Synology DiskStation DS925+ Review: versatile, expandable NAS -drive

Synology is a wide range of advanced NAS systems for businesses and business users, but it is also one of the few producers who still meets smaller businesses and people working at home. Its latest release is DiskStation DS925+, which provides an expandable storage system with plenty of opportunities to grow in the future.

At first glance, DS925+ looks almost identical with its predecessor – called DS923+ – with a dark black design that gives four drives for hard drive or SSD storage. There are also two M.2 slots on the bottom of the drive that can be used to install SSD modules for a high-speed cache to increase performance. However, the older DS923+ is still sold online by a number of retailers, so be sure to buy the new DS925+ model when ordering online.

The upgraded DS925+ includes a faster quad-core AMD Ryzen V1500B processor running at 2.2 GHz along with two 2.5 GB of Ethernet ports for a high-speed network connection. Synology claims that this makes it significantly faster than its predecessor, offering a maximum writing speed of up to 565 MB/s and reading speed of 522MB/s – although this will of course depend on how your network is configured and the type of drive you are installing.

Like many of Synology’s NAS drives, DS925+ ‘unpopulated’ – like just an empty chassis, is sold without drives included. The unpopulated drive costs £ 575.00/$ 640.00, so you will have to budget for additional hard drives or SSDs on top of the basic price. You also need to make sure you choose 2.5-inch SSD or 3.5-inch hard drives approved as ‘compatible’ of Synology. These can be purchased directly from Synology itself or through some of its online retailers. However, you cannot buy DS925+ from Synology, so you will have to shop around online to get the best deal.

The maximum size of the hard drive compatible with DS925+is 20TB, so its four bays provide a maximum of 80 TB of storage (with a number of RAID settings is also supported). However, there is also an expansion module that is also available, called DX525, which can be connected to DS925+if you want to further upgrade your storage. This costs £ 467.00/$ 449.00 and gives five additional drives, giving you a maximum of 180 TB of storage space, so DS925+ will be able to quit as your business grows in the future. There are also USB-A (3.2) gates at the front and back panels that allow you to connect individual external drives if needed.

But even though the hardware design is neat and effective, Synology’s software doesn’t make it easy for new users to get started. There is a label with a QR code included in the box, but this simply leads you to some very long, complicated help files on Synology’s website, which can easily confuse anyone who uses a NAS drive for the first time.

There is an app called DS Finder that is available for iOS and Android, and this app was able to view DS925+as it was connected to our office network. Unfortunately, the app simply asked us to use a web browser to download and install the main operating system software, called DiskStation Manager (DSM) needed to control the drive.

Unfortunately, the Web Browser option did not work, and simply showed a message that asked us to download a separate desktop app for Macs or PCS, called Synology Assistant. It didn’t work at first, although at least it provided some tips for adjusting the encryption settings on the drive. It eventually worked, and once we had installed the DSM software, we were able to switch back to the DS Finder app on our iPad to finish the setup process for the drive. And as well as a local network connection, the app also includes an option called QuickConnect that provides an external connection to DS925+, so you can use it as a kind of ‘private cloud’ to access your files when you are away from the office.

Foundry

Unfortunately, the DS find app also asks you to install a number of additional apps to manage your files, photos and other features, so Synology really needs to consider its documentation and its confusing selection of apps and tools to make them a little more user-friendly for small businesses and home workers who may not have a trained team of IT staff available to set everything for them.

Should you buy the disk station DS925+

The compact design of DS925+ makes it a good opportunity for any small business or office, and its expansion options ensure that it can provide additional storage in the future. However, the software side of things is pretty unrestrainable, so DS925+ will be best suited for people who already have a little experience with networking and setting up a NAS drive.

Check out the other NAS drives we’ve gone through in our round of the best NAS drives for Mac.