Synology DS923+ NAS... 12 Months Later - Still Worth it?

do you see this a year ago someone sold a pair of Steve Jobs old burken stocks at the Heart Rock Cafe at an auction for $220,000 that was a year ago that's mental isn't it do you know what else happened a year ago this the sonology DS 923 this is a Naas that we were talking about for quite a while we did a big old review and we done loads of videos throughout the course of the year now if you're watching this video today chances are you are doing it because either you're an existing owner of the DS 923 and you're wondering is it still good to keep the pace or two you're considering buying it during your black Fridays you're end a year stuff and ultimately a year has gone by and you're wondering one is it still worth your buns and two is there something better along the way and that's what today's video is it's going to be a very quick one year later on this device we're going to talk about the things that have aged well like a lovely wine or some decent cheese and other things that have not aged well like bad wine and bad cheese so let's crack on with the opening credits and talk about this device and whether it's still worth your money and your data one year [Music] later now straight off the bat I'm going to tell you this video is about skirting over the highlights it is about talking lightly about this device it is not an in-depth review of performance Benchmark we've already done those and they'll be linked in the description or no doubt on the side of the screen thanks to YouTube bye this video is to talk about we did that last year and what's aged well about this let's crack on with that straight away the price tag when this first rolled out the gate a year ago one of the early I'm not going to say heavy praise but I will say positives was that despite it rocking out the gate with ECC memory despite rocking out the gate with the option of 10gb upgrades and despite rocking out the gate uh being able to do pretty much everything the DSM and sonies applications both in and outside the system can do it maintained a very similar if not identical price point to the ds920 that came before but moreover one year down the line that they've not only maintained that price point but we've seen on offer throughout the year so many times it would been very easy for sonology given this thing's um Hardware architecture and its reshaping of their Hardware portfolio moving this a little bit higher than the home user categories CU they had something of a rejig of a lot of their releases more on that later the result was that this is actually available a quite a decent little price in the number of times throughout the year I've seen numerous retailers putting this out there for about 500 nicker when originally at launch it was 550 to 600 now I'm not just talking about your black Fridays and your Prime days I am talking bug standard sales and if you search around you can get this brand new again 450 or 500 in some cases with phenomenal offers particularly in Europe I will say as well um the other thing I will say I sort of already touched on that is in the year since this has been released this one got released the DS 423 and that was kind of one of the biggest areas of contention when this came out because sonology had basically taken their portfolio which was value low entry tier then there was home and fully featured pruma and then it went into entry level business and then went into serious high capacity business and above and they looked at that portfolio and they squished some things now since then we've learned why number one the bottom tier the J and the potential value tier it looks like they are going to gradually disappear they're going to be replaced by prepopulated devices running on OS known as B station or BSM one of the earliest devices we've seen a little one Bay called the bst1 15 and it looks like this is going to be rocking out in ones and twos maybe even four bay devices that are going to eliminate that entry level tier with systems that roll out with uh prepopulated um storage on them and with them having slightly more streamlined operating systems now with that what they've done is rejig the layers the next layer that home layer became that one the DS 423 with its Intel Celeron Processor so when this first came out after a relative 3 years of Silence from the around two and a half three years depending on where you are in the world a lot of users were disappointed with the hardware this arrived with because it was a lot more busy focused it CPU and AMD embedded Ryon um it's it's memory ECC memory which is a lot more expensive um its inclusion of the 10gb upgrade which although pleasing for some also felt like it wasn't fair that these standard network interfaces were one gig it was kind of an either or or with no middle ground there so one year later this system kind of makes a lot more sense in Sol's portfolio because now they've started fleshing out that rejigging of their portfolio and the releases have started to get a little bit more reined as they started releasing them and not only have we SE more value series devices possibly the last of their kind for a number of those Series in the DS4 23 the DS 223 and some of the JS series boxes but this one has become far more appealing in its bracket between the home and the business user now another reason that this has become more appealing it has to be head is not only has that rocked out the gate for the lower tier multimedia user but its Hardware architecture that DS 423 and we'll talk about this in another video in the 6 months since it release is a little bit underwhelming a lot of users that are looking at these two devices with a price difference between them of around 70 to 100 nicker will suddenly see that this is better value overall not only because the memory is more upgradable the Network's more upgradable but users are finding that some of the abilities that this was able to provide in terms of multimedia transcoding there are work arounds there are ways around and ultimately this becomes a lot more appealing for those users at a point when its only point of comparison was a ds920 but that's enough about the DS 423 we'll save that for its own video but another reason why this has become increasingly more appealing in the 12 months since it's been released is because of the developments within sonology own platform dis station manager in the 12 months since this was released anology have rolled out DSM 7.2 and in DSM 7.2 new features have been rolled out in the form of volume encryption and of course right once read many these improvements that have been rolled out are very much in the Wheelhouse of this Hardware architecture unsurprising that's clearly what technology were going for it just a shame that this arrived before those software updates were fully established and therefore its advantages couldn't really be felt right once read many allowing you to create genuinely immutable you know undestroyable backups there protection from ransomware protection from long-term archival storage getting accidentally ruined the S goes with volume encryption to stop some of that data when it falls into the wrong hands being accessible without the relevant keys and finally the fact that this has ECC memory suddenly creates a wonderful integrated system for all of those immutable backups and protected storage backups in the same line as BTR rfs's and ecc's benefits towards data integrity and protection from things like bit rot the hardware in this has become more appealing in the 12 months since its release and some of the initial reviews of it where shade was being thrown at it for in some respects feeling like a weaker alternative to the ds920 at that time and now not as relevant anymore again thanks to that device coming as well likewise this system arrived at a time when techology users were getting very very concerned about the Brand's position on hard drives and several re releases prior to this one had incredibly streamlined compatibility listings for the hard drives that could be used inside of them with a lot of you know Brands like WD and Sega getting hugely ignored and when the DS 923 arrived on the scene it did allow and and several drives from um Cate WD and to Sheba on those compatibility listings which is absolutely great news now one year down the line from that I got to say it hasn't improved frankly I think of the compatibility on this it's good that it supports C andwe drives but if you are going towards this box thinking I can use third party drives now great it's worth bearing in mind that even one year after its release the full range of third party compatiable drives it's not fantastic there is not a lot of drives on that list if you cycle back to one of the older generation devices again your ds920 and such you look at those and they have page after page after page after page of compatible hard drive drives there and when you look at this device you know I think you have 12 it might be more than that maybe 13 14 sigo Iron Wolf drives there and when you look at wd's Drive there's even less there's loads of missing drives in that compatibility list but one of the biggest glaring emissions it's a complete lack of 18 TB drives and 20 TB drives and 22 TB drives from WD and seate now sonology have released their own hard drives in the Enterprise sector with the H 5300 and the hjt 3300 and with the Enterprise grade drives they have an 18tb drive and it is on a compatibility list for this but in the year since it its release and WD and Sega have been rolling out bigger and faster drives none of them have appeared on the compatibility list even though numerous websites and not just us but loads out there have confirmed that those thirdparty drives work in this system and sonology choosing not to add those drives to compatibility listings is a concern another thing about this device that I do think is worth talking about and I said this in my original review and I would say 12 months later it has only become truer this device has done a phenomenal job at selling this device the DS1 1522 now this device arrived I think like half a year before this one but this one arrives with an extra Bay of storage it can be expanded by two expansions when that can be expanded by one it arrives with four ethernet ports when this only has two and it arrives with the same level of 10gb upgradeability and it arrives with 8 gig of memory out the gate ECC when this arrives with four but when you look at the price difference between them it's only about 150 nicker so right now even 12 months later I'll tell you right now if you're looking at this take a moment and look at the 1522 because you'll be surprised just how much bang you get for your buck another thing I waxed lyrical about on this device when it was launched and again I am still so you know totally pleased about it is the fact that those M2 MVM ebays at the bottom of course they can be used for caching but they can be used for storage pools a lot of users that are relatively new to the world of sonology may not know that it wasn't you know it was only about a year ago that sonology decided that's the key word decided to allow users to use these M2 mvme slots for storage pools and this arrived on the scene one of its Chief selling points to a lot of users was it was the first device from them that allowed M2 MVM to be used to storage pools and that was great stuff and it meant users could only have four hard drives there for their main storage they can have some lovely super fast drive storage there at the bottom 12 months later it's not the only device anymore there are other devices out there that support M2 MVM SSD storage PS including the d723 including the DS 423 including the 1522 that's right they actually went backward and enabled the feature on some of the older generation devices in the DSM 7.2 update so that feature as appealing as it was to this system and if you've read reviews from a year ago that talked about how good it is to have that feature bear in mind that in the year that has passed other systems now support it and the other thing worth bearing in mind that hasn't changed is the fact that this system needs you to use sonology ssds in order to use that feature we hoped that over the year sonology would add other drives for compatibility for storage poles on their system sadly they did not and one year down the line if you want to use the M2 mvme feature on this you got to use sonology SV 3400 ssds which arguably are more expensive than other drives out there in the market there are few capacities out there in the market than other drives and ultimately even if these M2 mvme bays in some systems have lower speeds more on that you know in other videos with different pcie Lanes being supported it all adds up to a great feature on this device at launch that one year later has sort of lost a lot of the wind in itself sound for a lot of users out there but switching things up just a little bit positive I will say that a year down the line This adapter to add 10gbe to this s has grown on me and it has grown on other users as well that's right adding 10 GB 10 GB e it to an asz and you know effectively having 10 times the potential bandwidth your system it's always been appealing but it's also something that has been offered by Nas brand on their systems for more than 10 20 years it's not new but whereas most of those systems provided that via a PCI upgrade and again this is a sonology adapted for some of their other systems this new DS 923 at that time new a year ago arrived with a modified 10gbe a first party module that slotted inside and at the time myself and other reviewers were slightly put out by one why couldn't you just use one of a million other different kinds of 10gbe uh card that exist in the market but two the necessity for this at all on some systems because a lot of users want to tend you be at the gate anyway and just pay a little bit more and have it on board and moreover this adapter were they going to integrate into other systems now one year later we can say one it is available on lots of other systems it started being available on other systems prior to this one secondly prices have come down one of the earliest criticisms was because it was a unique uh module the price which seemed to have an RRP of 139 to 149 suddenly it was appearing online for like 200 nicker luckily that price has come down and this is a great deal more affordable than it was and ultimately I think it has has borne fruit that at least allows user to get 10gbe on this as an option at the time users including myself weren't completely in love with the rather proprietary nature of that upgrade but it has to be said that a year later me and others have warmed to it and ultimately much like that CPU much like the integration of ECC memory and luckily they're not increasing the price but unfortunately those modules costing a bit more the 923 has become more appealing in the year since its launch and although for a lot of users it still serves as a death nail to the previous DS9 220 that came before it that was such a popular device it has to be said that one year later with the U more flexibility in its pricing structure has meant that this is now a much more appealing NZ than it was but just bear in mind that before you go for this system look at the ds-1 1522 it does everything that does and for the small price increase you get a bunch of upgrades that are just not readily accessible on this or do you'll have to pay extra for anyway and the extra that you pay would cost more than just buying this 5 Bay but this has been the DS 923 plus one year later do you own one of these and you've enjoyed your experience with it or maybe you didn't maybe you scaled up maybe it didn't live up to the promises that it made let me know in the comments but apart from that thank you so much for watching and have yourselves a fantastic week

Channel: NASCompares

Views: 16,998

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Id: uFyJXOQtnPY

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2023