Synology DiskStation DS1621+ NAS Server with Ryzen 2.2GHz CPU, 4GB Memory, 6-Bay, 72TB Bundle with 6X 12TB Seagate IronWolf

I needed to upgrade from another NAS that was almost a decade old. I finally had run out of space. I also wanted to be able to install Plex on the new NAS. Setting up a remote connection to my old NAS (which was not a Synology) and then having the files copy for about 36 hours (lotsa TBs) while I left it alone worked great. Setup was a snap, migration was easy, Plex installation worked first time. Im a happy camper. Hopefully this NAS will last me another 10 years.

Definitely a good investment

Flexibility, 6 bays, setup fairly easy. I’m using 6 4tb drives giving close to 18tb avg. I’m using it on a win 10 network with 4 total NAS units. Speed and function were exactly as I expected. I store photos and data files all critical. I expect long service from the unit, drives will be changed around the 2-4 yr service life on a 24/7 cycle.

This is my second Synology NAS, I upgraded to the 1620÷ from the 1515÷ and could not be happier.

Incredible performance! I upgraded from a DS413 and this is noticeably faster and I’ve got two more slots to work with. No regrets besides the initial cost. Expecting 8 years out of this one

Everything works great. Love the Ryzen processor. I do recommend you get the memory upgrades. I got the 16GB, and the software seems to use excess RAM as disk cache so that is nice. I am so happy with it, I think I will go ahead and upgrade to 10Gb and NVME caches as well.

Synology lags behind others when it comes to catering to power users. Sure there is a slightly better processor in thier newer NAS products but all they can give you is USB 3.1 Gen 1? Come on there! The very least you can do is give us USB 3.1 Gen 2. Very frustrating. Sinology does not seem interested in those users who need to transfer really big files fast. I guess I have to look at the likes of QNAP to get what I need.

I introduced myself to Synology back in 2015 when I purchased my first NAS, the DS1515+. Prior to this I used compaq servers over the years to provide reliable NW file storage. I like the Synology product as DSM is quite feature rich. I have an extensive background in NW and FS technologies so for me DSM was a nice fit with a minimal learning curve. Synology does a nice job at marrying HW, NOS and feature rich applications that dont require a-lot of tweaking to get running and fine-tune. Since then added the DX717 expansion and I am currently running 30TB of HD storage using both BTRFS and EXT4 FS. I was having some issues on the DS1515+ with BTRFS FS. I was unable to resolve issues with CHECKSUM errors corrupting files. After 6 years the DS1515+ chassis also would fail to power on at times after scheduled maintenance shutdowns. So, I decided it was time to replace the main unit and I did so with the DS1621+. All issues resolved at this time and BTRFS is rock solid. I like the snapshot abilities of this FS and its advantages over EXT4. I installed 2ea seagate NVMEs in a read/write cache utilizing RAID1 and the speed of my websites are breathtaking! Overall I am quite pleased with the DS1621+. I was expecting more out of the RYZEN CPU in respect to transcoding with PLEX and the reason I took 1-star off my overall review of this product. I did see quite the improvement in Surveillance station when scrubbing security videos on this platform. I run 10 HD cams running 1080P at 30FPS and this unit does so with minimum effort. This box defiantly outperforms the DS1515+ by far and the disk transfer rates are in par with the documented specifications. Hopefully Ill get another 6+ plus years of good use out of this product. I am running DSM 7 and I really like the changes and features in this version of DSM. The built in NVME slots provided me with 2 additional slots I can now populate with mechanical HDs for additional FS storage.BTW I recently upgraded my Apple TV HD devices with the Apple TV 4K units and transcoding demands on PLEX have dropped significantly. So at this time PLEX is able to stream all of my multimedia through out my NW seamlessly and reliably. Love it!

If you can stomach the up-front cost, buy a Synology. The convenience and ease of use are well worth the price. You could build a more powerful NAS yourself for less money, but it would use more power, take up more space, and (most importantly) require more time/hassle to manage. My previous setup was a Mac mini with some USB attached storage. That worked mostly great for about 9 years, and I was looking to update the setup and thought Id give some proper NAS options a look. I have always been put off by the relatively high prices of NAS devices, particularly Synology ones, but after reading about all the built-in features I took the plunge and gave the Synology DS1621+ a try. Im glad I did! This device has a fantastic array of features, most of which I dont really need, but the ones that I use work very well and (just as importantly) were extremely simple to set up. Here are some thoughts on the things Im using so far: Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR): Im using SHR-2 for double redundancy and it was painless to set up. I love that I can pop in another drive later on and expand the pool without any trouble. It also supports checksum validation and correction with the Data Scrubbing feature if youre using the default BTRFS file system, so Ive set that to run monthly to avoid bit-rot. I dont have enough experience with this yet to say how it works in practice, but in principle this is great. Shared folders: this is the bread and butter for a NAS, and it was extremely easy to setup and configure with Synology DSM. It works SO much better than the shared drives on my old Mac mini because it handles permissions properly and everything just works. Time machine backup: this is essentially an extension of the shared folders, with one extra configuration required to make the folder appear as a native network time machine backup destination. Worked seamlessly for configuring backups for a few Macs. Docker containers: I migrated all my docker containers which were previously running on Docker Desktop on the Mac mini to the Synology and they work much better than they did on the Mac. They are faster running and simple to manage with a decent built-in UI. Id have preferred built-in Docker Compose support, hopefully thatll come in the future, but for my use case configuring via the UI was OK. Application portal / reverse proxy: I love this feature, it makes routing requests to various services super easy. Im comfortable configuring nginx by hand or via automation, but for home use I prefer a simple UI like Synology provides. You can assign certificates to routes, and everything works great with my custom domain. Certificates: I has high hopes for the built-in Lets Encrypt support, but unfortunately it requires the server to be exposed to the internet (no thanks). Hopefully in the future they support the DNS challenge option, but for now the easy way to solve this is to use the open source acme.sh which has support for tons of DNS providers and has built-in hooks to register certificates with Synologys UI. I have acme.sh running with Synologys Task Scheduler and it works great. VPN Server: supports L2TP/IPSec so you can use the built-in VPN for iPhone / Mac, no third party apps required on your devices. This is the only thing I have exposed to the internet, and in my testing it has worked right out of the box with very minimal configuration needed. Other thoughts: - Synology Chat: Slack knockoff, works better than I expected honestly! I disabled this because I dont fully trust the security of this app for exposing it to the internet. - Hyper Backup: havent fully configured this yet, but seems to support a good selection of services - File Station: really nice web-based file browser which you can access via the admin UI, or as a standalone web UI There are so many more features that I havent even begun to explore, like the built-in Plex support, but I can say so far this NAS has exceeded my expectations and I expect that Ill keep finding new useful features as I keep digging and configuring. On the hardware front, I did a couple upgrades: - 32GB ram: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0899KV2L5/ - Synology 10Gbps ethernet adapter: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G9N9KJT/ Im using two Seagate IronWolf 8TB drives and two WD Red Plus 8TB drives so far and both work well. The Seagate drives have some extra diagnostic information available due to a special built-in integration with IronWolf drives that is very neat. Unfortunately the WD Red Plus drives say they are unverified because Synology hasnt added them to the official list of verified drives for the DS1621+, but I bet that was an oversight because the WD Red Plus drives are listed as officially verified with pretty much every other Synology NAS. Doesnt make any difference in practice. Despite the high all-in cost, Im completely satisfied with my purchase and expect that itll last me a long time.

Love my NAS great for a pandemic Plex server. Make sure to get NAS drives not desktop drives.