Straightforward, fully featured, whisper quiet, reasonable price

Modest system specs means it's just a little slow; needs a separate add on for 2.5" drives

I'd never even heard of an NAS until recently and it sounded like its own pocket dimension of terminologies, caveats, and so forth. I knew I wanted a pair of drives for cold storage with a RAID-1 or equivalent (I went with SHR), bit the bullet with this unit, and setup was as straightforward as it possibly could've been; physical installation, setup in a browser, basic configuration, and create an NFS folder so I can transfer files hassle-free. You do need a reasonable degree of familiarity with computers, but I'd say that if you can port forward, you can figure out this device. Absolutely recommended, at least for just storing stuff on. I don't intend to test its viability as a VM host or anything.

I upgraded from my DS220J when Memory Express had an amazing deal on the DS223J. This new 223J feels faster and more responsive when navigating the web interface. It easily handles backups of my computers, syncing folders, calDAV and video streaming via video station. I am a fan of Synology and the DSM operating system. It's powerful and extremely stable. Don't be put off by the ARM processor in this unit. It is more than enough to drive the services this NAS offers.

DSM is very powerful and easy to use, but you have to spend some time with it. You have to have an interest in learning how to use it because a NAS is not a plug and play system. It requires configuration, an understanding of the services it offers and the ability to find and configure those services. I have discovered many things over the last three years with my 220J. It is a journey and playing around with it and learning about it has been enjoyable and rewarding.

Easy setup Fast speed

HDD mounting for 2.5" drives

Set up of the ds223j was very simple and I had it up and running within 15 minutes. Although it did get hung up on loading the desktop manager software when it tried to Auto download it, so instead I just went to Synology website and downloaded the package directly from there. The amount of software add-ins available for free are excellent and offer a lot of customization and features for this price point. I put in two ssds since my use is going to be more of long-term archive storage so I didn't have to worry about a lot of excessive rewriting. The only real negative I found about this setup is the mounting for 2.5" drives is a little finicky and I had to buy third party trays to hold them in securely. I'm happy with my consistent 115 MB transfer rates now on my 1 gig Network. My old computer based NAS setup had trouble keeping those speeds up for very long.

None

I have spent over a week trying to set up the DS223j. Multiple issues, poor support, and no toll free support phone number.

Overall a very frustrating experience with the DS223j. Not impressed with Synology's support services, etc.