Synology DS216+ II Review For Small/Home Business Owner
Here’s my fair and honest review of Synology DS216+ II with 1TB WD Red HDD.
DS216+ II is a two drive bays NAS, which can hold up to 16TB of storage based on two 8TB HDD size. As a small design agency owner, the capacity is certainly sufficient through the beginning stages of my business. I have a humble team of four, each handling different roles.
Unboxing the contents, the box comes with a standard issued adaptor, LAN cable and a guidebook. The size of the NAS was pretty compact, almost the same height as an iPhone 6S. Setting up the NAS was simple following the guide, I’m able load the HDD without any tools. Upon connecting all cables, powering on wasn’t difficult.
Installation of DiskStation Manager 6 was straightforward, no rocket science knowledge required.
Top left: Set up was done swiftly in 10 minutes.
Top right: Downloaded the recommended packages to get started.
Bottom left: Many other Synology packages are available for download too on Package Center as well as 3rd party packages such as Magneto and Wordpress.
Getting started: Using Control Panel to enable
QuickConnect allow easy access to my DiskStation from anywhere with just my QuickConnect ID.
Access of files using
File Station was easy and seamless, I can drag and drop files into folders I want. This greatly reduced the time and effort taken to transfer artwork with big file size, a huge convenience for me to dispatch materials to my team members.
Logging in
DS file app using my ID enables easy opening of files on my Smartphone and Tablet. I created different user accounts for my team and each individual role can access their own folder for different purposes.
Current situation of the improved workflow
• Designer will access Design Materials folder and do all the design work.
• After which he will upload the final artwork into the Presentation folder.
• The Project Manager will present the work located inside the Presentation folder to our client using a laptop or tablet.
Top left: In my line of work, there are plenty of file transferring to be done with client. I use
Cloud Sync to synchronize my Dropbox so that I will be able to download anything my client send me. Now every team member will be able to use a central system to access files.
Top right/bottom left: Note Station allows me to sync my to-do list and personal notes all in one platform. In addition, I can share and export my notes as word document; another convenient feature. With Note Station, I can set project deadlines and my team members can follow a merged calendar on NAS which make collaboration easier.
Bottom right: Snapshot Replication is another useful package; I scheduled replication on folders that I overwrite more often, this way I don’t have to back up everything which can take up a long time. This feature is also useful to back up files to another desktop’s HDD.
Video Station is amazing; it automatically downloads all the meta data of a video clip. I am able to stream movies and TV shows on my MacBook Pro and tablet (using DS Video) and best of all, it reads subtitles!
Audio Station is pretty cool as well. Drag and drop music files with no frills. Lyrics plugin was nice for karaoke but part of lyrics was restricted due to licensing issue.
DS Audio user interface is decent, somewhat similar to iTunes.
In conclusion, my experience with
Synology DS216+ II for two weeks has been a pleasant one. NAS redefine convenience where data potentially can be accessed by any computer anywhere. It doubles up as more than just online storage, it can be used as a media server, data backup and even a website host.
Process workflow of my job has been streamlined and improved significantly. Transferring of files and dispatching of online materials have been made simple. This contributes to higher efficiency and better communications with my team.