Synology DS212J Diskless System DiskStation Budget-friendly 2-bay NAS Server for Small Office and Home Use

Pros: Compact size, low power consumption, fully integrated Linux environment through your remote browser, complete documentation, application library for add ons keeps growing, excellent disk management, ability to format drives in EXT, NTFS, three USB ports, 1 in front, 2 in rear allow for connection of backup drives or printers. 1 GB ethernet connection. OS update easy and over the internet. Intuitive graphical user interface easy to navigate.
My system has been up and trouble free for 6 months connected to Windows 8, Windows 7, Mac Mountain Lion and Android Phones, PS3 and Sony HDTV. I am configured with Seagate 3TB raid 1 EXT4 and 1 External Seagate 3 TB via back USB housed in a Thermaltake Silver River 5G. The external drive is used to backup the raid 1 files. Done by creating real time (other options available) jobs.
Now, if you are a Linus pro or fairly good with Linux, then you will adapt quite easily to this box. If you are a newbie to Linux, expect to spend 1-2 weeks getting things all nice and pretty and then small amounts of time tweaking. But this is easy. After physically installing your TESTED hard drives and connecting to your network router, boot it up. Then access via your web browser. If you cannot, check your firewall, router and network settings. Make sure to download and install the helper software from the Synology website. They will locate the NAS on your network for you. Update your NAS to the latest OS version (simple and essentially automatic). After being able to connect to your NAS via your browser, it is time to split screen between your browser and the Synology User Manual (pdf). This manual is complete, easy to use, is formatted to show you exactly how things appear in the browser and is step by step and chapter. Keep notes of your settings (accounts, passwords, quotas, etc.). Set up dynamic DDNS through Synology or another such as NO-IP.org and you are connected across the internet. This unit is close to fully featured compared to the much bigger costlier beasts. If you don't go through the manual and discover all of the features and benefits, you are cheating yourself.

Cons: ARM processor limits some third party applications (no plex at this time) that are available for the Intel CPU NAS units. Does not do my wash or make my coffee.

Other Thoughts: This unit supports MAC Time Machine, streaming media photos and video and music with built in application servers. Works great with my PS3 and connected Sony HDTV. works with Windows 7 and 8 Media center to stream music, photos and supported video formats. Supports Windows 8 File Backup, but not imaging (my discs are formatted EXT4 and Windows will not write an image to a Linux formatted disk!). I use Synctoy from Microsoft to immediately backup and synchronize files with this device from my Windows machine separately from my windows 7 and 8 file backups. Takes only a second and works great. You can create your own encryption certificate within Windows (no trusted source of course, but who really cares since it is free) and install it onto the NAS for use in accessing the device remotely via HTTPS. You can encrypt the raid array and the backup disk for protection if stolen. You can backup your raid array to an external drive or the cloud through supported services. In short, there are so many features and benefits that if you take the time to learn them and set them up the unit will pretty much automate a lot of your life. I believe some of the poor reviews are the unwillingness of people to learn a Linux based computer and set up the tasks they need and want done. They should be cloud people.

Pros: I don't usually spend more money if I don't have to. I tried other NAS systems and having lost valuable data, I thought I will try a higher priced (well-reviewed) NAS like Synology.

I have not been disappointed. I've set this up as web server, NAS, download station, file storage, printer and putting this through hell and it is standing up to my tasks without a hitch.

I've put in two WD RED 2TB drives.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: I should've purchased two 4TB instead of two 2TB drives.

Pros: Easy to set up. Fast, GREAT software and features. Really easy GUI to use. Cool monitoring tools and the phone/iOS apps are nice!

Super Quiet!

Its nice for a home user (like myself), or a small business owner for multiple employees with the easy user account setup/provisioning.

Cons: White case. Eww.

I wish some of the apps were better described. Some are nice, but others are pointless. It all depends on how you will use it.

The GUI layout takes a little getting used to, but not very long. (I'm really digging here for cons)

I do wish it was a hardware RAID (not software) so I could remove the drives and read them, but that's an OK compromise for the apps and pros of this array.

Other Thoughts: It was really easy to set up with the instructions. I had a couple bad WD Red drives so it wasn't working. I thought it might be the NAS, but it was the drives.

--- IT PAYS TO SCAN YOUR DRIVES WHEN YOU GET THEM!! :) ---

I got my NAS set up and files copied over. It automatically sets the drives up in a RAID1 which is what I wanted. I set it up with Crashplan and Plex so now I'm set. Transfer speeds on a Gigabit network are about 25-35 MBps. Not bad, I didn't think. A lot faster than my old RAID 5 array and twice the capacity.

Pros: I'm really enjoying this NAS. The Synology DS212J does what I need and it does it well.

Cons: No cons so far.

Other Thoughts: I have a small Home network, do video streaming, using XBMC and it works real well. I would recommend this NAS to anyone.

Pros: Amazing Features for the money. SMB,NFS,FTP support. It is a mini-linux box rather than just a NAS.

Cons: Initial configuration assumes you have Internet/Active X access. I'd prefer just to be provided with the default IP address and configure it directly rather than going to a vendor site.

Other Thoughts: This has more features than my $2,500 NAS by NetGear. The NetGear is much better professional-grade build quality (rackmount, etc), but for home use, this is really a pretty powerful simple RAID-1 NAS.

Pros: Relatively easy
Relatively inexpensive
Many features
Good software

Cons: Underpowered to pull off some of the features

Other Thoughts: Like many I wanted to centralize and RAID my files, photo and video, and become independent from any single PC/Mac of which I have several. So I wanted also to put my iTunes library on it as well. With some minor hiccups I was able to do this. I was also able to setup to FTP which was nice. Built-in Photo app is nice in theory, but this unit is woefully underpowered to generate the required thumbnails - like taking on the order of a week to do a thousand or so photos. They say to use the PC/MAC app to do so, but is also too slow and interferes with workflow vs just putting the photos on and forgetting the Photo app. It's too bad, the Photo app would allow you to look at your stuff on any remote PC/Android/iOS device. So I had to uninstall this feature. Perhaps a higher end model wouldn't choke so badly. If I had to do it all over I'd probably get a 213+, maybe a 413

Pros: Great Value
Synology OS
Using to stream media to my WDTV without drops

Cons: Poor service through Newegg extended warranty
Slow Proc
Low Memory

Other Thoughts: I didnt have a whole ton of money to throw at a NAS solution, so I chose this box. Overall I am very happy with Synology. I wanted to put my SAB installation on this box, but it was too slow to handle it. NIC died today, tried to get service, WHAT A HASSLE. Do not buy the extended warranty on this box through Newegg. What a waste of time and money!

Pros: Very user friendly. Plug in the drives and go!
I love the 3rd party apps the best! So many options

Cons: I only wish it had a better CPU and more ram. However one could always buy a nicer model.

Pros: I am typically a pretty picky person when it comes to tech products and it has been a while since I have been blown away by a product. This is the coolest NAS ever. I feel like I have just scratched the surface of this thing in terms of what it can do for me. There seems to be a ton of features. Setup was easy and it was up and running relatively quick (minus the disk checking, which took a while). The in-browser "desktop" is awesome. If you run it in full screen, it's like you are using a real computer. There are some pretty neat management/media phone apps available for it too (even for windows phones!).

I am not one to write long reviews. I just wanted to say that this thing is awesome. You will be happy you went with Synology.

Cons: Nothing here to really complain about. I have only been toying with this for a few days...

It asks you to install Java. You can make it stop asking you and it doesn't seem to stop you from doing basic tasks in the browser.

The initial check disk operation took a pretty long time. I let it do it's thing overnight and it was ready to roll in the morning.

Pros: Still running like a champ after 8 months. Mine is configured with two 1TB Western Digital Red drives in Raid 1.

Cons: No cons at all. All four of my desktops and my three laptops access it with no trouble.

Other Thoughts: I've been reading some of the reviews on this NAS. A number of people have had problems which I can only assume is due to their lack of computer and/or networking knowledge. This NAS was a breeze to set up and works better than some more expensive ones I've used. Of course you have to expect an occasional DOA or hardware failure, but that's the nature of things electronic and mechanical. Even Rolls Royce has a service department!