Synology DS723+ NAS News

Last updated on 05 Jan 2023 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 The Synology DS723+ NAS Expandable 2-Bay Revealed
2 The Synology DS723+ NAS Hardware Specifications
3 The Synology DS723+ NAS Software Specifications
4 The Synology DS723+ NAS – Release Date and Price?
5 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

The Synology DS723+ NAS Expandable 2-Bay Revealed

Synology has finally given us a little more information to chew on with regard to their new ‘x23+’ series, with the recent reveal of the new Synology DS723+ NAS Drive. This new expandable 2-Bay Diskstation is the intended follow-up to the Synology DS720+ NAS (released in June/July 2020 – so a 2.5yr refresh time is pretty standard) and although we do not have full hands-on with the device, the information we have gives us a pretty good indication of what this device is going to be capable of. Although we have unofficially known about this device for a few months (here in our video on early 2023 leaks and predictions) it is thanks to a reddit post by user ‘ntrprnr‘ that confirmation of some of the hardware in this system has been confirmed via a Synology site source (the Synology Knowledge Center). It confirmed that this new 2-Bay will be following in much of the design of the DS720+ (as expected), but is also switching its internal architecture more towards that of the summer 2022 released DS1522+. Let’s discuss what we know about the DS723+ NAS and what we are likely to expect from this expandable 2-bay diskstation.

The Synology DS723+ NAS Hardware Specifications

There is no avoiding that the CPU choice inside the Synology DS723+ NAS is going to split opinion the tiniest bit. Until now, this 2/7-bay expandable product family has been exclusively Intel-based and integrated graphics equipped (Celeron, with a brief dance with Pentiums in 2016) which all benefited from particularly good multimedia & graphical handling when it comes to server-side transcoding/conversions, especially with more complicated and dense media formats such as HEVC/H.265. This is why the DS720+ (and DS718+ and DS716+ predecessors) were so popular for use as a Plex Media Server, Synology Video Station, Surveillance Station and even Virtual Machine deployment. The new Synology DS723+ NAS on the other hand is the latest system that has jumped ship from Intel over to AMD, with the DS723+ being built on AMD architecture, with a Ryzen Embedded Dual Core R1600 processsor. Now, it is worth highlighting that the R1600 IS a very good CPU. It is the same processor that is in the DS1522+, which we demonstrated could saturate 10GbE in a RAID 5 (more on this later) and also the DS1522+ NAS performs well in Plex at 1080p and native (non transcoded/convereted) 4K too, so the switch by Synology from an Intel to this AMD is not without merit. Before we dig deeper though, let’s discuss the specifications that we know about the DS1522+ NAS, alongside educated guesses we can make that are based on the CPU, product family and Synology’s past with the diskstation series:

Note: Images are for demonstration purposes and are NOT official product images. Additionally, all estimations/predictions are in bold and will be addressed/confirmed closer to the official release:
CPU
 CPU Model AMD Ryzen R1600
CPU Architecture 64-bit
CPU Frequency 2-core/4-Thread 2.6Ghz which can be burst/turbo to 3.1GHz
Hardware Encryption Engine (AES-NI) Yes
Memory
 System Memory 2GB  ECC DDR4
Memory Module Pre-installed 1
Total Memory Slots 2
Maximum Memory Capacity 32GB Supported by CPU. Still need confirmation of slots available on the DS723+
Storage
 Drive Bays 2
Maximum Drive Bays with Expansion Unit 7 (DX517 x 1)
M.2 Drive Slots 2 (NVMe) – Almost certain
Compatible Drive Type
  • 3.5″ SATA HDD
  • 2.5″ SATA SSD
  • M.2 2280 NVMe SSD
Hot Swappable Drive Yes

Again, there are NOT official product images
External Ports
 RJ-45 1GbE LAN Port 2x (Not confirmation of Speed/Bandwidth, but 1GbE looking increasingly certain)
USB 3.2 Gen 1 Port 2x (Based on previous releases)
eSATA Port 1 for expansion)
PCIe
 PCIe Expansion 1 x Gen3 x2 network upgrade slot, for the E10G22-T1-mini. A small Cooper Upgrade module that Synology released in Summer 2022 and is almost certain to be featured on the Synology DS723+ NAS (even on a 2 Bay system that might struggle to saturate 1,000MB/s without an expansion)
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 106 mm x 223 mm (size of the DS720+)
Weight 1.5 kg (weight of the DS720+)
Others
 System Fan 92 mm x 92 mm x 1pcs (Based on the design of the DS720+)
Fan Speed Mode
  • Full-Speed Mode
  • Cool Mode
  • Quiet Mode
Brightness Adjustable Front LED Indicators Yes
Power Recovery Yes
Noise Level* TBC
Scheduled Power On / Off Yes
Wake on LAN / WAN Yes
Power Supply Unit / Adapter 65W (Based on the DS720+)
Warranty
 3-year hardware warranty, extendable to 5 years with EW201 or Extended Warranty Plus

So, in terms of its hardware capabilities, the DS723+ NAS is highly comparable to the DS1522+ NAS than that of the DS720+, but we should take a moment and ponder why Synology has made this rather big portfolio change recently towards AMD over Intel? The Synology DS723+ NAS is by no means the first example of this and in fact you can trace the shift in the brand’s CPU choices all the way back to 2020 when they replaced the Intel C3238 in their SMB solutions with the AMD Ryzen Embedded V1500B. Then the DS1522+ followed suit from man Intel J4125 in the DS1520+ into the R1600 in the latest release. Finally, in spring/summer of 2022, we learned that the highly enterprise SAS tier of their portfolio would switch from Intel to AMD and their EPYC processors in the SA6400 and SA6200 Rackstations. So, the Synology DS723+ NAS arriving with the AMD R1600 is not exactly coming out of nowhere. Still, there are going to be some users who will debate the utility of this CPU at the Home/Prosumer tier vs quad-core Intel integrated graphics CPUs. Perhaps Synology has seen the winds changing in the last few years, as Intel is regularly hit by hardware shortages that continue to undermine their market dominance AND recent news that Intel are killing off the Celeron and Pentium branding, gives AMD growing appeal (especially with a better comparative price point on many of their processors vs likewise architecture/powered at Intel).

Still, we are still talking about a 2-core (4 threads to be fair, so four virtual CPUs for VMs and also the support of ECC memory) processor that will use more power to perform heavier graphical tasks. I am still a little confused as to why Synology have yet to adopt the AMD embedded graphics processors (AMD Vega Graphics) from both the R1000 and V1000 CPU families yet. Perhaps there is a question of TDP and power, or that they are holding back on these for the DS423+ and DS223+? Here are the specifications of the AMD R1600 CPU in the DS723+ NAS:

Moving away from the CPU, we CAN talk about one thing that is likely to arrive onboard the Synology DS723+ NAS – potential 10GbE support. Now, before we get too excited, it’s really important to highlight that this would be delivered via an OPTIONAL single 10G Copper (10GBASE-T) module. The DS723+ will almost certainly arrive with 1GbE network ports, which will definitely disappoint some users who were hoping that 2022/2023 would be when Synology finally adopts 2.5GbE – especially when 2.5GbE is available on the Synology Router, arriving on many ISP routers, value routers, switches and more. It is not totally out of the question that Synology will surprise us and integrate 2.5GbE into this system, but realistically, they have been pretty clear about how little interest they have in it and I think they would see optional 10G on the DS723+ as a far more palatable choice – even on a comparatively bandwidth light 2x SATA bay system like this. 2.5G is now more than a fad in 2022. As greater than gigabit internet connectivity is becoming increasingly common (even ‘affordable’), so the thought that a NAS has the potential to be capped at 1GbE (109MB/s) when a particularly well-connected internet cloud service could exceed that is pretty disheartening. Still, the option of 10GbE would be very welcome, though in this case. some might wonder why they didn’t just roll this in and increase the DS723+ NAS price a fraction.

The possible 10GbE upgrade for the DS723+ would be an incredibly easy process – via the E10G22-T1-mini module and is significantly slicker than traditional PCIe Card upgrades. Arriving on a PCIe Gen 3×2 board, this single port accessory would slot into the back (power down necessary, as this is a PCIe upgrade) and would immediately add the 1,000MB/s+ bandwidth connection to your DS723+. As this NAS is a 2-Bay system, there is the question of whether there would be enough media throughput the saturate the full 10GBASE-T connection. Using a fully SATA SSD populated device will likely three-quarter-to saturate the 10G connection, as would using the 5-bay DX517 expansion in a combined RAID with the main 2-Bays (the DX517 connects over eSATA which is capped at 6Gb/s – so a combined RAID with the primary storage is the only way you are going to hit 1,000MB/s), but what about if you are only using the main 2x DS723+ bays with 3.5″ hard drives?

Although 2x SATA drive 10G performance on the DS723+ and it’s CPU+Memory combo cannot be confirmed right now, I CAN answer the question of how the R1600 CPU and pro-class hard drives will perform over 10GbE in a four drive combo. Previously here on the NASCompares, I was fortunate enough to run ATTO tests on the DS1522+ (same R1600 CPU, but 8GB Memory and more bays) with RAID 0 and RAID 5, over four WD Red Pro 22TB Hard Drives. Now, it is worth remembering that these are NOT your common, everyday SATA hard drives and are designed to be rugged, high-performance disks (7200RPM, 512MB Cache, 10x 2.2TB platters, etc) AND the DS1522+ was populated with four drives (twice the maximum bays of the DS723+). That said, the results in both a RAID 0 and RAID 5 setup and in particular file size tests, full saturation of read transfers of 1.15GB/s was achieved, with write performance peaking at around 800-900MB/s. Now, these ARE artificial tests (so, not really representative of everyday use), but are nevertheless very compelling results for the CPU inside the DS723+ being able (with sufficient media) to sufficiently saturate the E10G22-T1-mini upgrade. More domestic/smaller scale HDDs such as the WD Red Plus or Seagate Ironwolf drives in a 2-Bay configuration of the DS723+ would likely cap at around 400-50MB/s at most.

Note – You can READ the full article that details all the tests and results of the Synology DS1522+ NAS and WD Red Pro 22TBs over 10GbE HERE. Alternatively, you can watch my YouTube video on these tests (with 5GbE testing too) here on the NASCompares YouTube Channel.

Synology DS1522+ with 4x 22TB WD Red Pro RAID 5/10GbE Test – 64MB Synology DS1522+ with 4x 22TB WD Red Pro RAID 0/10GbE Test – 256MB

Another expected hardware element of the DS723+ NAS is that it will almost certainly arrive with two m.2 NVMe SSD bays on the base that allow you to install considerably faster SSD drives to boost the performance of particular internal file processes (with variable external bandwidth benefits). These bays cannot be used as traditional storage pools (not a tremendous shock, as Synology have maintained this position since introducing the feature way back in 2017/18 on their systems) are instead available for use in Read and Write caching. The former benefits the user by copying frequently accessed small files to the faster media to decrease access time, improve latency and make accessing the Synology NAS regularly a great deal more fluid and responsive. The latter write caching improves upload/input to the NAS by shifting initial write activity onto the faster storage media and then internally shifting the media to core storage afterwards. Synology has been one of the biggest backers in conventional turnkey NAS solutions of SSD caching since its launch, regularly updating their algorithm and efficiency on this with each update to DSM. It’s still a crying shame that these m.2 NVMe SSD bays are not usable for traditional storage pools (though it IS possible via unofficial mods over on github, it is not recommended by the brand and can potentially undermine your support down the line by them).

Image of the Synology DS720+ NAS

The Synology DS723+ NAS hardware is an interesting mix of the expected and unexpected (both internally and externally) and I think it is safe to say that this will divide opinion at the home and prosumer tiers considerably. At the small/medium business (SMB) tier of course it will be a different story, as the hardware architecture here is very competent and if the DS723+ will likely outperform the DS720+ in most other respects in/outside of DSM, so it will be very popular! Let’s discuss the potential software capabilities of the DS723+ NAS in DSM 7.1 onwards.

The Synology DS723+ NAS Software Specifications

The Synology portfolio has always been about providing software solutions. The hardware is certainly an important detail, but there is no avoiding that the brand has always had a larger focus on the software side of things and in the last year or so we have seen a large number of improvements in both the service platform DSM 7, as well as improvements in their C2 cloud services and dirty party tools. The Synology DS723+ will run DSM 7.1 largely identically to the DS1522+, but arguable different in a few ways to it’s intel powered predecessor DS720+. Below is a breakdown of the services and volume that the Synology DS723+ NAS will support (based on the DS1522+ hardware and DS720+ base):

Add-on Packages
Antivirus by McAfee (Trial) Yes
Central Management System Yes
Synology Chat Yes
Maximum Users Yes
Maximum Number of Concurrent Users 100
Document Viewer Yes
Download Station Yes
Maximum Concurrent Download Tasks 80
SAN Manager Yes
Maximum iSCSI Target Number 128
Maximum LUN 256
LUN Clone/Snapshot, Windows ODX Yes
Notes Yes
Synology MailPlus / MailPlus Server Yes
Free Email Accounts 5 (Licenses required for additional accounts)
Maximum Number of Concurrent Users 100
Maximum Server Performance 1,224,000 emails per day, approx. 37GB
Media Server Yes
DLNA Compliance Yes
Synology Photos Yes
Facial Recognition Yes
Snapshot Replication Yes
Maximum Snapshots per Shared Folder 1,024
Maximum of System Snapshots 65,536
Surveillance Station Yes
Maximum IP cam (Licenses required) 40 (including 2 Free License) (dependant on Memory)
Total FPS (H.264) 1200 FPS @ 720p (1280×720)
1050 FPS @ 1080p (1920×1080)
600 FPS @ 3M (2048×1536)
360 FPS @ 5M (2591×1944)
200 FPS @ 4K (3840×2160)
Total FPS (H.265) 1200 FPS @ 720p (1280×720)
1200 FPS @ 1080p (1920×1080)
1000 FPS @ 3M (2048×1536)
600 FPS @ 5M (2591×1944)
300 FPS @ 4K (3840×2160)
Synology Drive Yes
Recommended Number of Concurrent Sync Clients 350 (the number of connections that can be maintained when the recommended number of hosted files was reached)
Recommended Number of Hosted Files 5,000,000 (applies to files indexed or hosted by Synology Drive. For file access through other standard protocols, refer to the File Services section above)
Synology Office Yes
Maximum Users 1,200
Video Station Yes
Virtual Machine Manager Yes
Recommended Virtual Machine Instances 4
Recommended Virtual DSM Number (Licenses required) 4 (including 1 Free License)
Notes The specifications vary depending on system configuration and memory size.
VPN Server Yes
Maximum Connections 40

Of course (as mentioned at the start) there are a decent % of users who have been waiting on the release/reveal of the Synology DS723+ NAS for use as a Plex Media Server solution. The Synology Diskstation series have been recommended as great solutions for various scale Plex servers, with ARM-powered solution in the value tier for smaller scale/DLNA-based options and the plus series supporting transcoding and low-mid 4K media. However, the R1600 CPU choice in the DS723+ does throw a little bit of doubt on this. This architecture does provide a decent level of hardware power (crossing 3Ghz at burst) and when it comes to native applications for media, such as Synology Video Station (the excellent 1st party alternative to Plex with numerous client apps and arrives subscription free). Indeed, once again we can look at the performance of the similarly hardware-equipped DS1522+ with the R1600 CPU and how it performed in Video Station and Plex Media Server below. It is worth noting that 4K performance in this videos was only tested using rather advanced 4K files (at 120Mbps and higher), so although this NAS and architecture struggled with 4K playback in these tests, there are new and updated Plex 4K tests coming soon for the DS1522+ NAS on our YouTube channel that shows that it was able to playback a great deal more 4K at 16Mbps to 60Mbps quite well. Although it was still clearly using more CPU resources than an integrated alternative, even without client-side conversions.

Overall, the software support in DSM on the DS723+ is going to be very good and the depth of the hardware available means that although it will be a pinch less suitable for highly graphical tasks, it DOES have alot more capability in file handling and transmission – which is precisely what Synology want for this device and makes it increasingly appealing to traditional storage users. Equally, the architecture of this CPU inside the DS723+ allows its resources to be spread a great deal further (threads and simultaneous tasks) towards using the full range of services that DSM includes. The cloud/hybrid services too will greatly benefit form this architecture too and once again mean that this Synology NAS will bring a tremendous sense/feeling of ‘local’ storage to this network/remote server. Finally, it is worth highlighting that the DS723+ and it’s R1600 CPU benefit form more PCI lanes at PCIe3 rather than the PCIe2 of it’s predecessor, with allows better bandwidth availability to the hardware resources onboard (such as those m.2 NVMe bays)

The Synology DS723+ NAS – Release Date and Price?

The smart money would be on the Synology DS723+ NAS being released around mid-November 2022 (Maybe even very early December, post black Friday and clearance of the DS720+). This would place it 2.5yrs since the release of it’s predecessor,  which is quite reasonable. Pricing is harder to pin down. The Expandable desktop 2-Bay tier of Synology’s portfolio (the DS7xx+ device) has tended to land at the £350-400 / $450-500 / €400-450 mark (don’t forget the tax!) when released. However, the DS723+ arrives with a new CPU, possible ECC memory and a possible option of 10GbE, so this could affect the pricing (and that is even without factoring hardware/component availability in 2022/2023 affected by continued shortages). Personally, I think Synology is going to try and maintain this familiar price point, as the tiering in their portfolio on either side of this device in the Value tier (which will also see DSx23 and DSx23j additions in Q1 2023) and bigger Plus series boxes are quite important to their brand. More information will be coming soon on this and other devices in the Synology 2022/2023 hardware range soon, so subscribe to the blog OR visit this page which gets updated regularly with new information on Synology 2023 Hardware. Have a great week!

What do you think of the Synology DS723+ NAS? Let us know below in the comments below. We pool the comments on this article and the videos that are featured in it to keep all the relevant comments in one place, so take a look and see if your POV is the same as everyone else’s.

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      157 thoughts on “Synology DS723+ NAS News”

      1. Synology has A grade software but C grade hardware… I just don’t get it. So many of their users want more out of the hardware yet they just ignore them. Crazy.
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      2. I have bought a DS1522+ a week ago. I was struggling with external discs breaking down one after another. Even a 5 week old 8 Tb barracuda drive. ????

        98 percent what i have is 1080p. That is doing fine. But it is struggling with 4k. A DS1621xs was just to expensive.
        I hate it that Synolgy on purpose choose to use these CPU’s. They are doing that deliberate. So you have to step up bigtime. Actually with a CPU and a build in GPU a lot of people would not buy their expensive Nas line. Synoly could have used a slightly more expensive CPU with build in GPU. And that would have cost us around 50 dollar more. But we all would have done that gladly. And it is really a stupid move from from Synology because a lot of people will be looking at Qnap because of that. So in the end it will cost them money.
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      3. Hi all. I’m new here and I’m planning on buying this device and part of the use would be to stream my video to my Apple TV 4K. So here is my question. Can the Apple TV transcodes for me through the plex app if installed on it if needed?
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      5. One thing I don’t understand is why the Server is struggling to serve a native format (e.g. Jellyfish 4k uhd, but h264). Isn’t it supposed to pass it directly through the network, and then the client tries to decode it?
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      7. You talked a lot of rubbish about the ssd’s for 10 minutes. It didn’t give anything!
        You should speak about the handling, as looking at movies with Plex and so on. Have someone of them integrated graphics, etc. Rhstd relevant information!
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      8. Where can I download the jellyfish videos? I’d like to benchmark my system using this same methodology in order to determine if I’d get the same performance if I switched to this NAS.
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      9. Do we really need transcoding ? No. I have watched all the videos about Plex transcoding while looking to upgrade my old DS412+ that’s 10y old. I have even purchased the DS1520+ in order to get access to the old Intel CPU with GPU it order to be able to transcode. Looking more into things I realized that transcoding is not anymore important because nowadays the clients available are able to play pretty much everything. I returned my DS1520+ for a much faster DS1522+ and added to my living room a very nice Nvidia Shield TV Pro linked to my NAS. I am easily able to play Jellyfish 4K 400Mbps H.265 10bit with buffer increasing every second. The old DS412+ and Shield could even play the 4K files but not the 10bits ones because of a lack for throughput from the NAS. In conclusion, I am not sure about the pertinence of those transcoding test when you can simply upgrade your clients.
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      10. Such a Disappointment! I was so excited to upgrade my DS214Play with this unit. Then everything about it became an absolute disappointment. For the past 15 years I’ve used two different Synology units the same way. Main unit for storage and an external eSATA enclosure for backup (single version). That way at any point in time I had an NTFS copy of everything.

        They decided to lock down this unit and the eSATA port is only for Synology to use. It is not usable by the user. That leaves only one USB port. Gees! Even my DS214Play had 4 usable ports on it! Further more the USB port is slower than eSATA. So this unit is a downgrade in that regard. Now add the fact that the dual NVMe slots cannot be used as storage space unless you way over spend on Synology owned drives. Ok, so I’ll use that for cache. NOPE! It’s not cache. It’s some useless smart cache that is only used for frequently read or written files. Completely unlike literally every single cache found on any raid array controller which does both that and acts as real write cache. Then onto the last disappointment. I’m using newer 6TB Seagate Exos Enterprise drives with this unit. Very fast drives. With the 10Gb adapter installed I expected to get a good 500MB transfer speed. NOPE! Starts out at 500 then quickly drops to around 140. Why? This makes no sense. That drive gets over 300 from drive to drive in a PC over a 6Gbps connection. Should be the same over 10Gb. I borrowed a QNAP NAS from someone and set that up. An entire 20GB file transfer saw an average 480MBps (with cache). Yet the DS723+ only averages 218MBps (with useless cache).

        Such absolutely pointless decisions on their part. Ah well. I should have held off longer and waited for a USB 4 storage option as this unit is a complete and utter disappointment!
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      12. Is this a downgrade from previous generations like the 1520+? I was thinking about switching from QNAP to Synology. This seems like another drawback in addition to their outdated 1 Gbits LAN connections. Probably I need to wait another couple of years.
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      18. I currently run a DS1621+ and DS1821+.. Giving the price of electricity, I’ve been toying with the idea of downsizing, to 3 smaller 2-bay NAS… 1 for VMs, 1 for Media storage and a 3rd for backup.. but I have 2 requirements, 10GbE and NVMe, and really QNAP TS253D is the only option, but if Synology do offer the 10GbE mini card, then they have already sold 3 of these 😛 (note I used a seperate NUC for streaming).
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      19. OK, so at least next NAS dilemma is over, 723 and 923 will take AMD subaverage CPU for next 3 years; future owners should be watching over electricity bills since this AMD sucker is a high idle power consumer.
        It’s not only about torpedoing Plex HW transcode, but also nitpicking on NIC type, ignoring use of NVMe drives as volumes, blocking USB peripherals, shrinking compatibility support for non-Synology disk drives and attempting to kill 3rd party community support. I expect 723 and 923 to experience even more limitations with respect to the qualified disks through DSM updates/patches.

        In one hand, I’m glad I’m still using Synology and not defecting to QNAP which is PoS on it’s own but this could drive off a large part of perspective Plus model buyers.
        My DS918 has a working 2.5GBe connection through Realtek USB/Eth adapter which usually reach 250-260 MBps; dual NVMe drives are mounted as mirror volume for app (Plex/Docker) app partition.
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      21. Well, as a QNAP user, I was hoping to switch but having no GPU killed this for me… This is a backward step from 920+ as it offered one. It would be interesting to hear how the 923+ compares 920+ on decoding or GPU accelerated tasks and VM. What’s sad is I’m probably not alone as QNAP has screwed the pooch with their “security” and software – I don’t want to tinker or spend hours figuring out how to secure my NAS and turn off all the “features” because it will compromise *facepalm*. Also, saying a 4-bay is business is focused, makes no sense if you have a lot of media… I am wondering if they will have two versions, one with no GPU and one with GPU in the 4-bay chassis. Anyway, thank you for this update, it helped me decide.
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      23. Thanks for doing this video. Could you try doing the test with a Plex client on a 4k Smart TV or 4k capable dongle? I’m not sure if its true anymore that most of the devices people own don’t support HEVC. Apple’s supported it on their devices for years now. So has LG. I’ve used the Plex clients on both an appleTV 4k and a bottom of the line LG 4k SmartTV from 2016 devices to watch 4k HEVC movies streamed from a DS116 without so much as a hiccup and without plex pass. I may not be in the majority but I’m pretty sure I’m not that much of an outlier.
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      25. I have learnt the hard way to stick with Intel CPUs for hardware transcoding. AMD has consistently dropped the ball on video hardware accelerated transcoding compared to Intel CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. A real shame. I always look for Intel CPUs to meet my hardware accelerated transcoding needs.
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      26. I was hoping to upgrade my 718+ to a 4 bay NAS. Looks like it won’t be the 923+ if that does launch with the same processor as expected. The lack of native 10Gb ethernet, together with the price of the optional port, is disappointing too.
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      28. Great test vid, cheers. Also thanks for the update on the 923+ on your website. I seriously hoped the 923+ would’ve launched with a CPU that supports hardware transcoding. Disappointed that it’ll probably be just a 4-bay version of the 1522+. All I want in a Synology NAS are: 1) ECC RAM, 2) 4+ bays, 3) hardware transcoding. I can get 2 out of 3 with the 920+ (2 and 3) and the 1522+ (1 and 3) but not all 3…
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      29. Wonder if synology will eventually released a NAS capable of 4K transcoding. I’m thinking about building my own NAS with unraid. I’m looking to update my DS1517+ within the next few month possibly. As 4K become the new standard, if I am to spend over 1000$+ on a NAS, I want to be able to futures proof and be fast enough.
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      30. Wonder if synology will eventually released a NAS capable of 4K transcoding. I’m thinking about building my own NAS with unraid. I’m looking to update my DS1517+ within the next few month possibly.
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      36. Thanks for the news about the DS723+. Sad to hear that there won’t be a chip with imbedded graphics on it, so I guess that I will either have to wait for the DS923+, or buy the DS920+.
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      38. I was on the fence 920+ vs 923+. I went ahead and jumped on the 920+ when it went on sale a few months ago and I’m glad I did. Sounds like the 923+ will likely use the ryzen. No embedded graphics is a deal breaker for me. I really want 10gbe but it’s not as important as the embedded graphics. And quite honestly I’m very impressed with the celeron, it sure sounded underpowered based on the specs, but it’s a real workhorse. It does everything I ask of it and never bogs down. Everything is snappy. Looks like I’ll just run this 920+ for 5+ years and check then if Synology finally got their act together and understands what their home users want.
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      43. My only hope is for the 223+ and 423+ to come with embedded graphics and NVMe support. No home user needs the extension bay that the 723 and 923 bring, so it would definitely make sense to separate the home and business product lines
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      47. Downgrade to non-plus series for me. 2 cores and 4 threats, 2-4 Gb Ram. Interesting how this will perform with docker and vmm setups. Delicately saying not worth upgrading from 720+, at least knowing this now. That’s my summary unless the price is half of the previous 720+. The last real upgrade of 720+ is DVA1622. I wonder if they clone the same specs to 923+.
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      48. Great video again! I have bought the ds720+ last year with 2 bays and 2x1gb ports. I have a small office with 3 pcs working from the nas as smb file folder so everything is stored on the nas and with mapped folders we work on any pc. May I ask so the transfer speed to read the files is limited to 100mb/sec due to 1gb lab port correct?? If I buy a 10gb nas I will run my files on the synology faster because I do have 2,5bgb lan ports on my pcs?? So it will be 2,5 times faster?? Or the lan ports is for out of the sight use??
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      52. 1 day too late 🙁 could have bought a 920+ yesterday for a good price but I was curious about the 923+. But with the R1600 in the 923+ I preferred the 920+. I guess I have to wait for Black Friday then.
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      53. I was looking forward to this NAS, or the 923+. Reading this there is no gpu in both of them, a better option would be the 720 or 920. Does their own DS video station app need transcoding?
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      57. Sick of Synology and their shenanigans. I love the Synology OS and ecosystem, but my parts will be here this week for a TrueNas build. $300 for a system with dual 10Gbe and no limitations or waiting.
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      59. No embedded graphics no interest. Synology can feel damn lucky QNAP can’t get their crap together and gets hit with randsom and security issues on a monthly basis. Essentially being no option as well, even when they stomp all over Synology,if we talk pricing and hardware. Better luck next year Synology. I really hope nobody buys this trash. Poor Rob, another year as well with the same DS920+ compare and relevance vids. You love to see them
        …
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      61. Will be great, maybe a glitch for the Plex-users but for all us others, just mainly using SMB and such will this be a great upgrade. Still pleased with my old 918 though, think I’ll run it for some more years, but after that, at least 2.5 GBit will be a thing to have for me.
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      66. This is terrible news for Plex transcoding on Synology, big downgrade compared to Celeron iGPU on the 920+. I’m sure there are benefits for other applications and efficiency, but it’s not like the Celeron CPUs were ever overburdened for typical NAS tasks.
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      70. I think for example smb would get better timing with 10gbe. That means smb would probably be a bit faster at transferring very small files. But i dont have 10gbe yet so i am not able to confirm that theory
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      71. One question: Why are the WD Red Pro 22TB HDDs all healthy? Did you edited the compatibility file on the Syno or anything else? Normaly only the 14TBs Red Plus are approved at Snologys compatibility matrix 🙂
        Thx in advance and Cheers
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      76. People… Transcoding is completely unnecessary these days!!! I have it on my server and on my phone but with WiFi and 4g and 5g data these days… Not necessary!!! If you worry about quality or cut outs??? Download a copy of it to your device!
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      78. Isn’t there at least one flaw with this test, specifically that your browser does not have the license for h.265/HEVC and therefore the 1522+ NAS must convert to h.264, whereas if you used the proper client interface (e.g “Plex for Windows”) it does have the proper license and therefore no trans-coding would be required
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      79. I just read that with DSM 7.1.1 the AAC audio codec will be REMOVED from the Advanced Media Extensions?! Are my videos with AAC audio now worthless, do I have to re-encode all of them?
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      81. This post has been updated with new information regarding the CPU that is almost certain to be featured on the Synology Value series of Diskstation NAS (obtained from official sources) – 01/09/22 , HERE – https://nascompares.com/news/synology-2023-nas-confirmed-releases-predictions/
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      88. I like these videos (along with the Plex ones since I use plex).

        One thing NOT covered is that the variation due to PLEX clients. A PC is fine but try to use something like a Roku streamer and enable VOSUB. That simple thing can drain your CPU because Roku cannot handle DVD with VOSUB well so it must get transcoded.

        Same thing for Roku and Blu Ray with PGS subs turned on.

        To get around this I had to buy a FireTV (which has its own problems for DTS …).

        Anyway, you need not necessarily do anything more complex than 480p with VOSUB and Roku or 1080P with PGS subs with Roku to torture your NAS with transcoding.
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      90. THANKS FOR THE VIDEO!…Hey NAS experts! Advice Needed…I’m a Newbie trying to figure out best NAS to buy for family to enjoy mass storage & free up our iPhones internal storages . I shoot 4k videos on iPhone12promax. Have typical home internet 1g connection. I want a NAS family can access REMOTELY via internet (cellular & wifi if avail) on daily basis. *I want 4k VIDEOS to play / stream(?) “smoothly” remotely (via internet) on our iPhones, iPads, MacBook Pro. Which NAS is best? Are any of the Ryzen based NAS models a better choice than 920+ w embedded graphics?….Where does the 1621xs+ fall in the mix? What brand HDrives should I get? Thanks in advance.
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      91. I recently purchased this NAS to add to my existing Drobo 5N2. While I find these video tests very interesting, I have never used my NAS for video encoding. Hence, the Radeon CPU works for me.
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      93. Thank you for the video. Every reviewer says that AMD is a step forward and everything flies. But frankly the celeron works much better with video encoding. I’d rather go with 1520 than 1522. 10Gbit is fine, but for home users 1Gbit is more than enough anyway. As for me 1522 is a downgrade.
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      96. I stopped watching this. Not because it wasn’t good, I enjoy your stuff. I stopped it because I didn’t care anymore. Too little, too late on Synology’s part. I went with Asustor and got everything that the DS923+ might be.
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      99. What has happened to the internal Q.C. of this channel? Color correction? Stuttering? Cracking noise? Graphics fonts flashing around the screen? Not nice for viewing for 44 minutes. Sorry to say, to be honest. Mostly love your great NAS content. Cheers for making this video nevertheless.
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      101. Why do you think Qnap never went to the next level with the 1677x. I love my 1677. Maybe because they did such a good job with that one? What say you? I’m also hoping that the next Synology 1823+ has an embedded Ryzen with 10g or 4x 2.5g native, PCIe 3 or 4 slot, USB 3.2 connectors, m.2 2280 internal cache, and 16gigs RAM. If they did that, I’m interested.
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      104. While I would love the giveaway… especially if I landed a slightly used QNAP TS-h1886XU-RP ???? … it is probably better for you to keep a lot of the drives, memory etc to perform all the tests etc.
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      106. I love your prediction videos! I hope all of them come true! My vote is for giveaways, I don’t think you’ll ever run out of great tech topics to enrich us with! Besides, I’d like one of those Synology’s off that shelf behind you like everyone else! Lol ????
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      109. Re Giveaway I guess the devil is in the detail. If only to people in UK it might be a bit limiting, if global then unsure if you can afford the shipping costs, etc.? I guess I’d fall into the “more videos” camp.
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      113. Synology’s managers are smoking the wrong pot, from an Stellar loved brand NAS, it becomes disgusting and a problem for those that rely on legacy Synology units, not few people are delaying to upgrade until Synology stepdown all those idiotic “premium” policies, theyre wrong from the moment they think they where the Apple of Nas Appliances.
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      121. Eddie is right. Synology completely screwed the pooch with both the DS1522+ and RS422+ no excuses. You’re being too nice Rob. They deserve to know when they f***ed up.
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      126. The sad thing is that the NAS world is still lagging behind when it comes to “transcoding”. With the UHD 6xx integrated GPUs on the CPUs, the Intel CPUs do not get hit as hard as the Ryzen 1600 when you try to play a HVEC/H.265 media file. And for $1,000 USD, the Synology DS1522+ is way over priced since it using an old Ryzen 1600.
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      127. TerraMaster with XPEnology loaded might be my future when I look for my 920+ replacement in 2024. I usually replace my NAS every 4 years with an upgraded model, while the old system still has 75% its value to help fund the upgrade.
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      128. Thank you for these benchmark videos. You’re really helping to prevent unhappy customers. If I get this one from your company, at least I know what the capabilities are and won’t be surprised or disappointed down the line. It also gives me more confidence in stepping up to a higher model without worrying that I’m wasting money.
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      133. @NASCompares Could you please do a video comparing the new 5-bay DS1522+ with the older 6-bay DS1621+/DS1621xs+ models? I am a home user trying to decide whether to move to a NAS and if so, whether to use a 5-bay or a 6-bay NAS. (I presently have a SANS Digital 5-bay USB RAID in a RAID5 and a Promise Pegasus R6 6-bay Thunderbolt RAID in a RAID6.)
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      136. Picked up a 1520+ last month for home use to replace my decade old ReadyNAS and no regrets. I was able to get rid of my dedicated plex server with quadro and loving all the features of synology like backup which I in fact use old ReadyNAS as a backup repository.
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      137. Finally, thanks for the testing. You’ve helped me make up my mind. I’m definitely sticking with a 1520+. I made a call to Synology, and had a long “talk” about the lack of an integrated GPU on the 1522+. No sensible response. Synology REALLY dropped the ball with this “upgrade”.
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      140. I did some tests as well at mine DS920+ and all are working good. the transcode from the HEVC works great.. and then im also running a lot VM and Dockers haha.. only the 4K will be get trouble yes.. that will be hard. further im very happy with my DS920+ still a very good machine and im really use a lot of applications on the NAS..
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      141. Thank you for this review, I was waiting for it, sad that this nas isn’t playing 4K that’s a big blocker for me… Real shame as I wanted to buy it ????????‍♂️ going to check out 920+ or the 1520+ instead… Who knows I might go nutz and get 1621+/xs ????????‍♂️
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      142. Following what I thought was a system failure on my Synology (very old DS412+), I was in a real bind for a couple of weeks. I was torn between replacing it with a DS920+ or waiting on the pending release of the much vaunted DS1522+. The agony!

        In the end I needed my NAS, so I bought a DS920+.

        I was originally sad, but having seen this review, and several others, I’m so glad I didn’t go down this rout. Bad Synology! Hope they learn the lesson for the next gen. The box fulfills two principle requirements: Fast, reliable storage for my photographic work, and media services. Of course the DS1522+ would likely have been the go-to box if storage was my only concern, but for now I’m very happy with the DS920+ box that provides me with storage and media provision very well indeed.

        On a side note, having recovered all my data off the DS412+, I dropped the machine back to factory setting. I formatted all the disks, factory reset and re-installed the O/S. That perceived issue was subsequently fixed. Now I’ve got my new DS920+ as the backbone NAS and a DS420+ for archival file storage and a nominal backup resource.????
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      145. I am still a bit confused tho. I have watched many of your vids now, and every time (and you even show it) how the ds1520+ (same nas as i have) has integrated graphics. But still, when i try to use video station, it always absolutely EATS my cpu even with hardware decoding on. I sometimes cant even watch a video without some hiccups. Do i need to activate hardware decoding somewhere else to?
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      149. When you do the Emby test remember to use the diagnostics plug in so you get the user sessions tab, this gives you a lot more detail on how the CPU is doing while playing back a video.
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      152. As far as I know the Plex Web Application will buffer only a certain percentage for video playback while the Plex Application (for Windows) will buffer more or all of the footage when paused. At least that is what I was able to see when comparing the Web App and the Native App.
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      153. I’m interested in DVR functionality as well. I have 4KUHD, BluRay 1080P, and most importantly DVR files from a HDHomeRun network tuner. Especially the Mpeg2 and Transcode while recording performance.
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