Synology DiskStation DS215j 2-Bay NAS Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

Where do I start? This is an amazing device designed for home users, but with features like those found in business devices. It’s cheap to run as it barely draws any power and it comes with a very modest price tag as well. In the UK, you can pick up the Synology DiskStation DS215j at Amazon for £143.99 or at Scan for £149.50. At the time of writing, the DS215j hasn’t arrived in the States yet, but that it’s just a matter of time before you can find it at NewEgg, Amazon or BH. German readers can find it for €164 plus postage through Geizhals or €179,90 on Amazon.

Overview

The Synology DS215j has a very elegant sleek design and will be almost invisible up against a white wall with its almost complete white design. And isn’t that what we want in an NAS designed for home users? We want it to just work without ever noticing that we actually have it physically. The second aspect to consider when we want to forget about it is the noise it generates. Synology has come through on that front as well and the device is barely audible when located right next to me. You can sense that it is running, but not actually hear it.

The DSM Operating System is better than ever since the 5.1 update. There is a wide variety of apps available to cover almost any situation from setting up your own email and web servers to automated download clients and photo albums. Synology has covered all the basics while the user community is doing their part to complete the offerings. Enjoying your NAS at home is one thing, but we also want to reap the benefits from our mobile devices. Synology has that part covered just as well as the web-based apps, and you’ll find everything from remote controlling the NAS to browsing your content.

On top of that comes the functionality to use this NAS as your personal and private cloud server, syncing your mobile devices, as well as your computers to the NAS for extra backup and security. But it doesn’t stop there, the easy connect method saves you the trouble of setting up dynamic DNS services. You can also sync your files between multiple NAS’ or 3rd party cloud services such as Google Drive.

The DS215j left a serious impression on me when we’re looking at the transfer speeds and performance. We saw speeds up to 115MB/s while running the streaming tests and the file copy test resulted in impressive 107MB/s to the NAS and 82MB/s from the NAS. I’ve tested my fair share of NAS over the time and I have not had a device perform this great at such a low price point. Truly an impressive achievement.

Pros:

• Price vs Performance
• DSM 5.1 operating system is better than ever
• Easy to set up and get started
• Great transfer speeds
• Silent, practically un-audible

Cons:

• None, I tried hard but couldn’t think of any.

Neutral:

• no eSATA port
• requires additional brackets for 2.5-inch drives

“The Synology DiskStation DS215j may just be the perfect NAS for home users. With 2 bays it allows for a multitude of disk setups that should be enough for most home environments and transfer speeds previous unknown to such a budget oriented device.”

Thanks to Synology for providing us with this review sample.