Synology DiskStation DS224+ review

Synology DiskStation DS224 is a network-attached storage (NAS) device designed for team collaboration in small office environments. It offers excellent performance and user-friendly interface, and has a library of more than 100 Synology and third-party applications. At $299.99, it's a great value for its speed and ease of use. However, compared to the more affordable Asustor AS1102T, the DS224 lacks high-speed network capabilities and expandability.

Design: LED on the front, Ethernet on the back

The DS224 is a network storage device with a matte black casing, it comes with a removable front panel for user-friendly maintenance and upgrade. The device features a tool-less drive dock that can accommodate 2.5-inch SATA (SSD) and 3.5-inch SATA (HDD) drives. On the right side of the device, there are five LED indicators that display system status, LAN activity (corresponding to the two LAN ports), and drive activity (corresponding to the two drive bays). In addition to LED indicators, it is also equipped with a USB 3.2 Type-A port to facilitate users to connect external devices. In addition, the device also features a "Copy" button that enables one-click backup to a USB drive. Additionally, there is a power button to turn the device on or off. Overall, the DS224 has a simple and practical design and rich features, making it suitable for individual users or small offices.

The back of the case houses a pair of 1GbE LAN ports, an auxiliary USB 3.2 port, a reset button, a power connector, and a three-speed 92mm cooling fan. Unlike the Asustor Drivestor 2 AS1102T, this Synology NAS doesn't offer any multi-gigabit LAN ports, but the two 1GbE ports support link aggregation. The device is powered by a 2.0GHz dual-core CPU paired with 2GB (expandable up to 6GB) DDR4 RAM.

The DS224 can be configured with two 16TB drives for a maximum capacity of 32TB, but it cannot be used with any expansion units. Supports Btrfs and EXT4 file systems; its RAID configuration options include Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR), Basic, JBOD, RAID 0 and RAID 1.

The DS224 uses the same Synology DiskStation Manager operating system as the company's earlier NAS devices, such as the DiskStation DS220j and DiskStation DS923. It provides a Windows-like interface to easily manage the NAS and download applications.

When you start the operating system for the first time, you will see the desktop with icons labeled Package Center, Control Panel, File Station, and DSM Help. On the side are System Health and Resource Monitor windows, allowing you to check the status of your device at a glance.

Package Center offers 105 Synology and third-party apps (at the time of writing), including media servers, cloud servers, photo management, security camera management, and data backup programs. Every app you download will have an icon on your desktop for easy access.

The control panel icon opens a window where you can configure SAMBA, FTP, NFS, and other file server settings; create user groups; configure network and security settings; enable QuickConnect (a method of accessing from outside the local network Simple method for NAS without configuring port forwarding rules); and enable notifications. You can use the File Station icon to create shared folders, assign permissions, upload files, and enable activity logging.

There is a main menu icon in the upper left corner that opens a screen containing the above icons as well as Storage Manager, Resource Monitor, Support Center, Security Advisor, USB Copy, Universal Search, and Active Insight ( Comprehensive system health and activity monitoring) other icons).

TESTING THE DS224: NEW FILE TRANSFER SPEED RECORDS

Installation of the DS224 is fairly simple. I installed a pair of Seagate 10TB IronWolf drives in the dock and connected the NAS to the same router as my desktop computer. I powered on the device, opened a browser on my computer, and entered http://synologynas:5000 in the address bar. This will open a welcome screen with an install button. I clicked the button, selected the automatic DiskStation Manager download option, and waited a few minutes for the software to download.

After installing the operating system, the device rebooted and I clicked Start on the welcome screen. I gave the DS224 a name and password, selected automatic updates, and created the storage pool and volumes when prompted. I chose SHR as the RAID option, which has a total storage capacity of 9.1TB. I skipped the drive check option, selected Btrfs as my file system, and applied my settings. After about 30 seconds, the desktop appeared, so I created a shared folder for testing and had it ready.

The DS224 achieved class-leading results in our file transfer performance tests, where we measure NAS read and write performance using a 4.9GB folder containing music, video, photo, and office document files. It scored 113MBps on both the read and write tests, the fastest results we've recorded to date. By comparison, the recently reviewed TerraMaster F2-212 achieved 87MBps in the write test and 89MBps in the read test. (These were the only two NAS devices we tested using our current testbed PCs, so their results aren't directly comparable to those in our other NAS reviews.)

Verdict: Versatile, fast, small form factor Enterprise NAS

Outstanding performance and ease of use make Synology DiskStation DS224 a reliable choice for a two-bay network-attached storage device that you can use to share data as a multimedia server, backup repository, and more. It doesn't have a high-speed network port, and you can't increase its storage capacity via expansion units, but the DS224 is the fastest two-bay NAS device we've seen, and it offers a lot of useful applications.

If your business needs a two-bay NAS that offers multi-gigabit LAN and expansion potential, then the Asustor Drivestor 2 AS1102T is the better choice. It's not as fast as the Synology, but it's reliable and more than $100 cheaper.

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