Synology DiskStation DS918+ 4-bay NAS Review

1. Introduction2. Synology DiskStation DS918+ / Packaging & Bundle3. Synology DiskStation DS918+ / Design4. DSM 6.1.45. Usability6. Testing Methodology7. CrystalDiskMark8. ATTO Disk Benchmark9. Intel NASPT10. Workload Scenarios11. Encryption performance12. IOMETER13. Real Life File Testing14. Power15. Closing Thoughts16. View All Pages

To test the DiskStation we used version 6.1.4 (6.1.4-15217 update2) of Synology’s DSM (DiskStation Manager) OS. DSM has a graphically rich interface with all the major features of the OS clearly listed. Synology update it at regular intervals to add more features and apps.

   

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 small window with more advanced 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 to take advantage of all the features the software offers.

    

At the heart of DSM is Storage Manager. Storage Manager looks after RAID setups, volume creation and all other disk management duties.

   

   

  

  

File Station is a multi-platform file manager supporting Windows, Mac and Linux PCs as well as Android, iOS and Window Phone mobile devices. With it you can access and share your files on the DiskStation from anywhere.

By using Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive mounted to File Station you can access remote data in the same way as locally stored files etc.

  

Synology Universal Search is a 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.

Package Center is where you’ll find all the add-in apps and with well over 100 apps in it already you should be able to customise the DS918+ to your own requirements.

The Resource Monitor is an easy to use tool to keep an eye on the DiskStation’s resources. With it you can monitor CPU usage, memory usage, disk utilization and network flow in real time or historically.

   

Helping to keep the NAS safe is Security Advisor. As you might have guessed from the name, Security Advisor scans the NAS providing detailed reports on any security problems it finds and lists any actions that might be needed to be taken. So its quick and easy to find out where and what’s needed to correct any errors.

To help protect business users from potentially damaging service distruptions there is Synology High Availability. SHA allows two Synology NAS servers to be combined into a single high-availability (HA) cluster with one NAS acting as the active server while the other acts a standby passive server. All services and data requests are handled by the active unit with real time data mirroring being handled by the passive unit.

Features
Btrfs file support
File Station
Photo Station
Audio Station
Video Station
Download Station
Surveillance 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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