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Synology RS10613xs+ manages to tick all the right boxes in its market segment. Support for both SAS and SATA disks ensures compatibility with the requirements of a wide variety of SMBs and SMEs. Given Synology's commitment to the this lineup, SMBs looking for enterprise features in their storage server would do little wrong in going with Synology's xs+ series for the perfect mid-point between a NAS and a SAN.

The DiskStation DS214se is Synology's economical two-bay NAS with the capability to host, share, and protect data and is optimized to be an personal NAS server running the ever incomparable DiskStation Manager (DSM). Overall for a base model NAS with a huge featureset, we were quite impressed with the DS214Se for the price.

The RS214 is crammed with features and optional add-ons befitting a NAS of greater size and price. The RS214's focus on features ensures that smaller office environments do not lack a wide array of bells and whistles found in larger workplaces

"The RackStation RS10613xs+ is Synology’s most robust offering with capacity ranging up to 424TB and the ability to offer 2,000MB/s throughput and 400,000 IOPS at the top end via SSD caching and aggregated 10GbE interfaces. The key strength of the RS10613xs+, however, is to drive convergence of NAS and SAN capabilities by unifying file-level NAS storage with block-level SAN functions. Synology offers excellent support with VMware ESXi environments, offering extensive VAAI support to offload file-system requests into the RackStation instead of at the host system level. As with all other Synology offerings, the RS10613xs+ runs DiskStation Manager to simplify management and offer a easy to use interface that ranks near the top in both consumer and enterprise markets with extensive app support."

Synology is the clear PCMag Business Choice Award winner for server/NAS systems for small business. The company received the highest ratings in overall satisfaction (8.7), satisfaction with reliability (9.0), value (8.6), and likelihood to recommend (8.8). Impressively, among the other four companies focusing on small businesses, Western Digital's value rating (8.2) was the only rating that was less than half a point lower than Synology's.

With the DiskStation DS1513+ Synology has released another well-polished, mature system with plenty of room for growth. Combine this with the ever-improving DSM 4.3 and you have a machine capable of numerous functions including file management, backup, multimedia control, productivity, security and surveillance via add-ons through the Synology Package Center.

"To wrap things up, Synology makes a very good product that has features beyond the apparent price point that each one is marketed at. For the DS1513+ this is even more evident as you have some excellent security and availability options without breaking the bank (relatively). With its combination of price, performance, flexibility and ease of use we are awarding the Synology DS1513+ our Gold Key Award and Must Have for the Small to Medium Business Crowd."

"The numbers speak for themselves: The DS213+ is the new reigning champ for performance. While the hardware is robust, the [software] options offered to the community at large are breathtaking."

"Synology again managed to impress me with their product. To sum up, the DS713+ offers great performance and reliability, and comes with a massive list of features. The DS713+ is a great choice if you need a strong NAS with the option to upgrade its storage capacity later on."

"Synology manages to hit yet another home run in the 8-bay SMB / SOHO NAS space. They are miles ahead of the competition in almost all respects. It is simply the most reliable NAS that I have encountered. All RAID expansions and rebuilds complete without issues, performance is solid and consistent, and the DSM interface is a joy to use."

"This model is the fastest NAS server that I have come across. The intuitive DSM interface is simple enough for the beginner to use yet powerful and customizable for the advanced user. The installation of software aka packages allows the Synology DS713+ do lots of heavy lifting. The Synology package center offers apps ranging from multimedia control, file management, backup, productivity, security and surveillance. It has the ability to transfer files at lightning fast speeds while performing these other multiple functions."

Synology further distanced itself from the competition in the standalone NAS market this year. Respondents gave the company an excellent overall satisfaction rating of 9.2, up from 2012's 8.7. Overall reliability improved from 9.0 to 9.4 and likelihood to recommend went from 8.9 to 9.2. In addition, Synology was the only NAS provider to receive ratings of 9.0 or above for satisfaction as a file server, for storing photos, music, videos, and for backing up home computers. The competition has its work cut out

The Synology DX513 is a great add-on product and one that gives more options for expansion and performance than it might seem on the surface. We were and are quite happy with the DX513 that we added to our Lab Storage and can see where the Synology Eco System would fit into many business models quite well. With its combination of quality, ease of use and performance we are happy to award the DX513 from Synology with our Gold Key Award.

The Synology is a very good unit with lots of software available to do anything from manage ip security cameras to run your small business network and back up your files to an offsite location. A great tool in my toolbox of digital life. I find no negatives, only positives with the Synology DS 1512+ …bravo, Synology – 11 stars.

The DS1812+ offers some advanced hardware features such as dual Ethernet ports and expandability. However, it's the DSM software that places this NAS server above much of the competition.

As with other Synology units we've reviewed, configuration and setup of the DS1812+ was easy, swapping between our various configurations for testing required little effort. The DSM software continues to be the most comprehensive around in the NAS space and Synology continues to enhance both the features and usability of the system.

The Synology DS1812+ is a great 8-bay NAS unit with solid performance, easy-to-use management and consistent reliability.

This model offers a brilliant combination of broad functionality, high performance and low power consumption. It supports HDD hot-swap, and most importantly comes at a reasonable price.