Synology DiskStation DS418Play NAS Review

How are you for digital storage? Are you lacking some space and wish you could add a bit more usefulness to your network at the same time? Synology has a great solution for the home user and or small business owner with the Diskstation DS418Play.

The DS418Play not only can support up to 48TB worth of data across its four drive bays, but it also has the power to transcode 4K video if you stream video to a capable device. Small business owners will probably love the DiskStation Manager OS with its plethora of applications from collaborative office type productivity tools, to web servers and email servers to backup solutions; there is a lot these little units can do.

Features and Specifications

The Synology DS418Play is a 4-bay Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution with a lot of extra features thanks to the Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system that accompanies each unit. The DS418Play has an upgraded Intel Celeron dual-core J3355 CPU running at 2.0GHz with burst capabilities up to 2.5GHz. The upgraded CPU will help with transcoding 4K video on the fly as well as any encryption that you might want to do.

• Intel Celeron J3355  at 2.0 GHz (64-bit)
• Hardware Encryption Engine (AES-NI)
• Hardware Transcoding Engine
• 2 GB DDR3 (expandible to 6GB)
• 4 Drive Bays capable of up to 48TB (hot swappable)
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet (Link Aggregation / Failover Support)
• 2 USB3.0 Ports
• Power Consumption: 29.01W (Access) with 5.57W (HDD Hibernation)

You can read the full specification list here.

What’s in the Box?

The nice thing about Synology is that their packaging is simple and secures the unit while in transport. The following is included when you open the box:

• DS418Play Unit
• Accessory Pack (screws for mounting SSDs, Drive Bay Keys)
• AC Power Adapter (90W)
• AC Power Cord
• 2x RJ-45 Ethernet Cables
• Quick Installation Guide

The Synology DS418Play does not ship with any hard drives, like most NAS type products. You’ll need to source your drives separately and I would recommend at least two to begin with. You can add the additional drives later. We’d like to give a special shout out to Synology for providing two 10TB Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS drives for this review.

Synology always includes decent Ethernet cables with their units which is why I use them. They are just the right length for me in my particular setup. Depending on where you place your Synology unit, you may need longer cables. My Synology units are located no more than three feet from a Gigabit switch.

First Impressions

I continue to enjoy checking out the Synology DiskStation product line and watch the products grow and evolve. In the past, I have previously looked at the Synology DS216+ and the Synology BeyondCloud Mirror (or DS214se). For this review, I am going to look at migrating the data on the DS216+ to the DS418Play to see how well that process goes. I have always been curious how well an upgrade or migration would go between Synology units.

When you take the main unit out of the box, you might notice how light the DS418Play is. Without drives installed, it is essentially a shell with a small motherboard and a couple of rear-facing fans.

On the front of the unit, you will see the four drive bays.

All you need to do is lift the bottom of any of the drive bay panels and it will slide the drive caddy out with ease. Slide the caddy back in and pop the panel back down to lock it in.

You can also make use of the included keys to lock the panels from being opened and the drives being removed. If you do lock the panels, make sure you do not lose the keys as you will have a really hard time trying to open the panels back up.

On the right side, you will see the power button, a USB 3.0 port and the status LEDs.

The sides of the Synology DS418Play are similar to the other DS units. They have the Synology logo etched into the panels which also act as vents. This helps provide a bit of air flow through the case and out the back.

On to the back of the Synology DS418Play.

You will have probably noticed the dual rear exhaust fans which are used to suck the hot air generated by the up to four hard drives out of the enclosure. These fans can be controlled within the DiskStationManager (DSM) software.

The dual Gigabit Ethernet ports are located next to each other. You do no need to utilize both ports, but you have the ability to create a failback connection or aggregate the connection. The USB 3.0 port at the rear can be used to add external storage to the DS418Play too, such as an external backup drive. There is a 4-pin power connector port as well.

With most computer equipment, you have the Kensington Lock location. Here you can secure your DS418Play with a security cable so that it does not walk away from you. Great for small businesses that would like to ensure networking equipment, especially data storage, does not go missing.

A great feature, and what makes me happy to see available, is the ability to add another RAM module into the DS418Play. Synology says it will support up to a total of 6GB worth of DDR3 RAM and the unit ships with 2GB. I went out and picked up an additional 4GB DDR3 module by Crucial and installed it giving me a total of 6GB. I find that networking equipment tends to perform better when you give it more RAM.

The DS216+ does not allow users to easily add additional RAM and to do so voids the DS216+’s warranty, so since the DS418Play is designed to have more RAM installed by the user, I definitely make use of it.

Migrating to the Synology DS418Play

The previous times I have set up a new Synology DiskStation, I just went with the typical install. This time, I wanted to be able to migrate my Synology DS216+ over to the DS418Play and Synology has this whole migration guide you can follow. In addition to setting up the DS418Play by migrating the DS216+ over, I also wanted to migrate my DS216se over to the DS216+. Confusing right? Sort of a Towers of Hanoi puzzle actually.

Backup Backup Backup!

The first thing you want to do it backup your older Synology unit. Luckily, Synology makes this super easy with their Hyper Backup solution built into the Disk Station Manager or DSM. In my particular situation, what I did was use Hyper Backup on the DS216+ with Hyper Backup Vault on the DS216se (see confusing, right?), though you could also backup to a non Synology based external hard drive too.

The backup took approximately seven hours.

What? Seven hours to backup roughly 488 GB worth of data?

Sounds a bit insane over a Gigabit Ethernet connection, right? Well in the case of the Synology units, the DS216se is an Intel based CPU whereas the DS216se is a Marvell or ARM based CPU, so there are some performance hits. The other thing is that the Hyper Backup is similar to an rsync. A database is created on the target location and a full database is done. This allows any subsequent backups to be minimal in size and only a difference is backed up. I could have just exported the data to an external drive and saved a lot of time but I wanted to see how Hyper Backup and Hyper Backup Vault worked.

While the backup was being performed, I set up the DS418Play.

Setting up the DS418Play

Pop open the drive bays that you require; the drives are sort of “numbered” starting from the left and going right. This can be important if you are migrating the physical drives between two Synology units. When you pop a bay out, the installation of a 3.5-inch drive is tool-less and easy. Remove the side rails, slide the drive into place, and replace the side rails. No screws!

If you are installing 2.5-inch drives, then you do need to mount them with the included screws. Slide the drive(s) back into place. Ensure the unit is plugged in to power, connect via Ethernet and then press the power button to power it up.

Once the unit is powered up, open your favourite browser and go visit http://find.synology.com. This will start the Setup Wizard that includes downloading and installing the latest version of DSM. Once the installation of DSM was completed, I skipped the recommended DSM App installation portion as my plan was to restore the backup I did recently. Now because the backup took roughly seven hours to complete, I assumed the restoring from the backup would take just as long, so I left it overnight.

The next morning I checked on the progress and it was completed successfully. You can see from the above screenshot that the restore took approximately seven hours too. Everything was good to go from that point on! The only thing I needed to do was change the DS418Play’s IP from Dynamic to Static and I was good to go.

Everything was back to where it was and I was up and running with my files all intact and my settings all restored.

Performance and Usage

General Usage

The two main uses I have for the Synology DS418Play are the ability to store and transcode videos to my various video streaming devices in the home, and to store and allow easy access to my large photo collection.

The video streaming I do through the Plex server application. Synology does have an application called DS Video, but I have found that Plex has been able to handle the variety of video formats I have saved in conjunction with better compatibility on my remote devices (such as Roku and PS4). The DS418Play has been great at serving the videos quickly without any delay, stuttering or jitter with playback, even when streaming two videos to two different locations at the same time.

The other side of my main use case is the PhotoStation service in conjunction with the DS Photo app. This allows me to access my exported and ready-for-client images anywhere in the world that I have Internet access. I can give clients access to the images, in a Dropbox type fashion, or I can show clients the images on my phone or laptop in a nicely presented gallery. It also allows me to upload photos to my own personal cloud when I am not at home and in front of my main desktop. This is great for when I am traveling with the family.

There is one feature that is more to do with the Synology DiskStation Manager but is hardware related that I would like to look more into: the Synology Surveillance Station. This can be handy not only for a home but also a small business. The Surveillance Station can monitor video streams from multiple cameras in real time and I believe the DS418Play would be able to handle that sort of processing. According to Synology’s website, the DS418Play can handle up to 25 devices recording at 1080p at 375fps. Devices such as the DS418Play and others that Synology make are allowing people to set up their own security systems with more ease and great reliability.

Data Transfers over Ethernet

One important factor with a network attached storage solution such as the Synology DS418Play is the speed at which you can transfer files between the unit and a computer or other connected device. In my quick test, I am connected to the DS418Play via Gigabit Ethernet via a simple 8-port Gigabit switch. With my photography workflow, I always have one of the shared folders on the unit mapped to my machine, in this case it is drive “P”.

The outcome is typical of most Gigabit Ethernet storage devices I’ve used. The Synology DS418Play allowed for a 118.5MBps read with a 107MBps write.  This works out to be about 47 seconds to transfer a 5GB file from the unit and about 52 seconds to send a 5GB file to the unit. If you are not running Gigabit Ethernet at home, you really need to look at updating your home network!

Final Thoughts

The Synology DS418Play lives up to the rest of the Synology DiskStations I have looked at. Migrating data from my other DiskStations to the new one was scary at first, but Synology makes it really easy to to do. Hyper Backup allows you to create backups easily and effortlessly. This allowed to migrate not only the data over but my settings, all the applications and continuing using the new DS418Play without missing a beat.

The ability to add RAM without voiding the warranty is a wonderful feature. I could get by using the included 2GB of DDR3 RAM as the previous two units I have have 512MB and 256MB respectively, but being able to add an additional 4GB allows the device to be utilized even more, especially if I want to look at Synology’s Surveillance Station software in the future.

In terms of transcoding 4K video, I don’t actually have any 4K video to transcode, but I do have many 1080p videos that I stream to a PS4 or Roku that sometimes need to be transcoded into a format that can be easily played by Plex. I can play one movie on the PS4 at the same time one is being streamed to the Roku without having any issues. Not many people would stream multiple videos at the same time to different devices but it is nice to know the processing power on the DS418Play can handle it.

Saying something bad about the Synology DS418Play is not an easy thing to do. It does what it was designed to do and it does it well, especially for those who just want something to setup once and not need to tweak settings all the time. It happily runs and continues to do what it needs to do or what I want it to do. One small downside might be that if you were to lock your drives and lost your keys, you would have to either ask for new ones from Synology (do they even do that?) or break the lock mechanism to access the drives themselves.

Some people might miss having a lack of an eSATA port, though with USB 3.0 I don’t really see that as being an issue for most people. I happen to have an eSATA RAID enclosure but would rather use other USB 3.0 storage solutions to attach to the DS418Play if I needed to.

If you are a home user looking for a device that can help you keep things backed-up such as family photos across a variety of devices or need some network storage access that can grow with you, then the DS418Play is a great solution. Perhaps you are a small business that wants some digital storage space and some collaborative tools for multiple employees without having to purchase a large rack-mounted server. The DS418Play would be a nice fit too.

The Synology DS418Play can grow as your needs grow! It’s available now for about $430. You will naturally need to supply your own drives.