I've had a Synology DS215J for some time now, and as my DVD collection grew I started transferring some of them to the NAS in lossless .MKV format. I use PLEX as my Media Server, and quickly discovered that my old DS215J couldn't stream my DVDs to my iPad or show the subtitles on my smart TV because it wasn't powerful enough to transcode on the fly.This 218play has a more powerful processor and more memory, so it's much better suited to use as a media server.The box is a fairly unassuming matte black affair, that is actually so matte that dust sticks to it. It's not massively robust, but it's not meant to be - it's got two fragile hard drives in it. It's supposed to be installed and ignored for years, not carted about and dropped. It's as robust as it needs to be.Fitting a pair of brand-new, unformatted HDD drives took about five minutes. All the screws and brackets required are in the box.On logging into the NAS, you are lead through the setup process, which is fairly straightforward. Existing Synology users need to be aware that version of the Diskstation software was released recently, and it's quite a bit different from DSM6. If you are migrating an old PLEX library, be aware. It all works, but it turned out to be easier to start from scratch, move the files over and build a new server. That's a PLEX issue, not a Synology issue. The PLEX software is regularly updated and is working well on my NAS.It is also worth deciding how you want to set up your drives in advance. You have several options, and the default is to create a mirror of your data on both drives using 'Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR)'. That's fine for minimising data loss, but if you want to use the entirety of both drives, you will have to change to JBOD or Basic. My valuable data is on my old NAS, which is configured in SHR, and backed up regularly. This NAS is purely for use as a Media Server so once full the contents won't change much, and I have all the original DVDs, plus a backup drive. I opted to create two Basic storage pools, one on each drive. If one drive fails, the data on the other is still OK. As I was using brand new drives, I asked the NAS to check them as it set up the file structure. That wasn't a great idea as it took forever (over 8 hours), and is not necessary.With the drives set up, it took a couple of minutes to create some Windows Shares, a bit longer to actually map them to Windows because the NAS is hidden by default, and hours to move all my files over through the Ethernet. Many hours.Once all the media had arrived, I installed the latest version of PLEX from their website. Don't use the version Synology give you. Installation was easy. I confused myself setting up PLEX because I now had two media servers on two different NAS, but it wasn't hard to sort out.It took a while to scan all the media and sort it out, but I can now watch DVD quality movies on my iPad over the Internet. We went on holiday for a week, and it was quite cool to be able to watch my DVD collection streaming over the hotel's WiFi from hundreds of miles away. I can also switch the audio track on my TV, or view the subtitles. I have a lot of Anime DVDs, and it's nice to be able to watch them with the original Japanese dialogue and subtitles.It's worth mentioning that the box has two USB 3 sockets on the back. You can plug external drives into these to expand the available storage, and the NAS manages them. Unofficially, you can actually plug a USB 3 hub in, and several drives. The NAS sees all the drives and recognises which is which, even if you unplug them and muddle them up. PLEX can also see them.The 218play is a few years old now and the 220+ has superseded it. The 220+ was out of stock when my 'financial manager' authorised the purchase, so I ordered the 218play, fully expecting to find it was unsuitable and return it. Nope. I'm chuffed to bits with it.Ok, so the 218play can't hardware transcode 4K video. I don't have any 4K video, so I used the £100 difference to spend on bigger hard drives. The 220+ is a superior NAS but I don't need the extra features it offers over the 218play. My old 215J has been running continuously for something like 7 years and is still my main data repository. I expect this 218play will be looking after all my old DVDs for me in another 7 years.

Great

For basic home or small business archiving and shared use, this is great choice. Based on articles and reviews, I added this unit with 2 Seagate 4TB drives. Installation, setup, interface , and network connection all easy and quick. Had an older HP n’as abt 10 years ago which crashed and was totally non-recoverable, so have shied away from this storage approach. With newest Synology OS (v7) I wonder why we never found more workable systems. Takes a bit of learning for some details of operation (still haven’t figured out Goodsych function, how to update stored folders, etc) but all the basics are quite straightforward. Very pleased.

Puntos Fuertes:-Gabinete robusto: (pensé que iba a ser una simple carcasa de chapa como la de caja de pc). Me he llevado una grata sorpresa al ver que la misma tiene una muy buena textura y rugosidad.-Detalles cuidados: Tiene buen embalaje y el dispositivo viene bien protegido e inmobilizado. (nada de piezas sueltas). Desarmarlo para colocarle los discos es una tarea tan simple como desenroscar dos tornillos de la parte trasera.Muy bueno que hayan incluido pequeñas gomas que van entre los tornillos que sujetan los discos y el disco, lo que hace imposible que estos vibren o emitan algún sonido a chapa al estar trabajando.Trae también un adaptador de 2,5'' por si deseas utilizar discos de esa medida. (se agradece)Incluye escueto manual con las instrucciones iniciales para la instalación, las cuales debes finalizarlas de manera online en un proceso super sencillo.Al ser novato en esta clase de hardware y software tuve que aprender sobre la marcha ni bien iba avanzando en las configuraciones y la curva de aprendizaje no es muy complicada. Su centro de ayuda y la cantidad de información en foros sobre este producto hace que cualquier tarea a realizar sea fácil de aprender y aplicar.A este nas, le hé agregado dos discos Seagate Ironwolf los cuales tienen un apartado de gestion de estado integrado en el synology mostradndote la salud de los mismos.Respecto al ruido, al ser discos mecánicos existe el clásico sonido de discos leyendo/escribiendo pero no es nada importante ni molesto. Menos aún si tienes el nas un poco alejado de tu escritorio.Otro apartado importante es la integración que este nas tiene con los SAI (sistema de alimentación ininterrumpida) o tambien llamados UPS. Si conectas el synology via usb al SAI APC (es la marca que utilizo), desde el panel de control del synology podrás configurar el nas para que haga determinados procesos hasta incluso apagarse para prevenir la perdida de información.Si la energía se corta, y no tienes un SAI, se puede configurar para que auto-inicie una vez que la energía regresa.Software:Fotos: Una aplicación llamada moments que es muy similar a amazon photos, cumple su tarea a la perfección.Videos/musica: Todo en un único lugar para poder acceder desde cualquier parte/dispositivo conectado a la red o incluso desde fuera de casa. relativamente simple de configurar. En este punto tengo infinidad de cursos en formato mp4, mkv, etc. los cuales gracias al nas, puedo ver desde cualquier lado via streaming ahorrando espacio en mi mac.Archivos: tiene una suite propia similar a office o google docs en la que se puede trabajar en versiones online de archivos tipo excel o word (exactamente igual que en google.)Nube privada: configuras todo como si tuvieras tu propio dropbox/amazon drive o cualquier otro sistema de almacenamiento en la nube.En este punto, cabe destacar que el nas Synology también se puede configurar para actualizar y sincronizar automaticamente con muchos servicios de almacenamiento en al nube.Esto es útil para tener un backup extra fuera del nas de los archivos mas sensibles.Hay muchas mas aplicaciones disponbles las cuales aún no necesito, pero vale la pena la investigación.En definitiva... para el uso hogareño el desempeño es excelente. Tal vez, para usuarios mas exigentes, sea conveniente un nas con mas bahías/compartimentos y colocar mas discos por cuestiones de espacio y aprovechamiento de los distintos tipos de RAID.Un TIP: Vale la pena comenzar con dos discos ya que si vas a utilizar uno solo y luego de hacer todo, quieres colocar un disco mas, al configurar el RAID, deberas borrar todos los datos y comenzar de cero.Valoración final: 5 estrellas.

Di piccole dimensioni e di buona costruzione. Alloggiamento per dischi da 3.5 e da 2,5. Prese USB (2), LAN. Tasto di accensione posto frontalmente e LED che illuminano/funzionamento del disco, della rete LAN. Piedini in gomma; ventola interna da 8 cm. Questo e quello che si puo dire al livello costruttivo e funzionamento esterno di base. Poi tutto è fatto dal sw interno: magnifico. Arrivo da un vecchio NAS 2bay della dlink e non c'è proprio paragone. Fa tutto, anche quello che non immaginereste lui lo fa o lo potrebbe fare se configurato. Magari molte funzionalità vanno conosciute e sapute configurare, ma per uno poco esperto come me ed un uso casalingo va piu che bene. Utili poi le APP da installare su Mobile per un uso dei sw di multimedia. Aggiornamenti continui del sw interno, delle applicazioni che possiamo installare e scegliere da uno store synology.Quando arriva e lo accendiamo ci viene chiesta la configurazione iniziale (pwd, accesso alla ns rete interna, e cnfg di base).Al momento lo uso con un solo disco da 6 tb.