Synology DS223j NAS – Should You Buy (Short Review)

Synology DS223j NAS – Should You Buy (Short Review)

Synology has been a part of the network-attached storage industry for around 25 years now, and during that time, they’ve produced an array of solutions. Although all of their solutions support DSM, the extent to which they can use it and the sheer range of features they include does differ. Even though a Synology NAS might sound like the ideal alternative for you to ditch your cloud subscription, not all Synology NAS are built equal. Today, I want to do a quick review of their new entry-level NAS solution, the DS223j, an ARM-powered and extremely cost-effective private NAS device. Synology makes it clear that this device is targeted at budget buyers and those looking for a less demanding entry point into DSM. Nevertheless, with a good range of software services available on the DS223J, its potential for deployment is surprisingly large for its rather modest price tag. Today, I will give you five reasons why you might want to consider it as your perfect small-scale, private cloud, and five reasons why it might be worth shopping elsewhere.

SOFTWARE - 9/10

HARDWARE - 8/10

PERFORMANCE - 6/10

PRICE - 9/10

VALUE - 9/10

8.2

PROS

👍🏻Supports MOST of the Synology App Suite
👍🏻Very Affordable
👍🏻Support of SHR, BTRFS and Snapshots
👍🏻Low Power Consumption
👍🏻Lovely Compact Design and Noise Level
👍🏻Large HDD & SSD Compatibility
👍🏻Three USB Ports & Copy Button
👍🏻The warranty can be extended
👍🏻Very Capable, despite ARM CPU

CONS

👎🏻1x 1GbE ONLY, 5Gb/s USB & No NIC Upgrade Support at all!
👎🏻1GB Memory is fixed
👎🏻No expansion Support

The Synology DS223j Supports the Majority of DSM 7.2 Applications

Despite its rather modest architecture, which features a low-powered ARM quad-core processor and one gigabyte of DDR4 memory, the Synology DS223J is able to run the majority of Synology’s baseline applications. Indeed, Synology rolled out their Disk Station Manager 7.2 software in mid-2023 and this low-cost NAS server runs most of the collaboration suite of apps. Everything from multimedia handling in the Audio Station, Video Station, and Synology Photos application with AI facial recognition is available here. Similarly, you have access to the multi-site and multitask backup tool known as Hyper Backup, the Office suite of applications that include an email server tool, Synology Drive, a single portal, and a multi-client synchronization tool, a calendar application, and all of this with access to a vast number of client tools for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. You even have access to Synology’s premium and award-winning surveillance platform, Surveillance Station 9.1, with two camera licenses included and the ability to support up to 12 cameras at any given time.

Meanwhile, on the back end, this low-powered and low resource system supports BTRFS or EXT4 as the file system of choice and even has support for snapshots. Whether you want to use the DS223J as your primary private server NAS or you want to use it in conjunction with an existing server array (for example, as a remote snapshot or backup storage in a multi-tier 321 backup strategy), the DS223J has a lot going for it.

The Synology DS223j NAS is Excellent Value at $179 / £187 / €189

I know I’ve already touched on this, but it is worth highlighting again, just how good of a value the Synology DS223J is when you consider what you are getting. Initially, it may seem that spending $179 on a 2-bay NAS seems a little high, but once you factor in the full range of apps and services that DSM includes and the fact that this rather modest compact cloud arrives with a whole bunch of Synology support and services, this is by far the best priced entry into the Synology ecosystem.

If you are looking for a user-friendly and intuitive private server ownership without having to grapple with the command line or a high learning curve, the DS223J is an excellent example of this and at this price point, it will easily pay for itself when you compare it to the monthly subscription cost for cloud services in just a couple of years by comparison.

The DS223j NAS has Twice the Memory of the DS220j

A minor point, and one that only long-time followers of the Synology brand will have noticed, but the DS223J arrives with one gigabyte of DDR4 memory, which is actually twice the amount that the brand has provided in this series for the last decade. Synology has been impressively efficient in how much they can do with systems on rather modest hardware, ensuring that they remain efficient over days, weeks, months, and years of operation. However, the more tasks you run and the more users you have, the more memory you are going to need. Even though the DS223J is priced similarly to previous J series value NAS models from Synology, the fact that it arrives with twice the baseline memory will be tremendously useful and add an element of future-proofing to your long-term storage plans, whether it’s deployed in or outside of DSM.

The DS223j has an Exceptionally Low Footprint on your Home Network

If you’ve been considering a Synology NAS because you want to own your very own private cloud for your data and not rely on public cloud spaces such as Google Drive or Dropbox, the Synology DS223J is one of the most low-impact 2-bay NAS that the brand has ever produced. With reported power consumption at 16 watts active and 4 watts idle, this is barely going to register on your electricity bill annually. Moreover, thanks to the compact plastic chassis, rubberized feet, and discreet ventilation, the system is also going to run exceptionally quiet unless you choose to install particularly aggressive or enterprise-grade hard drives. So, in short, if you are looking at a NAS that has a tiny impact o your network, environment, the DS223j is confirmed to support:

• 16W/4W Power Use (Active/Standby)
• 18.2 dba Noise (2x 4TB HDD)
• Plastic Closed Chassis
• Low Power Mode
• Quiet Fan Mode
• Scheduled On/Off
• Wake On LAN (WoL)

Because of this, if you are considering a NAS for houseboats, mobile homes, and RVs, or simply to have a NAS that can largely be set up and forgotten with the lowest footprint possible, the DS223J is a fantastic example of this.

Support of Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) on the DS223j NAS

Finally, the DS223J supports Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR). The benefits of SHR on the DS223J may seem limited given it is just a 2-bay system. Traditional RAID such as RAID 1 or RAID 5 limits the ability to use different capacity drives in a single storage pool, shrinking all drives to the smallest available capacity. SHR gets around this and allows you to mix and match larger hard drives without penalizing you when you go into larger drive configurations.

On a 2-bay NAS, the benefits of SHR are quite limited, and you won’t really get to enjoy the benefits of one hard drive being larger than the other. However, if you’ve purchased the Synology DS223J and 5, 7, or 10 years down the line decide to scale up your Synology server to a larger system and want to reuse your drives, having an SHR on day one will allow you to physically migrate these drives into the new system which may have more available bays. From there, SHR will prove extremely valuable in introducing larger drives that almost certainly have a better price per terabyte as needed. Ultimately, if you think that you may upgrade your Synology NAS much later in its life and you intend to reuse the drives, SHR will be exponentially helpful.

The DS223j 1GB Memory Cannot Be Expanded

As good as it is that the Synology DS223J arrives with twice the memory of its predecessor, the DS220J, it is still going to be something of a disappointment to hear that you cannot upgrade this memory beyond one gigabyte later on. A lot of Synology NAS systems that arrive with Intel or AMD processors allow you to add further memory to the system later on and improve its performance in handling multiple tasks. However, the ARM-based processor in the DS223J is designed to be as efficient as possible, and one of the ways to improve memory efficiency is by directly soldering the memory to the PCB motherboard of the NAS. Consequently, you are not able to upgrade the memory and the minute you start to grow the number of simultaneous operations and user activities, that one gigabyte of memory is going to feel particularly limiting.

Only 1x 1GbE Network Port on the DS233j, and no means to upgrade it

Generally, I would not critique a more cost-effective NAS system for arriving with 1 GbE/ gigabit ethernet, as the majority of value systems are designed to keep costs for both the manufacturer and the retail point as low as possible. However, given this is a 2x system and most modern hard drives, even at the most domestic quality, can output between 150 and 160 megabytes per second, that means that your external connection on this NAS is going to be extraordinarily limited to just a maximum 109 megabytes per second.

Again, this would not bother me so much if Synology had added two network ports to the DS223J. Or perhaps considered a single 2.5 gigabit Ethernet port, or even supported extremely affordable USB to 2.5 G network adapters that you can pick up for as little as $20. However, in the case of DS223J, you only have a single gigabit network port and you have no means to upgrade it beyond that which severely limits its performance. This is further underlined when the affordability of greater than gigabit internet connectivity and fiber internet is becoming increasingly available and opens the door to the potential that your local network NAS could have a lower speed than a remotely connected Google Cloud or Dropbox.

Odd HDD/SSD Compatibility Support on the Official Synology DS223j NAS Page

This is a minor point and one that potentially may become less true over time, but the compatibility list and supported hard drive list on the official Synology pages for the DS223J is fantastically small. Synology has been in the business of producing their own branded hard drives in both enterprise and standard class for a while, and though I’m pleased to say that they have not limited hard drive support on the DS223J to their own drives, I will say that the range of third-party drives currently listed on a compatibility list is pretty disappointing.

There are only seven WD hard drives on that list, eight Seagate hard drives on that list, and (weirdly) 36 Toshiba drives. Additionally, despite hard drives currently being available in as high as 20 and 22 terabytes right now in summer 2023, the list of compatible hard drives at launch for the DS223J only go up to 14 terabytes. The more technically aware will be able to overlook this, and Synology may even improve this list of supported and compatible hard drives as time goes on, but less experienced users or those that follow the compatibility listings strictly will possibly miss out on some potentially better and/or higher performing drive media.

Lack of the Popular, Modern AAA Features on the DS223j

Although a large percentage of Synology DSM features and services are possible on the Synology DS223J, it has to be said that not all of the most popular Synology services are possible on the DS223J and a number of their big AAA class applications are completely missing from this device. Now, this is understandable given the more modest hardware specifications of the Synology DS223j and some things simply will not run on a Realtek ARM-based NAS with just one gigabyte of memory, but there will be some users who are choosing a Synology NAS because of the great things they’ve heard about what the software can do and then find out that this affordable system can’t actually do some of them. Features such as Synology Active Backup, a fantastic multi-site and multi-tiered single portal backup tool that a lot of business users consider worth the price of admission to many Synology NAS systems.

Likewise, applications such as Synology Virtual Machine Manager, which allows you to deploy VMs, are not possible on this system and although this is quite an ambitious service, it’s simply not possible on this hardware spec. Finally, there are popular third-party services such as Plex Media Server, which are not possible natively on this system on the day of launch and even if they are, they’re not going to be able to convert 4K media as needed. Finally, you have some of the more exciting innovations in DSM 7.2 that have been boasted about that are just not available here due to hardware constraints, such as immutable backups via Write Once Read Many support and Synology’s recent edition of encrypted volumes. Neither of these great add-ons to DSM 7.2 are possible on the DS223J.

The Synology DS223j NAS Lacks Most/All Storage Upgradability and Scalability

Although I already touched on some of the low glass ceiling design choices on the DS223j and its memory, this is particularly apparent when you look at the storage scalability of the DS223J. For a start, unlike a lot of the other Synology DiskStation devices, the DS223J does not have any kind of expansion port and therefore cannot increase its storage beyond two hard drives. Now two hard drives still sound like a decent amount of storage, right? Well, do factor in that as soon as you introduce a sufficient RAID safety net, you are actually only going to really have one hard drive of storage and when that’s full you will have to go down the road of replacing both drives for larger drives in a RAID one or start looking at getting a new Synology to migrate towards. Equally, the system does not support hot-swapping (the ability to remove and add a new drive to repair a degraded RAID state without powering the device down) which, although hardly a day-to-day necessity, does lack some of the convenience of other DiskStation devices that support this feature.

Finally, talking of features that other devices in the Synology DiskStation family support that are absent here, the DS223J lacks any M.2 NVMe slots. Now on the face of it, this is not a big deal as practically no value or J series Synology NASs have ever supported M.2 bays, for caching or storage pools. However, once you look into the fact that other Synology 2-bay NAS features M.2 bays alongside the main storage bays AND support expansions, AND support hot-swapping – for as little as $100 to $150 more, well, it’s also improving upon the baseline hardware so you can access the full scope of DSM 7.2 and its features, it’s important to note that the DS223J is affordable for a reason and lacks a lot of the expandability, upgradability, and scalability of other devices in the DiskStation family.

Synology DS223j NAS Review Conclusion

Overall, in this analogy, you get what you pay for with the DS223J NAS. Synology is not pretending that this is some kind of powerhouse system and is quite clear in all of their advertising and data sheets that this is a system designed for efficiency and as an entry point into DSM. In that mission, it 100% succeeds and I don’t think anyone could accuse Synology of mis-selling this system as anything more than that. However, it’s easy to imagine that a lot of users, who have been researching this purchase and looking exclusively at the brand and software, rather than any hardware restrictions or more affordable systems, might stumble and buy this system with expectations that are far beyond its capabilities. To those users, the user experience from day one will always feel a little lacking. Therefore, it’s important to view the Synology DS223J in the correct context of its design and target market. So, if you’re looking for the best possible entry point into the world of Synology and DSM, at a price point that won’t break the bank, and you have low to middle expectations and demands of the software, I can certainly recommend this NAS to you. For everyone else, I recommend you shell out a few extra dollars and opt for a plus series model.

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