How to choose a Synology NAS

Synology sells a lot of boxes that look alike. The good news is that three questions get you to the right one: how much data, how many people and apps, and what happens if it stops.

1. How much data, and how fast is it growing?

Add up what you have now, double it for three years, then add the backups you will keep on the NAS. That number, divided by roughly 0.75 for RAID overhead, is the raw capacity you want. 10TB of data today means buying for 30TB raw: four 8TB drives in a four-bay with SHR, or two 16TB drives in a two-bay if you prefer fewer spindles.

2. Who and what will hit it?

• Value and j series (DS223j, DS223, DS423): file sharing, Synology Photos, backups for a handful of devices, a Plex server for one stream. Quiet, cheap to run, ARM or low-power Intel CPUs.
• Plus series (DS225+, DS425+, DS925+, DS1525+, DS1825+): Docker containers, Virtual Machine Manager, Surveillance Station with several cameras, Synology Drive for a team, 4K transcoding on the Intel models. Expandable memory and the ability to add an expansion unit later.
• xs+ series (DS1823xs+, DS3622xs+, RS-xs+): ECC memory, 10GbE, enterprise drives, Xeon or Ryzen CPUs. Primary storage for video editing teams, virtualisation hosts and sites with dozens of users.

3. What does downtime cost?

If the answer is "annoying", a desktop DiskStation with SHR and a USB backup is enough. If the answer is "the office stops", look at a RackStation RP model with dual power supplies, a UPS, two LAN ports bonded, and a second unit (or C2) as the backup target. Synology's Active Backup for Business is included free and will back up every PC, server and Microsoft 365 tenant to the NAS.

Memory

Plus models ship with 2 to 8GB. If you plan to run containers or VMs, order the memory with the NAS: 16GB turns a DS925+ into a small server, and Synology-branded modules are the only ones DSM supports without warnings.

Drives

Buy them with the NAS. Current Plus and rackmount models create storage pools only on drives from Synology's compatibility list, which in practice means Synology HAT3300 (Plus) or HAT5300 (Enterprise) drives. Every NAS page on this site lists the drives that fit, and we ship them in the same box.

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