Verdict
The Synology DiskStation DS225+ is a solid two-bay NAS for general-purpose use in the home. It’s easy to configure, moderately fast, and offers lots of useful software. It’s also quite compact and smart. That said, it’s not the cheapest two-bay enclosure you’ll find, and it doesn’t offer a lot of scope for growth if you’re using it for a small business. This isn’t a bad choice, but there are better value alternatives.
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Excellent operating system and apps
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Smart and compact
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Fast 2.5 gigabit network interface
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Not the fastest in practice
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A little expensive
Key Features
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Review Price:
£325
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Two-bay network-attached storage
This network-attached storage (NAS) device is a way of sharing storage across multiple PCs and other devices. It has space for two hard disks, and connects via an Ethernet cable into your Wi-Fi router.
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Great software
Synology’s Disk Station Manager software deals with all the basics. You can download quality extra apps to handle media sharing, surveillance or more advanced network and development jobs.
Introduction
It’s hard to argue against choosing a Synology NAS (network-attached storage) device. The brand has been around for 25 years and is widely trusted – that should be high on the wishlist if you’re looking for somewhere to store valuable data.
I’m testing the Synology DiskStation DS225+, a compact NAS enclosure which has room for two 3.5” SATA disks. Note that those disks aren’t included – you’ll need to buy them yourself or look for a reseller that offers a bundle.
Before buying a NAS, it’s important to understand a bit about how disk storage works. We’d never recommend a single-disk device, as if the disk fails, your data is lost. Two-bay enclosures like this support RAID 1, a drive configuration that mirrors data across two disks. If one fails, you’ll still have the data on the remaining good drive.
You might have already spotted the catch: fit two 4TB (terabyte) disks, and you’ll still only have 4TB of usable space – the other 4TB is lost to backup data.
Design and features
- Compact and smart
- Medium-fast network support
- Painless installation
NAS enclosures are invariably small rectangular boxes, but Synology has at least made an effort. The DiskStation DS225+ is made from smart black plastic, and there are loads of lights on the front panel to let you know what it’s up to.
There’s a facia plate you can pull off to reveal the two disk caddies, into which you’ll load your disks. You’ll also notice a USB port. This supports external disks, giving you a quick way to back up a thumb drive – there’s a dedicated button to trigger backups.
At the back you’ll find a second USB socket, along with two Ethernet ports suitable for connecting the NAS to your router, or a network switch if you have one. While one of these is the standard gigabit Ethernet (GbE) you’ll find on most mainstream routers, the other supports the 2.5GbE standard that’s become widespread on newer equipment. That’s a big upgrade – 2.5GbE is two and a half times quicker – but several competitors already offer dual 5GbE ports.
One thing to note is that you can connect both ports, which provides more redundancy, but it’s unlikely to give you a noticeable speed improvement.
You can fit SSDs in this NAS, but only ones using the SATA interface. The Synology DS225+ doesn’t support NVMe SSDs of the type found in modern PCs. One other thing to note is that, at the time of this review, Synology’s drive compatibility list only included its own disks. While I’d expect any quality NAS hard disk to perform adequately, that’s something to bear in mind.
I wouldn’t strongly recommend fitting desktop disks in a NAS, as they’re not generally designed for an always-on environment. It’s important to check any incompatibility lists, and avoid disks using shingled magnetic recording (SMR) – they’re extremely slow when used in a NAS.
As with most NAS enclosures, it’s easy to get disks into the Synology DiskStation DS225+. Remove its front facia, hold in the latch, and its drive caddies simply slide out. Fitting a 3.5” disk involves removing two clip-in rails, slotting in the disk, replacing the rails and refitting the caddy. If you’re using 2.5” laptop disks or SSDs, you’ll need to screw them in.
Once the NAS is connected and turned on, you’ll access and configure it using a web browser – Synology has made this bit as simple as visiting find.synology.com, which redirects you to your local device. You’ll need to create a user account and password, then configure the storage and any shared folders you want on it. It’s not particularly complex.
Synology’s DiskStation Manager software (DSM) is probably the best NAS operating system, managing to balance reasonable ease of use with really strong features. Lots of storage, power and security options are baked in, but its real strength comes through a comprehensive roster of downloadable apps, most of which are free.
These span very sensible network tasks such as DNS, DHCP and proxy servers, and include officey applications like a mail server and online office suite. There’s even Docker Container Manager, which lets you run containerised servers – essentially another computer, running in a virtual box on your NAS.
That’s all incredibly powerful if you have the need and the know-how, but for the rest of us, there’s simple file-sharing functionality and a selection of backup apps and media servers, including Plex.
Synology’s comprehensive software extends to mobile devices, where you’ll find a choice of apps to let you make the most of your storage. It’s easy to connect remotely, too, though you will need to install a few packages on the NAS to ensure everything works smoothly.
The apps generally work reliably and are well presented, although some of the configuration can be fiddly.
Performance
- Comfortably fast enough for home use
- Some drive noise
- No upgrade path
If you’ve got a router and other devices with 2.5GbE network ports, the DS225+ can theoretically chuck almost 300MB of data around your network every second. The reality is a little more nuanced; it’ll manage that on large files, but the overheads of smaller files will slow performance down to a few tens of megabytes per second (MB/s). For those with gigabit Ethernet networks, the theoretical limit is only around 113MB/s.
I tested the Synology DiskStation DS225+ using a 10GbE network switch and a PC with a 5GbE interface – Ethernet is downwards compatible, so all three could agree on the NAS’ 2.5GbE maximum speed. For these tests it was fitted with two 6TB Western Digital Red Pro drives – not on the compatibility list – configured in a RAID 1 volume.
This NAS put in a reasonable showing on benchmark software, notching up a score of 396 in the PCMark10 Data Drive test.
The following screenshot shows how it did on the ATTO drive benchmark, which tests reads and writes with ever-increasing payload sizes, and gives the results in megabytes read or written per second.
There are a few things to explain here. As with all storage devices, the DS225+ was slower on smaller file operations, managing only around 6MB/s for tiny 512-byte chunks – that’s actually very competitive.
You can see that its performance improved with file size up until around 64KB operations, at which point the drive approaches the limits of its network connection – that’s the limiting factor in all the remaining tests. The Synology DiskStation DS225+ was unusual in returning consistently slower write speeds than read speeds.
It’s important to see how this translates to real-world performance, so I copied a folder containing 6.5GB of mixed files to and from the disks. Perhaps surprisingly, given the other tests, it was quicker to store these files than retrieve them, with the write completing at 76MB/s, and the read at 55MB/s. Both are decent figures for day-to-day use.
There’s little heat from this NAS drive, and its power consumption is modest – I measured a peak of 13 watts. There’s little noise from the enclosure itself, either, but it wasn’t brilliant at isolating the clattering from the two server-grade drives I used. Other disks would have been quieter, but it’s worth bearing in mind if you’re planning to have your NAS in a bedroom.
One final thing to consider is that, as a two-bay NAS, there’s no strong upgrade path available. You can boost the standard 2GB of RAM to 6GB, and you could upgrade the size of existing disks, but you’d get more flexibility with a four-bay device such as UGREEN’s NASync DH4300 Plus.
Should you buy it?
The Synology DiskStation DS225+ offers an exceptional software environment. It’s a great choice if you need a NAS to do more than simply file serving.
There are cheaper two-bay NAS drives available. If you don’t need this NAS’ software support, consider spending less. Better still, look for four bays.
Final Thoughts
This is a thoroughly decent NAS enclosure; it’s smart, fast enough for most home users, and gives you access to a brilliant set of apps. That makes it a great choice if you want something simple and reliable, but you’ve half an eye on setting up media serving – or even something more ambitious.
That said, it’s not brilliant value. You can get four-bay enclosures at this price, and for a bit more, you can get much faster, more powerful two-bay devices that are more expandable and better suited to added server workloads.
If you’re buying for business, or you expect your needs to grow, look elsewhere. And if you want to save money, consider the QNAP TS-216G instead.
How We Test
We test network-attached storage by fitting as many disks as the enclosure supports. On two-bay devices we configure two disks in a RAID 1 (mirrored) array. Where there are three or more slots, we use RAID 5. If the device has M.2 slots, we also test using solid-state disks to provide fast storage, and again with the SSDs providing caching for the main disk volume.
We measure performance across standard software including the ATTO Disk Benchmark and PCMark10 Data Drive Benchmark. This only tells part of the story – we also time how long it takes to copy a huge set of files on and off the device.
We also look at the available apps, and whether the processor and memory are up to running them. We test for lag and slow performance on actions like video transcoding where it’s available.
FAQs
Yes, provided it’s configured sensibly. Always use a drive configuration that offers data redundancy, and be careful with permissions and updates. Be sure, also, to protect your PCs and other devices – some malware specifically targets shared folders on NAS enclosures.
They could well be, depending on your needs. The most important thing is that with two bays you can use RAID 1, which mirrors your data across two disks, offering a degree of redundancy. The issue is that to add extra storage space, you’ll need to upgrade both drives, one-by-one. If you think your needs may grow, a four-bay device might be a better investment: you can start with two disks, and add more later.
Test Data
| Synology DiskStation DS225+ |
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Full Specs
| Synology DiskStation DS225+ Review |
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