NAS Synology DS218 Series Overview Installation

In the recent review, we already talked about the advantages and disadvantages of home NAS. Considering the products of manufacturers WD, Qnap and Synology, the choice fell on the Synology DS218 NAS. The product interested in attractive price and functionality:

• Support for two hard drives;
• SATA III interface;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• The presence of a USB version of 3.0;
• Offline download;
• Encoding 10-bit video in the 4K H.265 format.

NAS Synology DS218 Series 2 Series

Apparently, the manufacturer decided to occupy all the price niches, offering the buyer various modifications of one piece of iron. As a result, it turned out 4 NAS in the range of 200-400 US dollars.

 

 

Synology DS218j - A budget option for home use. Good functionality, but low performance. The weak Marvell Armada processor and 512 MB of DDR3 RAM are pure file storage. For one user it’s enough, but there’s no point in counting on more.

 

 

Synology DS218play - the memory is slightly larger (1GB), and the processor is more powerful than Realtek. But the piece of iron still does not pull the encoding of the 10-bit stream 4K N.265. In comparison with the state employee, DS218play supports server functions in hardware. There are a lot of interesting “goodies” for developers. Plus there are free licenses for video surveillance systems.

 

 

Synology DS218 - a full multimedia center. This is the only NAS in the series adapted to work with 4K video format. Moreover, the encoding of the 10-bit stream N.265 occurs in real time. Accessible language - no external media player needed. The NAS streams high-definition video to the TV, and the built-in TV player simply displays the picture without braking. Realtek's powerful 4 core processor and 2GB DDR4 memory is multitasking and supports multiple users at the same time. There are all the "goodies" to configure the server.

 

 

Synology DS218 + - business class NAS. Supporting all the functionality of the DS218 model, the NAS can deploy hardware-virtual environments. The high performance of the virtual machine is guaranteed by the Intel Celeron processor. The model is powerful and copes with any complex tasks. The only drawback is that the Celeron does not know how to encode video in 4K at the hardware level. That is, it is impossible to stream video in real time.

 

As a result, only the Synology DS218 NAS model is suitable for the tasks described above. If you are not tied to video, then, in terms of performance, the best choice is Synology DS218+. Choosing by price - the state employee Synology DS218j will be an excellent solution for home tasks.

 

NAS Synology DS218: Overview

The oversized light box received at the post office after purchasing from the online store was a little embarrassing. In consumer's view, the server is a heavy and dimensional piece of iron. But after unpacking and first acquaintance, everything fell into place. Compact NAS does not require much space in a niche with network equipment. The design is simple and convenient.

 

 

Included is a cable with power supply. Moreover, the PSU can be directly connected to the UPS with the appropriate interface cable. In the box there was a patch cord and a set of small cogs. Installing hard drives took a couple of minutes. The front cover of the NAS is fixed to the rubber stops. There is a niche for mounting discs under the cover.

Drives are installed with plastic baskets and locked with special latches on the sides. Then these baskets are pushed into the server through the slides. The front cover is refitted - the NAS is ready for use.

 

 

Confuses only the set of screws in the kit - where to screw them. Fortunately, there is a brief instruction. It turns out the screws are needed for mounting in an 2,5 inch format hard drive cage. Live a century, learn a century - and you should always look at the instructions.

 

NAS Synology DS218: Launch

After pressing the Power button, the server came to life - by the way, when power is applied, this POWER button blinks with a blue LED. At first, it seems that the NAS started automatically. But no - you need to press a button. After starting, all indicators (LAN, HDD, Status) begin to flash on the panel.

The same instructions for owners of PCs and mobile devices provide links for entering the browser. The NAS is automatically detected in any browser and immediately offers to configure.

First, the device wants to format the screws. Then, offers to install the environment and software. The whole procedure takes 10 minutes. Then, in the browser window, the interface for managing the server is loaded. At the first start, the user is prompted to enter the administrator account name, password and ID. No need to look for an ID on a box or NAS enclosure.

By ID, the manufacturer understands the unique address for the server, through which you can get to the control panel outside the house (from the Internet). The field is required for input, later, in the settings, remote connection can be disabled. A minimum of 8 characters must be entered into the ID line: English letters, numbers and a hyphen (“-”). Otherwise, registration will fail.

 

 

For the convenience of operating the Synology DS218 NAS, we recommend that you create a shortcut on the 2 PC desktop. One to enter the DM interface. The second - for a remote connection from the local network by the file manager. At the first connection, access passwords are requested. If you check “save”, then subsequent forwarding will be performed automatically. In the control panel, in the section "File Services", the addresses for connection are registered - just copy and paste in the address bar of the explorer or other FM.

 

 

The NAS server allows all connections by default. Therefore, the control panel will have to "shamanize" in order to properly configure the piece of iron for yourself. There are hundreds of instructions on setting up a NAS on the Internet - there is no point in rewriting them. Let's note only one point - in the control panel there is an adjustment of the brightness of the LEDs on the NAS panel. An entertaining setting and very much in demand, as the LEDs shine too brightly.