Synology DiskStation DS218j 2-Bay Entry-Level NAS Review

Bohs Hansen / 7 years ago

Final Thoughts

Pricing

At the time of writing, you can get the Synology DiskStation DS218j 2-bay NAS for just £213.75 in the UK and for $169.99 in the US.

Final Thoughts

Synology’s DS218j features a classic but proven Synology design that you’re familiar with if you know the brand. The casing is simple, but it works. It has been designed with clever air-intakes, such as the Synology logo on the side. Despite not having any external drive trays, it’s easy to access, install, and maintain.

There are a few improvements when compared to the predecessor such as a ~30% boost in the CPU speed. Synology also added an extra HDD bracket to stabilise installed drives. These might seem like small improvements, but they’re great ones and they show Synology’s dedication to improve on their devices.

The DS218j is a basic NAS designed for basic connection usage with its two USB 3.0 ports and single Ethernet port. While that isn’t a lot when compared to some other models, it’s plenty for most SOHO environments. And after all, it’s what it is designed for. There is no native support for 2.5-inch drives, but they can be added with the use of adapters. Home users will install high-capacity HDDs anyway and those come in a classic 3.5-inch form factor.

Performance

We saw a good performance from the DS218j in the benchmark tests which shows that this is a great device for media streaming and file sharing. The easy accessibility from any device makes it a great choice. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the go and using your mobile phone or want to stream media files to your DLNA compatible TV at home. The DS218j does the job. The only thing the device isn’t as good at is when you encrypt your files. The performance decreases about 50% in this situation. With that in mind, you might only want to encrypt the folders where it’s really needed.

Conclusion

Overall, a silent and efficient little NAS which would be a perfect device for first-time adopters. It won’t break your budget and delivers features and performance to match.

Pros:

Good basic performance
Evolved operating system
Silent and Power Efficient
Full mobile support with Android, iOS, and Windows

Cons:

Performance impact with encrypted shares

“The DS218j is perfect first NAS. It offers media streaming and a personal cloud solution for backups from all your devices. With up to 24TB capacity, there’s certainly space for it.”