New Synology DS1522+ NAS Coming in 2022

New Synology DS1522+ NAS Drive Revealed

Good news for anyone who has been sitting comfortably (or uncomfortably, depending on your storage needs of course) waiting on news of Synology NAS solutions for 2022, with the reveal of a new 5-Bay solution from the brand – the Synology DS1522+ NAS Drive. Now, serving as the likely refresh to the almost two years old DS1520+ (a HUGELY overlooked NAS in my opinion) this new desktop NAS changes ALOT of things that we assumed that a product in the 5-Bay product series from Synology would serve up in a new release. Big, BIG changes in the CPU, max memory quantity and quality, upgradeability and more are featured here. So much so in fact that these changes will arguably result in a big change in how this system is classed in the Synology portfolio. Big words, I know. Bit lets breakdown all the information we know about this new DS1522+ NAS drive and why I think this system could indicate a big upheaval in how the brand scales it’s diskstation (and indeed rackstation) series.

UPDATED 27th APRIL 2022

More information has become available on the Synology E10G22-T1-Mini adapter for the DS1522+ NAS. I have updated this article with new images and a little more information on this adapter.

Synology DS1522+ NAS – Hardware Specifications

This is where we have seen some large changes to form from the big name in NAS, with the Synology DS1522+ NAS arriving with a brand new NAS series CPU and in turn, that processor opening a large number of doors to the end-user to scale the system in its lifespan. The first notable upgrade in this 5-Bay NAS refresh is the CPU, with the DS1522+ arriving with a brand-new AMD Ryzen R1600. This is not the first embedded Ryzen series processor that Synology has featured on their hardware. with the DS1621+, DS2422+ and DS1821+ all arriving with a Ryzen V1500B. However, this new dual-core processor is a significant change of architecture when compared again the Intel J4125 that was featured in the DS1520+. Also, the R1600 processor in the DS1522+ is not the V version (i.e the one with embedded graphics) meaning that Synology has geared this system more towards higher business-class file transit. However, the DS1522+’ Ryzen 1600 processor has an impressive clock speed of 2.6Ghz as a base, that can be burst/turbo’ to 3.1Ghz. This is further underlined by the system arriving with DDR4 ECC memory (something previously reserved for the solid SMB class and above. The default DS1522+ arrives with 8GB of DDR4 ECC SODIMM memory that can be upgraded to 32GB over two slots. This is another big upgrade over the 8GB max of the DS1520+ NAS.

However, the thing that interests me the MOST about this system is a neat little extra slot that the DS1522+ arrives with on the rear. Alongside the 4 ethernet ports (1GbE – which really surprised me! With so many of us banking on 2.5GbE) there is a small slot that allows you to install an optional and proprietary E10G22-T1-Mini 10GbE Module. This means that 1, this 5-bay system can have 10GbE connectivity added down the line and 2, that this could potentially be a feature that will be made available to other Synology plus series diskstation systems in 2022 and 2023. Now, I am not completely in love with the idea of this connection being added via a proprietary add on that is likely physically specific to Synology NAS, however, there is every chance that this is the case due to reasons of physical space on the system and PCI lane limitations.

The Synology E10G20-T1-Mini adapter arrives as a PCIe Gen 3 x2 micro upgrade and slots directly into the back of the NAS (though you will need to power off the system, as PCIe does not support hot-swapping really), The controller used by the adapter is still yet to be confirmed, but the heatsink covering it is very discreet. The 10GbE connection that the E10G20-T1-Mini is copper 10GBASE-T, provides supports full-duplex use, 9K jumbo frames and auto-negotiation (so it can support 10G, 5G, 2.5G and 1G ethernet connectivity dynamically). The full size of the adapter is just 2.67cm x 4.53cm x 7.57cm and arrives with a 3-year warranty. We are still awaiting confirmation at the time of writing regarding pricing and availability.

Alongside these big changes, the DS1522+ then features some slightly more family features and services to this particular Synology NAS series. It arrives with 5 SATA storage bays, that can be expanded to a total of 15 SATA storage bays by connecting two DX517 expansion chassis. Additionally, there is continued support of m.2 NVMe SSD caching bays, with the system arriving with two 2280 bays in the base of the system. Synology DSM 7.1 continues to improve the ways in which the system can take advantage of caching and although I fully expected this to continue to be a feature in the 5-Bay series moving forward, I am please that this NAS features these bays AND the option of adding 10GbE in the systems life. Let’s dig down a little deeper into those specifications:

CPU	CPU Model	AMD Ryzen R1600
	CPU Quantity	1
	CPU Architecture	64-bit
	CPU Frequency	2-core 2.6 (base) / 3.1 (burst) GHz
	Hardware Encryption Engine (AES-NI)	Yes, AES-NI
Memory	System Memory	8 GB ECC DDR4 SODIMM over 2 Slots
	Memory Module Pre-installed	32 GB
Storage	Drive Bays	5
	Maximum Drive Bays with Expansion Unit	15 (DX517 x 2)
	M.2 Drive Slots	2 (NVMe) 2280
	Hot Swappable Drive	Yes
External Ports	RJ-45 1GbE LAN Port	4 (with Link Aggregation / Failover support)
	USB 3.2 Gen 1 Port	2
	Network Expansion	1x Supported E10G22-T1-Mini 10GbE Module over PCIe 3×2
	eSATA Port	2
File System	Internal Drives	Btrfs EXT4
	External Drives	Btrfs EXT4 EXT3 FAT NTFS HFS+ exFAT
Appearance	Size (Height x Width x Depth)	166 mm x 230 mm x 223 mm
	Weight	2.7 kg
Others	System Fan	92 mm x 92 mm x 25mm x 2 pcs
	Fan Speed Mode	Full-Speed Mode Cool Mode Quiet Mode

Now, one question that many users have regarding future Synology NAS releases is regarding support of hard drives. Synology has been changing a few things in the 2022 releases so far, with several higher business and enterprise-class systems arriving with the full support of all the DSM storage services only being available when using their own drive media. Now, you can still use 3rd party hard drive and SSD media in these previously 22 series NAS releases, but these drives result in the end-user being informed that they are using an unsupported configuration, labelling the storage in the notifications with a warning and some features that are available to the Synology drive media in DSM not being present to drives from the likes of WD and Seagate. You still have SMART, schedule health checks and you can form pools, volumes etc. But users would still like to know what the compatibility of the DS1522+ NAS will be. In the specifications I have gone through, one interesting part was:

Optional Upgrades to the DS1522+ NAS

• DDR4 ECC SOIMM: D4ES02-8G / D4ES01-16G
• Synology Network Upgrade Module: E10G22-T1-Mini
• M.2 2280 NVMe SSD: SNV3400 series
• 2.5″ SATA SSD: SAT5200 series
• 3.5″ SATA HDD: HAT5300 series

This is not unusual, the Synology Diskstaiton series. Previous Synology NAS releases have listed optional upgrades and accessories for their systems. But only recently have I seen them list their 3.5″ and 2.5″ storage media in this category. Of course, these ARE clearly listed as ‘optional‘ and this is NOT any kind of indication of HDD compatibility on the DS1522+. But it did give me the tiniest pause for thought.

Synology DS1522+ NAS – Release Date and Price

Although we have lots of information on the hardware specifications of the Synology DS1522+ NAS and details on the design, when it comes to release details and possible pricing, there is little to no information at the time of writing. Synology has always tried to match the price of the predecessor unit in a series in their portfolio (maybe increasing 2-3% on the RRP factoring in inflation, component price increases. With that in mind, expect something around the $700-800 price tag – but again, that is MASSIVELY TBC! Regarding release dates, as this system has the ’22 model ID, that tends to mean that the system will arrive before the end of July/August at the very latest. That said, I think this system will drop a good while before that and I assume somewhere in the 2nd half of Q2 (May/June). There are a few more Synology bits to discuss coming shortly, so do remember to subscribe or bookmark as more new information is published. Cheers for reading and have a lovely week!

 

 

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