Synology 2-Bay DiskStation DS224+ (Diskless)

So far I do like it. Overall the product is what I expected and meets our household needs. It's fairly easy to set up and deploy, so I have no negative comments there. I do wish the directions and assorted videos were a bit more easier to follow and Synology realised not all users have the background or terminology to understand everything. If you're looking to buy a NAS (and I would 100% suggest this model for basic household use because of price, etc.), I hope my following suggestions help:1. Organize, organize, organize! My biggest headache was that my digital data and digital artifacts (files, pictures, videos, etc.) were spread across a combination of drives and flashdrives i.e. external hard drives, disks, flashdrives, etc. accumulated over a good 20 year period. I started copying files and ran into issues like where my cords were (apparently I forgot over the years different devices had different power sources, cords, etc.)2. Patience young grasshopper! Many of my files over the years started with weird characters, periods, dashes, in some cases the entire first sentence of a document. File extensions that looked like might have come from an old word processor I once had in the 90s. Definitely some file extensions that were from various Nintendo handheld devices, PDAs, etc. So there seemed to be a bunch of pop-up warnings when transferring. Overall, I think the NAS captured all the important stuff, but like I said, I had 3 different WD and ioSafe 2TB external devices, and I didn't bother to check if everything went over.3. Where do I put things? I was a bit confused about the whole Shared Folder vs. Folders that seemed to already populate (photos, music) Synology Photos, Music apps, etc. I still really haven't figured that part out so I just created a folder, then basically dumped all my device files into it. Like I said, this is for the house, nothing I need to worry about other household members accessing, so i went the easiest way. Share and share alike, I guess.4. The wireless/hardwired ethernet stuff was easy to set-up. Synology pretty much does everything for you. But it is so SLOW! My mistake was that I believed because I was using an ethernet cable from my laptop to my Netgear router and a cable from Synology to Netgear router this would be the fastest way. It wasn't until I remembered that you can create a network on your laptop and that seriously sped things up. It was a bit more complicated to set up though. Now I have a "drive" all I do is connect to and it acts like any other external hard drive I've used in the past.5. Hardware: Definitely decide what you want. I went with 2 4tb drives. I wish now I saved up and went with 2 6 or 8tb drives. 4tb filled up super fast! I went with the Iron Wolf and Synology 4TB HDD models. THey work great.6. Upgrade that RAM before you start. I upgraded to TimeTec 4gb because of price and reviews. It did make a difference. I think it's more than enough for what I need.7. Watch a bunch of YouTube videos! Some are really good, some are too advanced, so just look for some that meet your needs.8. I highly recommend this product or at least a NAS type set up. it's easy to use. So far we love it. Organizing videos and photos has been really fun for us in the evenings. Watching the children from birth to now age 20+ makes for nice memories in the kitchen, plus there's no good shows on TV to stream anyway.Hope this helps.

I purchased the Synology DS224+ NAS primarily as a media server. My requirements were pretty straightforward. I was in the process of transferring and consolidating years of analog and digital multimedia. I was not comfortable with sticking with cloud storage. Unpredictable internet speed demanded local storage for performance. So, I decided to get a networked storage device that was fast and simple to set up and maintain. After considerable research, I settled on Synology's DS224+. I had some experience using Plex on my PC with an external drive, so the built-in Plex Server app was a bonus.The setup of the RAID 1 (other options are available) dual drive (drives purchased separately) was straightforward using the Linux-based DSM 7 operating system. My knowledge of networking is limited, so it took some poking around to figure out how to map a shared folder on the NAS to a lettered drive on my PC. Transferring all of the media files from my PC to the NAS was incredibly fast once the setup was complete. Performance using LAN Plex clients on my PC, Android tablet, Roku, and phone was better than I expected. The DSM 7 OS has a rich set of apps for backing up, taking snapshots, and setting up a cloud-based drive service. Those were very easy to set up on both the NAS side as well as the PC client side.I decided to take it one step further and set up remote access. The DSM 7 NAS OS has options for VPN service. So, I decided to set up the OpenVPN server. This is where things get sticky. Without getting into all of the details, the default VPN configuration makes some minor security compromises, perhaps to accommodate older client configurations. I had to make some tweaks to the configuration and regenerate the security certificate key to get a sold VPN connection with no warnings. So, you may want to have someone handy who knows a bit about VPN setup to help out, or be prepared to do some research! Alternatively, you can connect remotely using Synology's QuickConnect.The setup is straightforward. It may not be entirely as secure as a VPN connection since it relies on Synology's servers, and you can't access other devices on the LAN remotely. All that being said, if you simply want remote access to your NAS, I would recommend using QuickConnect simply based on easy of setup and use.The Plex performance was so good that I decided to ditch my Tablo and purchase an HDHomeRun quad tuner as an add-on to the Plex server. That was super easy to set up. Now, I have an Over The Air DVR setup that integrates with all of my other media. So far, I have found the Plex's performance and reliability to be far superior to the Tablo, especially when accessing it remotely.If you are simply looking for a simple home NAS and media server setup, the Synology DS224+ provides a solid solution at a reasonable price. Add on a multi-channel network tuner and you end up with a setup that will seriously tempt you into cutting the cord on cable and paid streaming services. If you are willing to fiddle around with the setup a bit, you get the added functionality of a secure VPN connection into the NAS and Media Server as well as other devices on your home LAN. Bottom line: The Synology DS224+ is solid winner in the entry level NAS arena.

I have been using an old ReadyNAS unit for many years. Although it has performed well enough, it was noisy and problematic at times. (I had to replace the power supply twice.) I had wanted to replace it with something quieter, higher capacity, and quicker for a long time. I finally pulled the trigger with this device and a couple of NAS-specific drives. Winner!It feels like it is sturdy enough for my use, so no issues there. It came with more memory than my old one could have been upgraded to, but it was easily upgraded to 6 GB. To be honest, it was a little more complex than I am used to, but no real problems so far. I've got three different computers in my house linked to it, so good job on resource sharing. The user interface is attractive and useful for administrative functions. I would say that so far, it has been good value for the money.Recommended.

I finally got tired of using my desktop PC as a Plex server for videos stored on my decade-old 2-bay NAS drive, so when this 224+ went on sale, I jumped on it.The setup was a breeze. It was about an hour from opening the box to serving up its first 4K video to my media center. Transcoding 4 K is something that my PC would never do, and now I can watch high-definition videos even when my PC is off!Just for fun, I contacted Synology tech support with a few questions. They responded within an hour and were very helpful.This NAS has 2 GB built-in. You can easily upgrade it to 18 GB by adding a reasonably priced Timetec 16GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM Module. The 9-fold memory increase makes this drive serve up files even faster.All in all, I am extremely happy with this purchase.