Synology DiskStation DS916+ 4-Bay NAS Review

1. Introduction2. Synology DiskStation DS916+/Packaging & Bundle3. Synology DiskStation DS916+ / Design4. DSM 6.15. Usability6. Testing Methodology7. CrystalDiskMark - 4K8. ATTO Disk Benchmark9. Intel NASPT10. IOMETER11. Real Life File Testing12. Power13. Closing Thoughts14. View All Pages

Synology's DiskStation DS916+ is, at the time of writing, the only 4-Bay NAS unit in the Plus product line that includes 2, 5, 8 and 12 bay tower models as well as a couple of rack designs.  The Plus series are aimed primarily at SMB users but the DS916+ would also make for a powerful NAS for the home office.

 

As well as having a built-in AES-NI hardware encryption engine, the DS916+ also features a hardware-accelerated transcoding engine. It allows the transcoding and streaming of H.264 4K / 1080p video content via Synology’s Video Station, DS video and Media Server with support for MP4, MOV, M4V and MKV formats.

Currently, hard drive support goes all the way up 10TB giving it a total capacity of 40TB but should you require more at a later date, the device supports Synology's DX513 5-bay expansion unit which connects to the DS916+ via the eSATA port in the back of the unit. The DX513 also supports 10TB drives which, when connected gives a 9-bay NAS offering up to 90TB of storage capacity.

Synology's DSM (DiskStation Manger) is one of the best NAS O/S out there, quick and easy to install, feature rich and with a large collection of apps in the Package Center to expand what the device can do and Synology regularly update it with even more features and apps.

The latest 6.1 version of DSM brings Btrfs file system support to more models in Synology's product line (there's a full list of compatible units available on Synology’s site). Amongst Btrfs many features are auto-detection of corrupted files (silent data corruption) and repair. It does this providing checksums for the data and metadata, generating two copies of the latter and then verifies the checksums during each read. Any reported mismatch sees the metadata being repaired.

The DS916+ supports a pretty comprehensive list of cloud services which includes Amazon Cloud Drive, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, and Baidu Cloud via the Cloud Station App. Cloud Station also enables file syncing between DiskStations as well as Windows PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and Windows mobile devices.

You can buy the Synology DiskStation DS916+ from Overclockers UK for £529.99 (inc VAT) HERE

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Pros

• DSM O/S.
• Btrfs file support.
• 4K transcoding.
• Expandability via expansion unit.

Cons

• No physical security on drive bays.

Kitguru says: The DiskStation DS916+ is a powerful NAS for the small business and enthusiast alike and it is well served by Synology's DiskStation Manger software, the latest 6.1 version of which, adds even more features to what was already one of the best NAS O/S around.

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