Designed for personal cloud storage, the Synology DiskStation DS218j ($169.99) is a stylish two-drive network attached storage (NAS) device that offers lots of third-party apps and a user-friendly management console. Despite its relatively affordable price, you can configure it to act as a cloud server, a media server, an IP camera surveillance station, and a full-featured backup solution with multiple RAID options. It's also easy to install and uses Synology's intuitive DiskStation Manager operating system.
An App for Everything
With the same sleek glossy white enclosure as the DS216j that we reviewed back in 2016, the DS218j measures 6.5 by 3.9 by 8.9 inches (HWD). It has four LED status indicators on the front for system status, drive activity, and LAN activity. Below these indicators is a power switch, and around back are two USB 3.0 ports, a gigabit LAN port, a reset button, and a power jack.
Powered by a 1.3GHz dual-core processor and 512MB of DDR3 memory, the DS218j can accommodate two 2.5- or 3.5-inch drives of up to 16TB in capacity (per drive). It supports six widely used file systems: FAT, NTFS, EXT3, EXT4, HFS+, and exFAT. It also supports RAID 0, RAID 1, JBOD, Basic, and Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) with one disk fault tolerance. A four-speed fan keeps the drives and internal circuitry cool. To access the drive bays, remove two screws at the back of the enclosure and slide the left half of the enclosure forward until it's off. There are no drive sleds with this model: Simply plug the drives in, secure them with the included screws, reattach the cover, and tighten the two back panel screws.
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The DS218j uses the same DSM NAS operating system as other Synology NAS devices, including the DS1517+, the DS416slim, and the DS216+II. Similar to a Windows desktop, the web-based console makes it easy to manage storage volumes, share folders, download apps, and more. It opens to a desktop view with Package Center, Control Panel, File Station, and Help icons as well as a System Health window that displays CPU and RAM usage.
Package Center allows you to access more than 100 Synology and third-party apps, including those for media servers, mail servers, bit torrent, anti-virus, backup, and more. Synology's Surveillance Station app lets you manage multiple IP cameras, and their Video Station app lets you manage movies, TV shows, and recorded video, and stream them to your TV, desktop PC, and mobile devices. The Audio Station lets you manage your music collection, create playlists, and stream music to all of your connected devices.
In the Control Panel, you can create shared folders, assign user and group rights, configure network and firewall settings, and enable push and email notifications that will tell you if there are any system issues. Here you can also configure FTP permissions, set security parameters, and block IP addresses from accessing the device. The File Station utility lets you view user file-sharing activities, manage files and folders, and configure remote connections to files.
In the upper left corner of the desktop screen is an icon that takes you to the Main Menu. Here you can access the Storage Manager to create volumes, configure RAID settings, and create disk groups. You can also view disk health statistics such as bad sector count, operating temperature, estimated lifespan, and the current firmware version. The Security Advisor lets you scan for malware and ensures that users have strong passwords, and in the Log Center you can view a history of system events and notifications. Tap the Help icon to search for help items, watch video tutorials, and view illustrated articles about how to use the DiskStation Manager OS and any installed apps.
The DS218j is covered by a two-year warranty. It ships with an Ethernet cable, a power adapter and cable, drive-mounting screws, and a Quick Start Guide.
Good Performance for the Price
After installing a pair of Seagate 6TB HGST SATA drives, I attached the DS218j to my router and powered it up. I opened a browser and typed http://find.synology.com, and pressed the button to automatically install DSM on my PC. After several minutes, the NAS restarted and I created an administrator account. Next, I created a quick SHR RAID volume, which only took a couple of minutes, but if you choose to verify the disks it will take much longer. However, the drive is fully functional during this time, as verification takes place in the background.
We use a 4.9GB folder containing a mix of music, video, photo, and office document files to perform read and write file transfer performance tests. In these tests, the DS218j delivered impressive scores, but not quite as good as its more powerful and more expensive sibling (and our reigning Editors' Choice), the Synology DiskStation DS718+. Its read speed of 61.2MBps was nearly twice as fast as the Promise Apollo Cloud Duo 2, but was a bit slower than the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror Gen 2 and the DS718+. On our write tests, the DS218j's score of 65.3MBps beat the Western Digital My Cloud Mirror Gen 2 and the Promise Apollo Cloud Duo 2, but once again couldn't catch the DS718+.
A Solid Entry-Level NAS
At $169.99, the Synology DiskStation DS218j is relatively affordable, but you'll have to supply your own hard drives. However, if you populate it with a pair of 4TB drives (around $130 each) it still costs less than what you'll pay for the Promise Cloud Duo 2, and you get quite a few more features including numerous third-party apps, a user-friendly management utility, multiple RAID configuration options, and the ability to add up to 1,024 local users. If you're looking to step out of the entry-level zone and into higher-end territory, consider the Synology DiskStation DS718+. It's more than double the price of the DS218j, but it's a better performer, supports 4K video encoding, and is equipped with more I/O ports. As such, it remains our Editors' Choice for two-drive NAS devices.
The Synology DiskStation DS218j is an excellent entry-level two-bay NAS device that's supported by a bevy of management options and third-party apps.
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