Synology DiskStation DS216play NAS Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

At the time of writing, the Synology DiskStation DS216play can be yours for $299.99 through NewEgg, £199.99 through Overclockers UK, or starting from €244.06 through Geizhals.

Overview

The budget-minded enthusiast will find that the Synology DiskStation DS216play is a great choice if you are on the lookout for a 2-bay NAS unit. The dual-core CPU comes with floating point unit that helps the overall performance, but especially the creation of thumbnails for the media functions. Speaking of media, the hardware transcoding feature is amazing and it allows the NAS to transcode 4K video down to full HD in order to stream to bandwidth or resolution restrained devices.

The simple black design gives it a great look that doesn’t look like a cheap device but rather like an enthusiast device as it ist. I say enthusiast here in regards to light-usage NAS users. With 1GB of RAM, there are limitations to how much you can run, but it’s sufficient for most tasks that it will have to perform. The USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports allow you to use the NAS to share printers and storage drives and you can also configure your router directly from the NAS – all features that make the everyday life a little easier.

The performance was nice and nothing one should be ashamed off. It isn’t the strongest performer with encryption, but it does pretty good with iSCSI shares. You get plenty of backup features, both to and from the NAS, as well as hundres of extra apps in the Package Center to add even more functionality to the NAS.

Pros:

• Good performance up to and above 110MB/s
• Powerful dual-core CPU with H.265 codec support for 4K video transcoding
• Complete entertainment hub functionality
• Everything you’ll want to backup from and to

Cons:

• No front USB 3.0 port
• No drive bays for easy hot-swap

“Synology’s DS216play offers the whole deal for a small price. A great performance with hardware based enhancements for the core functions make it a great media and backup NAS.”

Thank You Synology for providing us with this review sample.