Synology DiskStation DS1522+ Evaluation: Scalable 5-Bay NAS for Home and Small Office

If you’re looking for a NAS server with greater than 4 drive bays, the Synology DiskStaion DS1522+ is a product to look out for, it’s a compact 5-Bay NAS that sports activities a dual-core AMD Ryzen R1600 processor and will be configured with 10GbE networking with an optionally available community module, which is a superb selection for these seeking to have greater than 4 drive bays whereas not desirous to pay that a lot for a 6-bay NAS, right here’s what we expect after utilizing it for the previous 6 months.

When I first took the DS1522+ out of the field, I’m most impressed with the compact footprint it provides because it isn’t that a lot bigger than the corporate’s 4-Bay NAS, Synology didn’t go away any wasted house on the NAS and has made the perimeters approach slimmer than different NAS servers we now have seen.

In truth, it merely measures 4cm wider than the present 4-Bay DS923+ at simply 23cm, whereas having the identical 16.6cm top and 22.3cm depth, I reckon Synology might have saved much more house if they’d moved the LED indicators and energy button to the highest of the drive bays similar to the way it did with the DS1621+.

For that additional width, the DS1522+ provides 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports versus two on the DS923+, which you are able to do hyperlink aggregation to extend switch speeds in your community, and even easier, merely buy the optionally available E10G22-T1-Mini 10GbE community improve module and set up it into the PCIe Expansion slot situated conveniently subsequent to the RJ45 ports.

Despite that, most individuals together with me have complained for some time that Synology ought to actually have simply included a 2.5GbE port, since not all enterprise environments have 10GbE community switches and 2.5GbE port have grow to be more and more widespread on excessive finish routers, the price of spending over RM600 on the 10GbE community growth card might have been higher used at shopping for at additional storage.

Like different Synology NAS, the DS1522+ continues to make use of a tool-less drive cage that secures 3.5-inch arduous drives rather well, which all it is advisable do is to take off the latch on each side and align them along with your arduous drive’s screw holes, snap them again and you’re all set.

Inside the DS1522+, Synology has already pre-installed a chunk of 8GB ECC DDR4-2400MHz SODIMM RAM, there may be one empty RAM slot which you’ll be able to simply improve to 32GB RAM, although it ought to be capable of help greater than that if you’ll find larger SODIMM modules for operating a number of digital machines.

Under the DS1522+, you get two NVMe slots that operates at PCIe Gen 3×4 speeds, which can be utilized to create a SSD cache storage pool for quicker file switch speeds, it’s relatively unlucky that they nonetheless can’t be configured for common RAID 0 storage, since NVMe drives have already gotten so reasonably priced and Synology nonetheless doesn’t embrace a bracket contained in the field for putting in 2.5-inch SATA SSD.

As with all Synology NAS servers, the DS1522+ ships with the DiskStation Manager working system, which has a wonderful graphical consumer interface that even a beginner will discover it no problem to set it up for the primary time.

The Package Center will get you began with all of the apps it is advisable use, and you’ll most certainly obtain issues corresponding to Audio Station, Video Station and Download Station, there’s even issues like Synology Office that allows you to do precise workplace work on the NAS, and a carbon copy of Google Photos often called Synology Photos for you to backup images of your smartphone to the NAS, it’s an working system which you can virtually completely rely on for work so long as you’ve got an Internet connection and an internet browser.

Like the DS1621+ that we reviewed beforehand, the AMD Ryzen R1600 processor sadly isn’t able to {hardware} media transcoding because of the lack of an built-in GPU, however if you happen to aren’t streaming extraordinarily excessive bitrate off the DS1522+, it ought to carry out high-quality after you have the required codecs put in, which I extremely advocate the FFmpeg bundle which you can set up right here.

With 5 drive bays, the DS1522+ enormously advantages those that needs to do a RAID array of greater than three drives, which might help enhance information switch speeds as information and parity will be striped throughout these drives, whereas the most effective use case for such type of NAS servers is to have three similar arduous drives configured as RAID 5, which the storage pool can be utilized for regularly accessed information, whereas the remaining two drive bays will be configured as Synology’s Hybrid RAID system for storing long-term information.

Previously, one in every of my 6TB drive failed on the Synology DS1621+ and it was configured with Synology’s Hybrid RAID (SHR), it continued to serve the workplace with none points with none information loss and as soon as I popped in a brand new arduous drive, it took round half-hour to reflect 2TB of information from the backup drive, which obtained me so impressed with how effectively a Synology NAS works and I’ve little question that the DS1522+ will proceed to ship that nice expertise in an identical case.

Synology has kindly offered us two of its 8TB HAT5300 arduous drive for use with our DS1522+, saving us the necessity to migrate our present information whereas we will take a look at the NAS from a recent set up, these are wonderful drives that gives as much as 281MB/s of sustained information switch and 23% quicker sequential learn in a Synology NAS, the drive’s firmware may also be up to date with DSM and Synology provides a 5-year guarantee regardless the storage capability you buy, which is a beneficial buy must you determine to go along with a Synology NAS.

As none of our computer systems in our workplace have a 2.5GbE RJ45 port, I created a Windows 11 digital machine on the DS1522+ and ran a disk velocity take a look at to search out out the utmost information switch velocity, and the outcomes doesn’t disappoint.

Our CrystalDiskMark benchmark exhibits a formidable 580.37MB/s of sequential learn and 375.86MB/s of sequential write speeds, which if we divide the learn velocity evenly, it’s near Synology’s marketed switch velocity, and that’s a formidable arduous drive efficiency that’s solely often discovered on excessive efficiency desktop arduous drives relatively than NAS drives.

Overall, the Synology DiskStation DS1522+ is a really succesful NAS server and has the required efficiency to serve house and small workplace environments that requires fixed entry to storage, to not point out that it’s a nice gadget to start out with when you have intentions of accelerating your storage pool in future.

The Synology DiskStation DS1522+ formally retails for RM3900 in Malaysia with out arduous drives, which surprisingly prices barely greater than the latest 4-Bay Synology DiskStation DS923+ that retails at RM3,199, and by all means it’s value paying for since you’re getting two extra Gigabit Ethernet ports, one additional drive bay and preinstalled 8GB RAM, even if you happen to simply want 4 drive bays, there’s actually no hurt to prime up money for an additional drive bay, since you by no means know in the future, that additional drive bay will be extraordinarily helpful, corresponding to utilizing it to put in a 2.5-inch SATA SSD to run digital machines particularly.

The Synology DS1522+ will be bought at most PC retailers in Malaysia, Shopee and Lazada.

Warren

The geeky dictator of KLGG.