Entry Level NAS That Packs A Punch

The Synology DS220+, is a compact high performance 2-bay NAS great for entry level or  as an upgrade from an older model.  

I have way too many external hard drives.  My pictures, media, and files are all over the place.  Between old desktops, laptops, phones, and everything in between, it’s a hot mess.  This led me to look for a solution where I could consolidate all my data and have it accessible across all my devices.  I also wanted the ability to host my own media server using Plex.

What is a NAS? 

NAS (Network Attached Storage) is an intelligent storage device connected to your home or office network. You can store all your files on the NAS, from important documents to photos, music and video collections.

DS220+ Highlights 

• Accelerated Application Performance Average 15% performance boost to photo indexing and other computing-intensive operations, as well as database response time

• Effortless Data Sharing & Synchronization Access, share, and sync your data easily across different operating systems and devices

• Protect and Restore Data in a Snap Back up critical data and reduce your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) with Snapshot Replication

• Entertaining Multimedia Hub Organize and stream your music, video, and photo collections across all your devices

• Anytime, Anywhere Freely access files on the go and back up mobile photos with iOS and Android™ apps

Getting Started

Hard Drive Options

With the DS220+ being diskless, you will also need to decide on hard drives and storage capacity.  The max raw capacity is 32 TB, meaning each bay can support up to 16TB.  Depending on your RAID setup you could pool 2 drives into 1 large pool (no redundancy) or mirror the drives as backup in case one fails.  For my setup, I went with RAID 1 and 2 x 8TB drives.  I selected RAID 1 as I’ll be using my server for storing images, files and as a media server.  In the event one drive fails, everything is protected on the other drive.

Memory Options

The System Memory comes with 2 GB DDR4.  Depending on what you’re using your NAS for, this may be enough.  However, the DS220+ is expandable to a total of 6GB (2 GB installed + an additional 4 GB stick). In most scenarios the faster the RAM, the faster the processing speed.  Even if you’re planning on light usage, the additional RAM will help the DSM run smoother.  Synology recommends using Synology RAM if upgrading.  However, The RAM chips that are actually soldered to the board are Samsung.  With this in mind, there are some less expensive alternatives.  I found Samsung RAM, Samsung 4GB DDR4 PC4 for my setup and it has been working fine.  I’ve seen that there are some issues with Synology not recognizing RAM from certain brands so make sure to do some research before purchasing if not going with either of the suggestions here.