Conclusions

I’m getting pretty fed up of giving Synology high marks for their products, but they keep making NAS drives that are pretty hard to score down.

In terms of hardware, the DS212j is nothing incredible.  Most devices of this class will have the same, if not better, processor speeds and RAM.  What wins me over (as always) is the DSM interface that comes part and parcel with Synology drives.

It’s just so hard to say anything bad about it.  It’s fluid, intuitive, easy to use, rock solid and quite frankly the best NAS interface available to home and small office users.

It would have been nice to see an eSATA or USB3 port on the back of the DS212j, these are becoming industry standard connections for home users these days, so being stuck with USB2 speeds is a bit of a drag.

Other than this small gripe, the DS212j is a great drive for home or small office users, I’d have no problems recommending it to friends and family who were looking to centralise their storage.