Question 1

I see it's been asked before, but not answered, has anyone actually tried this with the 6tb drives?

Accepted Answer

Nope to 6TB. Yes to 4TB with success. I have set up a dozen Synologies of assorted size and vintage. I always adhere to the harddrive compatability information from Synology on their support site and reccommend others do as well.  I would provide the link but am blocked by newegg's QA app.

synology dot com slash en-us slash compatibility slash hd

Good luck.

Question 2

Is it really worth the price?  Aside from being easier to set up, what does it do that a FreeNAS box doesn't?

Accepted Answer

When I decided to buy this I priced out building a box from scratch using FreeNAS and a synology box. Ultimately pricing was a wash between the two which meant I was deciding between building my own which would require a lot of work but would give me ultimate flexibility and buying a prebuilt which would require little work but be less flexible. I decided to go with the prebuilt sinology device and I have been very happy with my decision. The add-on packages that synology offers was a huge bonus and I am now using my NAS as a full server.

Question 3

Can this NAS have a VPN for remote access to database and file access?

Accepted Answer

From the DS Help file: "You can easily turn your Synology NAS into a VPN client and connect to an existing VPN (Virtual Private Network) server via PPTP, OpenVPN, or L2TP/IPSec protocols. If you have multiple VPN servers, you can also create specific VPN profiles for each server to quickly switch and connect to different VPN servers with a simple click."

Question 4

Can the DS414 be expanded should the data needs expand beyond the drive capacity, by connecting another synology device?  If so, how many devices can be chained together?

Accepted Answer

No. You need to buy a higher end Synology to have expansion capability.

This unit does however have USB ports for connecting an external drive that can be used for backing up the NAS or you can use to create an additional volume in addition to the onboard volumes.

Questions & Answers