Synology DS223J 8TB 2 bay Desktop NAS Solution installed with 2 x 4TB HAT3300 Drives

The Synology is a great NAS box.I really like the software interface and the fact you can add lots of apps.I have one with 2x14TB drive setup as a raid mirror for backing up our corporate Google Drive (using an extra app to sync) and one with 2x16TB setup as JBOD for backing up other backups using FTP.Really great boxes and was pleased with the extended warranty options.

Synology have been making NAS solutions for a very long time.I decided to replace my ageing 10 year old NAS with this Synology.I've not been disappointed.Plug in and follow the instructions. Load a few apps and take access to your data every where you go.You can also set all your mobile devices to backup to your NAS and therefore eleviating the worry of lost phone data.I keep all my data on my NAS and I opted for a mirror configuration. I also have a cloud backup of critical data and a USB backup drive for periodic data backup.I work in IT and see data loss on a weekly basis by people who have all their data on one location. It pays to have multiple copies.

It took me many hours to learn how to use this (I'm a techie numpty) but well worth it. I got a lot of help from YouTube. But now the hard work is done I just let it get on with it and add a further backup on Synology's external C2 network storage . Much better than Dropbox without all the BS..! It's only noisy when it backing up or uploading otherwise you don't know it's there. And it looks good too.

Works well and I found it OK to set up, however I relied upon my own IT knowledge to get it working. There are a plethora of documents available online, but no guidance on where to start. It really needs a simple guide for common use cases identifying where to look for the details.I am using it for data storage and file sharing within my network. It is good for this and much faster than an old WD MyWorldBook which it is replacing. It took about 90mins to load 600GB from my PC.It is slightly noisy (similar to a PC with traditional hard drive), but can be set to hibernate when not being accessed. It does sometimes wake itself up - I'm not sure why yet. Not really suitable for a bedroom, but OK elsewhere.For a simple NAS it was good value and much better than leaving data on a shared PC drive. If you don't want RAID, one could save money by only having one drive, but that would then lose data when the drive fails.

I get everything I need from this server.I primarily use it as an Emby server, but also for Surveillance Station, so my review will be based on those 2 things.For of all, it’s super simple to setup and get to the UI, which is also pretty user friendly. Installing apps is simple and setting up network shares is equally as simple. There’s advanced controls, like user rights, recycle bin functionality and that just scratches the surface, but again I didn’t need to take advantage too much of some of those.The Emby functionality is great and streaming anime from it is flawless. I last used a Mini PC which really struggled with decoding and made the experience terribly slow. I no longer have that issue (thankfully) as the server is pretty speedy - even for larger content.Surveillance Station was just as easy to setup with enough options for what I need. Allows me to backup my recordings instead of having to use Micro SD cards or Eufy’s cloud services, so I’m really pleased with that too.Overall, for the price I paid and the experience I’ve had - I’m thrilled. (Worth noting I bought some sound dampening feet to put it in a cabinet).

I'm new into this type of software and devices but I can say that it was very easy to setup. I didn't took me too long to have my user created and have my NAS up and running, It was just a bit confusing to create additional users and give them the access I wanted them to have but nothing that reading a bit a watching videos wouldn't solve. overall, after a month and half of having my NAS I pretty much happy with it. it works perfectly and I can keep all my information back it up in one place.

I bought it to manage files, I was storing files in cloud and wanted to move locally. I was using 2 cloud providers and never had a single issue.However Synology sync software refused to sync thousands of files. Browsing which ones is difficult and in most cases it is impossible to say why it didn't sync.I'm a software engineer, I found criteria for files to be synced on Synology website, I built a small script to check if my files fall under any of it and they don't.I then deleted sync and created from scratch. Different files were not synced. On third occasion it synced them all but then refused to add new files. That thing is a big mess and I wouldn't trust it.I raised it with support but didn't get any replies, support for the product doesn't exist.Synology Surveillance Station is difficult to setup (licensing checks) and 60% of my cameras are not working (despite being on compatibility list). Motion detection is the worst I've seen, often misses movement right in front of camera, it's very unreliable.Live remote cameras on iPhone take approx. minute-two to load (both on WiFi and mobile signal). To put this in perspective HIKVision takes <2 seconds.At this point I can't use it for literally anything and I think this product is literally useless.

Been running ages without any issues