8-Bay DiskStation DS1823xs+ (Diskless)

Fantastic latest development of Synology! The DS is very fast, not complaints at all, the internal speed exceeds all expectations, the LAN connection is more than great. The functionality is usual since all these stations are sharing the same software, but this is one has a very good CPU and uses it full value. It took just a few days to run through my entire few TB size 25+ or so years photo/video collection, create thumbnails, reorganize it by dates, recognize the objects, events, locations and faces, create custom groups for every person, using AI - very useful! It's also a very convenient way to share files, create family targeted servers, including video, audio, photo, chat and a lot more. If you add to all that a huge RAID storage, then it makes it priceless.

I purchased this not because it is necessarily the best option but because it was easier to upgrade to and there was no learning curve involved since I was already using a Synology NAS. Upgrading was pretty simple but there were a few more steps since I was consolidating two much older ones into one new one. I backed up everything on the two old units onto external backup drives. Then I prepped the four drive unit to transfer its drives to the new one. Once installed, I powered up the new unit which automatically recognized that I was upgrading from an older system. It completed the remaining portion of the automated upgrade process and I was back online. Due to the age of the old systems, they had a limited volume size and didn’t support BTFS. I installed the two remaining drives from my old DS214, and started building a new BTFS volume. Once it was built, I started moving shares from the old EXT4 volumes to the new BTFS volume, deleted the volumes and added the associated drives to the BTFS volume. I considered moving the last volume but after reading the pros and cons decided it would be better to leave it as EXT4 for the time being. Then I just had to restore the DS214s shares from the backups. Everything is so much faster now and the upgrade went smoothly and was relatively quick.

Users of Synology don't need convincing, and those who haven't decided yet will probably be convinced soon by a bad experience when they wonder what happened to their photo archive. Synology operates reliably and, in my opinion, has the best customer service. Many complain about the price, it's true, it's not low, but in return, we get a top-notch product. Previously, I used two DS1621xs+ models which pleased me and continue to help me to this day. The DS1823xs+ has become the successor to those two previous models, which are used every day, performing backups and snapshots. Without hesitation, I recommend it to anyone who wants to sleep peacefully and not worry about their data!

Synology has let greed run rampant. If you don't pay extra for THEIR hard drives (which are just a mark-up from a mainstream brand), they will never show a healthy status, and will show all kinds of BS artificial warnings that your system is at risk. I'm using NAS-specific WD Red drives, and because they aren't SPECIFICALLY on their "approved" list, it gives warnings and recommends you REPLACE the drives immediately. Yes, the ONLY drives on their "approved" list is their own drives. I regret this purchace. Never again, Synology. You are screwing your customers, and losing them.

really good NAS, but they insist on using their own "approved" Synology HDD (in fact Synology doesn't make HDDs, just rebrand them). So even if you install a high quality HDD specifically designed for NAS from Seagate, WD, or Toshiba, the system complains of a using a "risky" hardware.

I'm coming from a hand-me-down QNAP NAS. I was originally going to update to another QNAP device because of familiarity. I decided to go big with Synology instead based on some positive reviews from others that I know. This NAS is probably overkill for home use, but my reasoning in buying this particular device was that it will provide for my needs for many years. Since my purchase, I've upgraded to 32GB of RAM. I plan to install the NVMe drives eventually, but it still runs great even without them. Lots of the reviews out there mention the warnings about non-synology drives being installed. Don't let that be a reason not to buy this. There is a config file that you can edit that eliminates the warning for "unapproved" drives. I'm running 4 10TB WD drives, and 4 8TB WD drives, and they work great.

We hoped to have a professional running NAS: But things went down hill after the ridiculous dedicated Synology SDD prices and having to live with constant warning.

I've only just set this up so this won't be a great review, but it's working well. It was easy to configure. I'm looking forward to using this for backing up all of the computers and running a surveillance system.