Synology DiskStation DS1821+ NAS Review
Closer Look at the Synology DS1821+
The Synology DS1821+ is very well built and has a solid look and feel to it. The front bezel of the appliance is made from ABS plastic and so are the Hard Drive sleds. The back of the unit features two 120mm fans that help with the cooling of the hard drives. DS1821+ features an internal power supply so you do not have a “brick” power supply. To me that is a huge plus in not having to find a place to hide the brick.
The case itself is made from rolled steel sheet and matched to the color of the entire enclosure. On both sides of the case, I found a Synology cutout with mesh behind it to help with overall ventilation.
On the bottom of the device, there are few more ventilation holes for cooling. The entire appliance is supported by four rubber feet that are very wide and designed to keep DS1821+ stationery.
There arent many buttons on DS1821+. The only usable/visible button here is the power button to turn the unit on and off. There are also six micro LEDs to display the Status of the device, Any alerts, and LAN activity if any. DS1821+ also has one USB 3.0 connector in the front of the device for fast connections to external devices.
The RAM module that DS1821+ comes with can be accessed from the bottom of the case. On the right of the RAM compartment, there is a small six-pin communication port for Synology to troubleshoot if the device is sent to the RMA department.
Disassemble
The Synology DiskStation DS1821+ is built like a tank. There is no need for you to disassemble this device unless you are installing a PCIe card for faster connections. The internal skeleton of DS1821+ is made of rolled steel sheet just like the rest of the body.
Fan assembly can be removed for cleaning if you would like to clean fan blades. These 120mm brushless fans are by Y.S. Tech (KM121225LL) and is being controlled by a PWM controller. The Max Airflow that could be achieved with these fans is 61.2 and Max Static pressure of 2.3 mm-H2O at about 2000 RPM max speed.
The power supply included with DS1821+ is by Delta Electronics. It has a maximum power output of 250W and an efficiency of 80 Plus. I am a big fan of internal power supplies. There is no need to worry about the external “brick” power supply and where to place it out of the way.
To increase throughput speed on Reading and Writeing performance of the drives Synology has two NVMe slots that you can install m.2 NVMe drives for caching. Note if you only use one cache drive then you will only be able to benefit from performance increase on Reading speeds. To gain performance on both Read and Write two m.2 should be used.
Hard drive installation in DS1821+ is very easy. The hard drive case is made from ABS plastic just like the bezel and it has a self-locking mechanism that keeps hard drives secure in the bay. Synology also includes small Hard Drive Sled keys to keep drives secured in transport.
