The two-bay DS212+ has a plastic exterior but feels solid
nonetheless. Two drive trays pull out of the front of the enclosure on rails.
The trays have sound-dampening washers to help minimise vibration and the
extra-long screws you'll need to go through these are provided. Finally, a
front panel with rubber stoppers helps to reduce vibration further.
Synology DS212+
Setting up your NAS device is simple enough, but you’ll need
to read and follow the quick start guide on the accompanying CD, which shows
you how to install hard disks in the DS212+ and where to find DiskStation
Manager (DSM). DSM is an operating system that you need to install before you
can use the DS212+. The CD includes programs for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Once the Synology Assistant has finished setting up your NAS
device, you can access it through your web browser, where you can also set up a
shared folder that you can map as a Windows share. The guest account is
disabled by default, so you must enable it if you want any device on your
network to be able to access your folder without providing a password. As with
all NAS devices, you can create different folders, and grant users different
levels of access.
It costs a
reasonable £265, is solidly built and has a great interface, earning it five
stars
Synology’s NAS devices really stand out for the sheer
quality of their interfaces. When you open the web interface of the DS212+, you
get a fully windowed GUI, plenty of helpful prompts that make it easy to find
shortcuts to the functions you need, and virtually every networking feature you
can think of. You can connect and share further storage through two USB 3
ports, a USB port, an eSATA port and an SDXC card slot. The USB ports can also
be used to connect a printer. A brilliantly designed package manager makes it
easy to install additional features, such as an IP camera monitoring suite or
LDAP server, while the backup manager makes it easy to back up the device's
contents to various locations, either locally or online. As well as Synology's
official packages, a community development project offers other applications,
from transparent proxies to alternative file managers.
As expected, the DS212+ performed well in our transfer speed
tests. Configured as RAID 1, it achieved an average large-file transfer speed
of 42.5MB/S and a small-file average of 12.6MB/S. It costs a reasonable £265,
is solidly built and has a great interface, earning it five stars. However, we
slightly prefer QNap’s Turbo NAS TS-219P II, which is similarly easy to use but
proved faster in our tests.
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Info
Price: $332
Details: www.synology.com
Summary
Verdict: A brilliant NAS enclosure with an outstanding
interface and loads of features, but it's not quite the fastest in its price
range
Network storage enclosure: 10/100/1000Mbit/s network
connection, 3 USB ports, UPnP media, iTunes, print, USB disk, web, FTP
servers
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