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Synology DS418play

Synology DS418play

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4.7
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22 reviews

  • DavidFlint4

    5 years ago

    Solid, good for home applications. For real-time video transcoding at the limit.

    The Disk Station (DS) is solidly built and quiet. The hard disks are vibration damped with rubber buffers. After a few months I found some accumulated dust inside. Shutting down the DS once a year, removing the hard drives and vacuuming them out does no harm. Otherwise, it is quite easy to set up and operate.

    I have used the NAS primarily for backups, document management (DMS server, database) and as a media server. The latter with the Plex server, streaming to Apple TV. I used WD Red hard drives, as they run quite quietly at 5400rpm. I don't know the faster Seagate Ironwolf NAS with 7,200rpm, but in my experience the noise also depends on the speed.

    If the NAS only has to stream a film 1:1, everything runs like clockwork. However, Plex has the unpleasant peculiarity of only being able to play very specific video formats via AppleTV. Therefore, Plex wants to transcode pretty much every film in real time, if you haven't already done so in the background. This is where the performance limits of the DS418play became apparent: converting an H.264 film in Full HD in real time often led to playback pauses and interruptions. H.265 was even worse. This was one of the reasons why I switched to the DS918+ after a short time. The 918+ with Quad-Core Celeron manages this live transcoding without dropouts with a CPU load of 80-90%! In any case, 4GB of RAM would not have hurt the DS418play. At least you can order and install another Ram module. But whether that's worth it in terms of price is something everyone has to decide for themselves.

    Those who need more professional applications, e.g. via Docker, must know that this DS may not support this at all. It is advisable to first check on the Synology website whether the DS418play is compatible with the required application! For the vast majority of people in the private sector, however, the abundance of available NAS apps is absolutely sufficient.

    Otherwise, I didn't really have much to complain about with the DS418play. If you want a solid NAS and don't want to do crazy things with Plex or Docker like I do, the 418play is definitely a good choice.     

    Pro

    • User-friendly
    • Good workmanship
    • Extremely versatile
    • Various RAID modes for data security
    • Quiet

    Contra

    • As a Plex server somewhat at the limit in terms of performance
    • Officially incompatible with Docker - you have to install the app manually, then it works anyway.
    • More RAM like 2GB would not have hurt
  • Anonymous

    6 years ago •
    purchased this product

    Ideal NAS for home applications

    The DS418play replaces a DS413j in my home and is mainly used as a media server in the home network. I had no problems with the reliability of the DS413j, but sometimes reached its limits when playing videos. The more than double access speed of the DS418play has had a very positive effect and I have not noticed any jerks or pixelated sequences since the changeover. Accordingly, the copying speed is also significantly higher, but this is less important for my application. The exchange of the 4 hard disks proved to be simple, fast and problem-free. The DS418play was integrated into the network after a short time. 

    Pro

    • Access speed
    • easy migration

    Contra

    • Price
  • Anonymous

    3 years ago •
    purchased this product

    NAS

    Good entry-level device for home use. Easy to set up. Relatively quiet during operation.

    Pro

    • Price / Performance
    • Synology OS
    • Price / Performance
    • Setup
    • Noise level
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