


Might be transcoding to a local file?

EDIT:

Looks like it. I don't often transcode, so I don't really know what I'm doing here

 

[bwana]

Some Plex tests:

CPU is hammered with 4k transcoding- it basically doesn't work:

As @Soul Assassin was kind enough to point out in my review thread you need to be a plex pass subscriber to enable GPU hardware transcoding.

If you've got that then try this https://nascompares.com/2020/07/30/...x-for-h-256-hevc-ds920-ds220-ds720-and-ds420/

 

[Budza]

As @Soul Assassin was kind enough to point out in my review thread you need to be a plex pass subscriber to enable GPU hardware transcoding.

If you've got that then try this https://nascompares.com/2020/07/30/...x-for-h-256-hevc-ds920-ds220-ds720-and-ds420/

Thanks. I was forcing it for testing purposes. My MiBox S doesn't need the transcoding.

I might try that TOUCHDOWN code anyway to see what all the fuss is about for the Pass.