Synology 2-Bay DiskStation DS723+ (Diskless)

Product Information

A marquee addition on the DS723+ is the ability to use M.2 slots for storage. The downside is that you can only use Synology's SNV3410 series SSDs with the NAS. Given the power requirements and the fact that the brand didn't allow M.2 storage drives in the past as they might overheat, I understand why it's being cautious in this regard. That said, with the brand's SSDs only going up to 800GB, you are limited in the amount of storage that can be used.

Read our review on MIGRATING FROM GOOGLE WORKSPACE TO SYNOLOGY MAILPLUS if you’re actively looking for an alternative to Google. And if you missed our review on setting up Plex on a Synology NAS, head over to https://technoyard.com/2021/09/17/setting-up-a-plex-server-on-synology-nas/ which guides you all the way through. I did prepared 32 gb ddr4 Kingston (2×16 Gb), with 2 x 1Tb Samsung 980, for pool storage, 4 x 8 TB Seagate and 1 x 16 Tb Toshiba. They spend extra money to add a 2x 1Gbe NIC which the CPU does not support but that extra money is well spend for them because that way they can sell you an overpriced 10Gbe NIC afterwards. This is terrible news for Plex transcoding on Synology, big downgrade compared to Celeron iGPU on the 920+. I’m sure there are benefits for other applications and efficiency, but it’s not like the Celeron CPUs were ever overburdened for typical NAS tasks. I am still a bit confused tho. I have watched many of your vids now, and every time (and you even show it) how the ds1520+ (same nas as i have) has integrated graphics. But still, when i try to use video station, it always absolutely EATS my cpu even with hardware decoding on. I sometimes cant even watch a video without some hiccups. Do i need to activate hardware decoding somewhere else to?The same was observed playing 1080p files and there was no buffering experienced throughout. A slight spike is seen in CPU utilization initially which settles down soon after. Memory utilization continued to run unaffected. 4K to 1080p transcoding I understand that Synology have to hit an appropriate price point with their 2023 NAS devices, but for the same price one can buy a considerably more powerful QNAP. I would like to have a NAS with Synology software and more powerful hardware. I would be happy to pay more for that. Unfortunately, Synology don’t seem to offer this in their latest hardware. Synology today announced the official US availability of its model year 2023 dual-bay extension-ready NAS server, the DiskStation DS723+ -- that's DS723 Plus.

It's clear that Synology is prioritizing the use of its own HAT5300 series of hard drives on its NAS models, but for most home users eyeing the DS723+, this will not be a huge issue. And having said that, you can use a 20TB IronWolf Pro with the NAS just fine; the only caveat is that should something go wrong, the brand will not provide technical assistance. A thing to note here is that you can use one Synology SSD drive for storage and the other for cache if you so desired to make use of both features. While you can’t boot from these drives at the time of writing without first installing standard drives on the main drive bays, this is a significant step in the right direction for Synology after years of users requesting for SSD storage capability. Such absolutely pointless decisions on their part. Ah well. I should have held off longer and waited for a USB 4 storage option as this unit is a complete and utter disappointment!As a server powered by an AMD CPU, the DS723+ will outperform previous Intel-based versions. Conventional wisdom might have that will not do as well in video transcoding though that hasn't proved to be the case in my experience with the DS923+ and other AMD-based servers. Strictly Synology-approved SSDs: the Synology SNV3410 (presently available in 400GB and 800GB) is the only supported drive. Make the most of high-performance networking and file access without taking up unnecessary space. DS723+ comes equipped with 2 bays and can scale up to 7 bays with the DX517 expansion unit as your data needs grow. The DS723+ is the 6th generation after the DS720+, DS718+, DS716+, DS713+, and DS710+. The last two digits signify their model year. What if you use a NUC that has a GPU or a beefier CPU with iGPU to run Plex server on it and just mount a volume from the DS1522+ that houses all the media?