Synology DiskStation DS916+ 4-Bay SMB NAS Review

Setup – Information, Hardware, Notification & Other System Features

So far, I’ve mostly focused on the basic file distribution features, but there is a lot more and that includes hardware monitoring, notification, and security features.

Information Center

The Info Center within the Control Panel is a great way to get all the information about your NAS in the quickest possible way. The first page will show information about the NAS itself, such as what CPU is inside, how much RAM, what DSM version, time, thermal status, and much more.

The second pane gives you a view on your network settings.

And the third does the same for the storage.

The Service panel is awesome. You can quickly enable or disable services as well as set the port forwarding rules automatically in your router. Whether it’s internet services, local services, or app services, you can control them from here.

Hardware and Power

The Hardware and Power settings allow you control over audio notifications through the built-in speaker and control the fan mode. You can also adjust the LED brightness and even create scheduled brightness changes. An awesome feature, especially if it is placed in the bedroom or similar locations. And you can do that with a unit as silent as this one, without any problem.

You can also create power schedules. Why should the NAS be running at times where you don’t access it at all? For example at night or when you’re at work and got no time to browse your content. Have it turn on and off by your rules.

The default HDD hibernation time is set to 20 minutes. My preferred setting is 30 minutes, but that really comes down to personal usage. You can also set the hibernation time for connected USB drives.

UPS devices are also supported, should you want to hook your new DS916+ up to an uninterrupted power supply.

Resource Monitor

There is also a quite extensive resource monitor built in, and you can naturally find that in the start menu to the top left in your taskbar.

Where the initial page has an overview of all the different parts, the next panes on the page allow you a far more detailed view on all the individual parts.

The resource monitor is as you’d expect it, a place to monitor what’s going on in the system and with the connections as well as the drives.

You can also keep track of your users that currently are connected and their usage.

There aren’t many settings available here, but we can enable usage history and set the real time duration for the monitor.

Security

There are a lot of security features built right into DSM itself, starting with the basics such as logout timers and improvements against cross-site attacks.

The firewall is basic in itself, but it can be a useful tool to have at your disposal.

There’s also a basic Denial of Service (DoS) protection built directly into the system.

The Auto Block is again one of the simpler security features, but it’s effective. It will in its essence prevent brute force attacks on your password by blocking users after a set amount of failed attempts.

The default SSL certificate is a self-signed one by Synology, but you can change, modify, and add to that as you please.

The final security pane controls the HTTP compression settings and SSL Cipher settings.

In the start menu, you’ll also find the Security Advisor. A useful little tool that will scan your system and suggest improvements. The first time it is launched, you get the option to choose whether you want to check the security based on a home and personal usage scenario or a work and business one.

After your selection, the system will automatically start the first scan.

How long the scan takes will depend on how much data you got on your system, as with any other malware detecting system.

Once it’s done, you can view single group details or the overall results all put together.

There are a few settings for this feature too after which it will recommend settings. Home and business users don’t necessarily need the same security.

Notification

You have access to your notifications right from the taskbar at the top of DSM. It will be highlighted when new notifications happen and pressing the button on the bottom of the list will open the full view as seen to the left in the shot below.

Hitting the Show All button will open up a more detailed and bigger view.

Within the popup notification window is a settings button in the form of a gear-wheel in top right corner. This will open the basic notification settings as seen below.

Within the control panel itself, you can edit more notification settings. One of the features you’ll most likely want to use is the email function. Effectively, the NAS will send you an email when something happens that you should know about. If you have an SMS provider or feature at your disposal, then you can set that up too. This will most likely require third-party subscriptions as you’re used to from your mobile phone.

Push service can be used in combination with mobile apps on your smartphone and tablets. This is a very convenient way to get notifications directly on your mobile device and in almost real-time.

The final pane within the Notification settings allows you to control what kind of events trigger what kind of notification. You’ll find any event alert possible here and can make the appropriate changes.

More Features

There are a lot more features in DSM itself and you can add even more through the use of apps. One of them is the Media and File Indexing that is greatly aided by the floating point unit in the CPU. It especially speeds up the automatic thumbnail creation, among other things.

The Task Scheduler is an easy way to run automated tasks at specified intervals. One item already added here is the DSM Auto Update that will keep the system itself up-to-date with the latest features and fixes.

Both Scheduled and Triggered tasks are possible and as you can see, there are a lot of options here.