Very well packed and protected against bumps the Synology came with me. In addition to the power cables and a LAN cable used instructions with even came with the delivery. All you need in the case. In general, the DS712 + is shipped without hard drives. As in the case also. In my configuration I have 2 x Western Digital 2TB hard drive WD20EARX installed. The installation was child's play. By HotSwap system you had to put the hard disk into the frame and then slide it into the NAS. So the installation was done within a few minutes.
Commissioning:
After the first power then came the surprise. You hear a beep after the start, shortly after the fan and then only low hum. It was used to from normal computers that it is slightly noisier but in which not (Later you can make the fans even quieter. You then hear hardly anything. Except it is much used. Then you hear only the click of the hard drive) .The previous concerns because of the complicated installation remained unfounded. It is downright guided through the installation. The menus have been well described and easy to understand (of course already requires a bit of computer knowledge. If you have Windows managed to install then should the Synology no problems preparing).
I have run my hard disks in RAID 1. So you have the greatest possible safety if a hard drive fails. After installing the NAS is ready for use. It would only be fine-tuning the system are made.
Power:
It is one of the fastest NAS in the market. According to product information (180.91 MB / s read, 105.59 MB / s write speed) it's about right. Of course, there are several factors to pay attention to in order to reach the value. From LAN controller up to the distance between PC and NAS. Each of the factors affecting the transfer speed. I have connected to the Synology a Mac Mini and a Macbook Pro, both devices are quite close together and are operated with a Netgear Gigabit Switch. Mostly you get to 60-70 megabytes per second. I think that's very good. Large files can be transferred very quickly.
The Synology is also used as a media server. It is no problem for the NAS to serve multiple devices and users simultaneously. One can thus simultaneously HD movies, music and data stream. Until now I did not even try to the NAS to full load. According to website 2048 users could simultaneously access it.
The NAS is otherwise used as a backup. In addition, it supports the Time Machine feature of Apple. The interior of the Time Machine is as easy as with the normal Time Machine. Only that you have to activate this before on the surface.
The Web interface is revolutionary. At the moment, the version is 3.2 and in the near future following the Version 4.0 gets even better. The interface is graphical like on a normal desktop. One can, if one adjusts the access from anywhere in the world on it.
All settings can be changed on the surface. It is self-explanatory and logical. You can personalize the interface for each user. So far I have seen no other product that has such a good surface. I have informed me before buying already at other well-known manufacturers such as QNAP. However, I say this to Synology.
CONCLUSION:
I can recommend it to everyone, only the NAS from Synology. Whether for home use or small office server. The performance is simply unbeatable at this price.
5 stars *****
