Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage (NAS) DS214

Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage (NAS) DS214..

GET Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage (NAS) DS214 By Synology

Most helpful customer reviews

78 of 82 people found the following review helpful.
A small and mighty NAS
By Scott
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2AYAEMI103S6I The Synology DS214 is the latest updated version of its mid-range home/soho 2-bay NAS.

The unit itself is pretty barebones and doesn't have that solid quality feel that I prefer in most products given it's thin metal case and plastic build, but it's functional and gets the job done as a NAS case that's not going to be moved around once setup.

The plastic drive trays are a tool less design, just pop the sides off, drop your hard drive in, and pop the sides back on to secure the drive in place.

As with all the home or small office NAS units this only features a single Gigabit ethernet port, however in those installations you wouldn't have the higher end networking switches capable of supporting dual Gigabit nics anyway.

The USB ports are handy for when attaching a UPS backup in order to have the NAS shutdown in the event of a power outage, but I would never recommend using them for USB Drive backup of the NAS - that entirely missing the point of purchasing a NAS unless you intend to transfer the USB drive to another safe location for disaster recovery.

The CPU is a modest dual core, and ram is somewhat limited at 512mb, making this a serviceable NAS for very limited applications running on it and light file server duty. If you're intending to run a significant number of apps and services on the NAS you should consider upgrading the ram or purchasing a larger Synology NAS with a better CPU and Ram support (1-3Gb is often enough for most uses).

Management of the NAS is stellar, the Synology DSM is a great example of what all consumer hardware like this should have, a simple straightforward GUI that cuts out all the complexity of a complicated device allowing home and office users the ability to manage it without ongoing tech support.

The free applications available for the Synology DSM are really what makes their product line shine. Simply clicking on install on one of their apps turns your NAS into anything from the typical file server to a music server, media server (Movies, Pictures), home security camera video storage, VPN server, tons of other business related apps, and many 3rd party community ports from popular Linux apps. You really need to just check out their full App listing to see how easily you can turn these units into an efficient always on server for your home or small business.

Being a 2-bay NAS, if you're not familiar with RAID 1, please keep in mind that you will only have slightly less than half the storage total of the 2 drives you install if you want the ability to not lose data in the event of a single drive failure. If you're not concerned about redundancy with the disks, then your entire capacity will be available to you for storage but is not recommended given the risk of disk failure in the first year of ownership.

If you're serious about capacity, redundancy, performance, and the most bang for your buck I highly recommend considering Synology's larger 4-8 drive NAS units. By going with a larger NAS using multiple hard drives you can purchase multiple less expensive hard drives that will increase your overall performance and redundancy in case of a disk failure. A 2-bay NAS such as this in Raid 1 means you're wasting half your space for redundancy, where a larger NAS would typically only use 20-25% of your capacity for redundancy.

With that said if you feel the DS214 will fit your needs and budget it's definitely a great little unit for the money.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Great NAS - easy to install, very good NAS performance
By MarkABee
I have a lot of NAS's. I have a Synology 1513+, QNAP 2 Bay, DROBO 5N and have had a number of HP Windows Home Servers and I have some of the single drive Seagate and Western Digital boxes as well.

The DS214 is in a different class than the Seagate/WD boxes. No comparison. If you are new to NAS, you probably are not aware that the CPU/Memory of the NAS box has a lot to do with its performance. How fast does it copy files? How fast does it serve them up? How fast does your DLNA server index and serve up music, etc. Faster better CPU's mean snappier performance. This box is fast - almost as fast as my Synology 1511+. In transferring some test photo files (average size 28M) files, I got 80-90 MB/second across a wired 1TB network. That's very good. Some consumer class devices (other 1 and 2 bay devices) get about 20-30 MB/second so the DS214 is definitely in a different class.

I have stored about 2TB of music and I am using it as a music server. Did I mention that it is fast? It was extremely simple to configure as a DNLA server and as an iTunes server.

One of the big advantages of Synology is their DSM software which you use to configure that NAS. It has a very nice graphical interface that makes it friendly to use. And, there is an application download platform that allows you to download additional software. Management software differs by manufacturer. I like Synology's.

The DS214 is expensive but I feel it is worthwhile. When you move lots of files into a NAS, you want to retain the snappy performance you might have from a local hard disk. So, faster is better. Most people that buy a NAS have a lot of data and store music, videos and photos. If you ever need to transfer over a lot of data (1TB or more) you know that it can take 4-12 hours across the network. I have owned several Synology NAS's and I think they are high performance, easy to use, but you pay a little premium. Over the long term, the premium is more than made up for by better performance and ease of use.

I will buy another Synology again next time.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful.
Sleek and nice
By Jonville Joseph
Works great. This product looks sleek, is silent, and considering the price reduction compared to previous years model, it's definitely a great deal for anyone looking for a personal home NAS (2 bays may be a bit small for company use). Plus, the built quality is great and feels robust. I bought this NAS with 2x3TO WD RED.

The nicest thing is without a doubt the NAS operating system. Synology DSM is undoubtedly the most well done GUI you'll find on a NAS.

See all 38 customer reviews...More...