I’ve been working with a Synology DS1621+ for a some time now (Thanks to Synology for providing it), and had a great experience with it. At this point it is running an integral part of my Homelab as well as servicing all the different devices floating around at home. After a recent conversation with Nick Kozup from Synology, a different model was sent to me for reviewing.
Enter the DS923+. A four-bay system, tailored for home use, providing great amount of flexibility in regards to drive configuration. In addition to the main system, Synology included a memory upgrade and two Seagate 5.5 TB drives. Again, many thanks for letting me review this system.
The system arrived well packaged. First impressions show a well build system, although I felt the DS1621+ is more “solid”. The case of the 923+ seemed thinner, and the drive bays were fully made of plastic. Not an issue, but I could feel the difference.
Installation of the memory was very easy, just make sure to insert the memory module before inserting the drives. The drives themselves can be installed without the need for tools. Nice.
Flipping the system upside down revels the slot for two optional SSDs. This was a nice improvement, as for my 1621 I have to pull some drives out to reach the slot.
On the back we can see 2xEthernet ports and a slot for an optional 10GbE module.
After putting everything together and powering up, DMS is installed in a few minutes. First step after is to create a storage pool. For testing I selected Synology’s SHR (Synology Hybrid Raid). I have not played around with this yet; my plan is to change between different raid levels and learn more about the flexibility this might offer.
To explain what SHR is, I refer to their website, from which I have taken following explanation:
What is SHR?
Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) is Synology’s automated RAID management system. SHR allows users to create a flexible storage solution with optimized capacity and performance.
SHR is based on a Linux RAID management system and designed to make storage deployment quicker and easier than classic RAID systems. This makes it especially suitable for users who are new to RAID technology.
If you prefer to manually manage your RAID system, we recommend choosing classic RAID on your Synology NAS (e.g., Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10).
Unlike classic RAID, SHR divides each drive’s storage space into smaller chunks and creates additional redundant storage. Using the same example as before, SHR is able to divide the 4.5 TB of unavailable storage into smaller usable chunks and maximize the storage capacity of each drive.
What I did notice having the system running for a while is the hdd caddies convey vibrations from the drives, which in turn causes a slight humming sound. I attest it to being plastic, it is not a big issue, more on the annoying side.
So far I like the system being aware at this price point and compared to my DS1621+ there is a difference in build quality. Now that the Homelab has 14TB of usable storage, it’s time to play with it some more.
In episode 2 of this series I want to setup cloud station and see how it does syncing files between Windows, Android and IOS devices. Or I might focus on LUNs, not sure yet
Stay tuned.