This is a review on the Synology DiskStation DS918+. A 4 bay network attached storage.
Looking at a range of different NAS’s based on the hardware performance and the upgradability, I purchased the Synology DiskStation DS918+. This will be a direct replacement NAS to my Synology DiskStation DS416Play. The previous NAS was very good for the average user but for the tasks I was using it for, I realized I needed more performance.
Design
The first thing noticed with this NAS is the design regarding the front interface. In comparison to the Synology DiskStation DS416Play, it does not have a cover. Instead, it has a simple slot bay design that is featured in the high-end models of Synology NAS. Immediately, though this design might look simple and unappealing to those that liked the cover case, it does to me have the look and feel of build quality for the solid plastic bay drives. Plus it does not require any fiddling like you would need to do if there was a front cover.
The hard drive bays of the Synology DiskStation DS918+ has a small circle which the key (and spare key) that comes provided with the Synology NAS fits into. It allows for individual locking of each hard drive bay for security to prevent physical unauthorized access of removing the drives when locked as well as the additional safety of not having the drive accidentally removed. Note if you end up losing the keys, a flat-head screwdriver (of the correct size) can unlock and lock the bays. There is a standard button for switching the NAS on and off with LED light indication and the NAS model name is displayed below. There is one USB 3.0 connector for easy access to plug in USB 3/2 drives.
Upgrade and expansion potential
The Synology DiskStation DS918+ NAS comes with 4GB DDR3L ram but can be upgraded to 8GB as stated on the official website. However, I had two 8GB DDR3L ram sticks laying around and read up on other forums that the DS918+ can be upgraded to 16GB of memory.
Stay tuned for a follow-up review to see how easy the RAM upgrade is and whether 16GB will work.
Additional features of upgrading and expanding the performance of the Synology DiskStation DS918+ NAS include the support for two M.2 NVMe 2280 SSDs. From the compatibility table, purchasing a pair of SSD’s and installing them from the bottom of the NAS will provide the NAS SSD cache functionality. This will improve read and write performance for data that is placed on the cache without having to rely on the I/O of the hard drive’s performance.
Stay tuned for a follow-up review to see how easy the NVMe upgrade is with two 500GB SSD’s.
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