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

We reviewed the DS916+ with the very latest version of Synology's DSM (DiskStation Manger) OS, version 6.1 which was recently launched. DSM has always been one of the top NAS OS around and Synology keeps updating it at regular intervals to add more features and apps.

DSM has a graphically rich interface with all the major features of the OS clearly listed. The basic start page just lists four items; Package Center, Control Panel, File Station and DSM help.

Clicking on the left-hand top tab opens a more advanced start page which displays a lot more menu choices than the basic one. Clicking on the furthest right-hand icon at the top of the window opens the System Health and Resource Monitor widgets.

There's a choice of control panels, Basic which displays the features most people will want to get to grips with while the Advanced option offers plenty of scope for those that want to delve deeper into the system.

Storage Manager looks after RAID setups, volume creation (choose between Btrfs or ex4) and all other disk management duties.

Package Center is where you'll find all the add-in apps and there is an extensive list to choose from, 117 to be exact, allowing the DS916+ to be customised to your own requirements. One of the updates 6.1 brings is Package Center auto repair to fix apps that might have been broken by a DSM update.

DSM 6.1 brings some new features as well as refinements to existing utilities. Top of the list is that with DSM 6.1, more Synology models now have support for the Btrfs file system. Many of the other new features and improvements are aimed more towards business users but a couple that home users may find useful are Synology Universal Search and USB Copy 2.0.

Synology Universal Search is a new search tool that includes multimedia files and apps and offers previews of metadata and contents of files with just a mouse click. USB Copy 2.0 Auto copies data to a from a USB storage device and can be configured to set backup destinations, copy mode and any file filters.

On the business side of things, Active Server Directory as been added to DSM. ASR allows a NAS to be used as a domain controller and can help streamline a company's IT maintenance duties as it allows for the creation of policies to install software or system updates across a range of computers without the need to visit each one in turn.

There have been updates to Snapshot Replication (now includes encrypted shared folder replication, local replication for extra security and automatic pause/resume during replication), Hyper Backup, Synology High Availability and Virtual DSM Manager

Features
Btrfs file support
File Station
Photo Station
Audio Station
Video Station
Download Station
Cloud Station, Cloud Station Backup, Cloud Station ShareSync and DS Cloud.
Synology Universal Search
Note Station
Web Clipper
Spreadsheet
USB Copy 2.0
Snapshot Replication
Active Directory Server
Hyper Backup
Synology High Availability
Virtual DSM Manager

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