ld13
Honorary Master
Initially this review contained bad pictures and were centered around finding out if the Synology DS220+ was more suitable than a DIY NAS solution, in the form of my old HP N54L. Then 2 things happened:
While I was expecting some form of foam protection, I guess the carton inserts were enough to avoid damage during shipping. All the extra goodies one would expect to come with a NAS like this was protected by bubble wrap and neatly hidden away in a separate compartment at the top. These included the Synology branded 60W 12V 5A power brick, a few harddrive screws and two moulded Cat5e 26AWG LAN cables – given the DS220+’s two x gigabit ethernet ports, this made sense. Removing the DS220+ encased in its white protective sleeve, revealed a small printed quick start guide, that was promptly ignored.
The DS220+ is a 2 bay NAS, powered by a Dualcore Intel Celeron J4025, boasting 2 x USB 3.0 ports, 2GB DDR4 onboard that is expandable up to 6 GB officially. Some has had limited success with installing 16GB of extra RAM.
I sat down, and after a bit of to and fro, managed to install a WD Green 5400rpm 2.5” 1TB drive. If I had not ignored the install guide, it would've gone a few minutes faster - turns out there is no need to reinstall the fastening panels after removing them!
After a quick polarity test, I plugged in the Gizzu into the Synology and fired it all up. Following the advice of the install guide, I browsed to find.synology.com where it promptly complained about Chrome:
After opening find.quickconnect.to, and following the on-screen instructions, I was subjected to a rather stressful '10 minutes', with the blue power light of the Synology constantly flashing, indicating a motherboard/power issue. Turns out I was simply not patient enough:
From here on out things went rather smoothly, and the Synology started up with green lights all over:
I played around with the interface a bit and was surprised by how things have improved in the NAS space. Managed to install Docker, opening the door to install Home Assistant down the line, and Download Station, a download manager of sorts that can download files and torrents directly on the NAS itself - so no more leaving PCs on overnight for downloads etc.
I then happened upon Synology's Active Backup for Office 365. Within a matter of minutes I had the DS220+ pulling in a full backup of our whole organization's Office 365 data. Exactly what the HP N54L was initially earmarked for, albeit in a much more manual fashion, where each user would've had to manually backup their data - now being done automagically, even including emails and site data!
About 3 hours later, everything was still whirring along, quite nicely, and I was able to view and restore emails and data without issues. Round about this time, with over 4 hours of runtime, the Gizzu reported a 50% state of charge, officially making the Synology load-shedding proof.
What I liked:
It would've been nice if they included a beefier CPU or even added a second DDR4 RAM slot. A sturdier HDD tray would also have been nice. But any of these changes would've increased the power draw and also the noise factor, so I have to tip my hat to Synology's executive decision to balance things out and make the DS220+ what it is.
At the end of it all I would like to thank Synology and Mybroadband for giving me the chance to test the DS220+. I was pleasantly surprised to see how power efficient the unit is, how easy it was to setup a complete office backup, and how silent the unit operates under normal loads.
- @bwana inspired me to retake my pics - but they are only marginally better now, so forgive me for that.
- I got my hands on a Gizzu DC to DC mini UPS, and since the Synology is a 12V unit, it made sense to see if the Synology was power efficient enough to make it Loadshedding-proof.
While I was expecting some form of foam protection, I guess the carton inserts were enough to avoid damage during shipping. All the extra goodies one would expect to come with a NAS like this was protected by bubble wrap and neatly hidden away in a separate compartment at the top. These included the Synology branded 60W 12V 5A power brick, a few harddrive screws and two moulded Cat5e 26AWG LAN cables – given the DS220+’s two x gigabit ethernet ports, this made sense. Removing the DS220+ encased in its white protective sleeve, revealed a small printed quick start guide, that was promptly ignored.
The DS220+ is a 2 bay NAS, powered by a Dualcore Intel Celeron J4025, boasting 2 x USB 3.0 ports, 2GB DDR4 onboard that is expandable up to 6 GB officially. Some has had limited success with installing 16GB of extra RAM.
I sat down, and after a bit of to and fro, managed to install a WD Green 5400rpm 2.5” 1TB drive. If I had not ignored the install guide, it would've gone a few minutes faster - turns out there is no need to reinstall the fastening panels after removing them!
After a quick polarity test, I plugged in the Gizzu into the Synology and fired it all up. Following the advice of the install guide, I browsed to find.synology.com where it promptly complained about Chrome:
After opening find.quickconnect.to, and following the on-screen instructions, I was subjected to a rather stressful '10 minutes', with the blue power light of the Synology constantly flashing, indicating a motherboard/power issue. Turns out I was simply not patient enough:
From here on out things went rather smoothly, and the Synology started up with green lights all over:
I played around with the interface a bit and was surprised by how things have improved in the NAS space. Managed to install Docker, opening the door to install Home Assistant down the line, and Download Station, a download manager of sorts that can download files and torrents directly on the NAS itself - so no more leaving PCs on overnight for downloads etc.
I then happened upon Synology's Active Backup for Office 365. Within a matter of minutes I had the DS220+ pulling in a full backup of our whole organization's Office 365 data. Exactly what the HP N54L was initially earmarked for, albeit in a much more manual fashion, where each user would've had to manually backup their data - now being done automagically, even including emails and site data!
About 3 hours later, everything was still whirring along, quite nicely, and I was able to view and restore emails and data without issues. Round about this time, with over 4 hours of runtime, the Gizzu reported a 50% state of charge, officially making the Synology load-shedding proof.
What I liked:
- Low power draw - making it easy to protect against loadshedding.
- External power brick, making it easy to replace, if needed.
- Standardized 12V feed, and not some 'proprietary' or unfamiliar voltage.
- Ease of setup - Within about an hour the unit was up and running and already backing up our office data.
- 2 NICs - with provision to connect via PPPOE (untested) - can simply be dropped in place at an off-site location, connected directly to a fibre ONT without the need for a router even.
- The unit is dead silent - I was scared that it was going to be quite noisy.
- Only two HDD bays - the 4 bay units suddenly seem so much more attractive!
- Limited RAM options. The onboard 2GB RAM on the DS220+ is also soldered, while the DS218+ had its RAM sitting in slot, at least opening up the possibility of even RAM upgrading. It feels wrong to be adding 4GB (or 8GB
)to a 2GB RAM setup. I do not understand their reasoning for doing it like this - it would've been nice if they could explain these seemingly arbitrary limitations. - The 2-core 2.0 GHz will have its limits down the line, especially with x265 video formats becoming the norm.
It would've been nice if they included a beefier CPU or even added a second DDR4 RAM slot. A sturdier HDD tray would also have been nice. But any of these changes would've increased the power draw and also the noise factor, so I have to tip my hat to Synology's executive decision to balance things out and make the DS220+ what it is.
At the end of it all I would like to thank Synology and Mybroadband for giving me the chance to test the DS220+. I was pleasantly surprised to see how power efficient the unit is, how easy it was to setup a complete office backup, and how silent the unit operates under normal loads.
Last edited:
