Synology DiskStation DS712+ NAS Review

Application breakdown.

Storage station

Even though the DS712+ has a ton of additional features at its heart its still a NAS and regardless of how many websites you can host or recording feeds you can record you still need to act as a fast network storage point.

Like most of the applications in the DSM operating system storage station uses a java GUI for interacting with your files on the NAS. The storage station GUI works almost exactly like that of explorer

When you log into the web based console you are presented with a desktop experience that is fairly intuitive and should be easy to figure out for anyone who has used a recent operating system from any of the major distributions ( windows/mac/linux)with Java installed you can copy and paste directly into this window the same as if it was a local window.

During my time with the DS712+ I could not get LACP to work on my router so I tested using fail over. As you can see by the side image testing with a 100 MB file we got just under gigabit speeds. This test was run under the default configuration of RAID 1 which offers mirroring between the 2x 2TB drives. Theoretically under raid 0 and with LACP you could achieve a faster speed on an idle system.

 

 

Web Station:

This device will handle up to thirty separate websites, all hosted from the convenience of your own internet connection. This feature in conjunction with the rest of the features truly make this device a small business power house. Setting up the Synology DS712+ is a breeze and it quickly integrates with your existing network set up – even going so far as to set up dyndns and port forwarding automatically.

Surveillance Station:

One of the key features of Synology’s DSM 3.2 is the included one camera license of surveillance station. The Surveillance Station application is one of the easiest to use for monitoring network aware cameras, with the widest range of accepted camera’s It makes it surprisingly simple and affordable to integrate the DS712+ into existing infrastructure. the fact that Synology includes this application at NO EXTRA COST is simply astounding as other companies charge a bundle for this type of functionality.

 

Photo Station:

Some of the most important files most Home users back-up are photos, this fact has not escaped the people at Synology. Rather than simply uploading your photos to a simple folder structure, Photo station and the up-loader included in Synology assistant make it incredibly simple for users to store, organize, and access their photos using an intuitive gallery Interface.

Download Station:

This application offers the ability to download multiple protocols (BT/HTTP/FTP/NZB/eMule) and also upload your projects and copyright free files without having to leave your computer on. This console also has a built in Bit torrent search feature that polls a number of pre-set sites or you can and your own. In practice using this interface is much faster than doing it locally as you have included the search download and port forwarding all in a quick click to set up interface.

 

Once everything is set up with port forwarding the download station provides a nice one stop search of a premade set of bittorrent sites. You can add more sites to the list of you choose but overall the options available are limited as far as features of the torrent client. It does the job it just cant do things like SSL or white lists.

 

External Devices:

In addition to the standard features of a NAS and full featured software suite, The Synology has the ability to interface with external devices via USB or eSATA. This allows you to utilize external storage devices for additional space, or as a transfer method. Also, you can use it as a print server. With this ability you can take a simple USB printer and print from your Windows/Mac/Linux Based PC. The DS712+ has a front facing USB port and a one button copy of the device to a folder you set up so you can make a duplicate of your drive without having to turn on your computer. This would allow you easily back up your camera or flash drives without the need for a computer.
beyond these applications there are many more available to directly download to the Synology  DS712+ such as a VPN server that will set up either openvpn or PPTP providing a secure way to interact with your network, all in all while the device is pretty amazing its the software that really shines on the Synology devices. Synology has spent a great deal of time and effort on making the interface as easy to use as possible while still being secure.

 

 

Summary and Conclusion:

Synology has done a great job with the DS712+ the hardware is solid and the OS is awesome and continues to improve with each release of DSM. I really like the quiet operating and automation built into the DS712+ it makes this an ideal candidate for a business that may not have a dedicated server room full of noisy servers. I have no complaints about the DS712+ other than the price tag could be lower, but on the same scale you are buying what amount to a full server. If you want expandability you can always add the DX510 at a hefty $500 price tag but it expands your storage by a significant amount. I am giving this product the Awesome hardware award for its amazing ability to cram all the features of a full server into a small and quiet box that will easily handle a medium office the same as it would handle a power home user. In my humble opinion the DS712+ is worth the $500 price tag and worthy of the Techwarelabs Awesome Hardware award.