Good spec chassis (with good software packages too) with good hard drives, and they did the difficult bit (for me) of putting it together. Fantastic! Great service, great product, great price

We've just recently looked at the latest flagship 4-bay member of Synology's J series of DiskStation NAS units, the DS418j. Now it's the turn of the latest 2-bay unit of the family, the DiskStation DS218j to come under the spotlight.

Good overall performance; DSM OS; Whisper quiet when working

Performance drops off when dealing with encrypted files

At $169.99, the Synology DiskStation DS218j is relatively affordable, but you'll have to supply your own hard drives. However, if you populate it with a pair of 4TB drives (around $130 each) it still costs less than what you'll pay for the Promise Cloud Duo 2, and you get quite a few more features...

Very easy to install and manage; Robust apps; Stylish design; Reasonably priced

Middling file-transfer performance in testing; Does not come with hard drives

Amazing product! This little device is a powerhouse of software and hardware to enable your own personal cloud. Highly recommended.

Being my first NAS I found the set-up of various access methods not overly complicated if you have a little confidence. Was disappointed to find I could not map a network drive/folder accessed via the internet. This functionality was only available via internal home network access.

Designed for personal cloud storage, the Synology DiskStation DS218j ($169.99) is a stylish two-drive network attached storage (NAS) device that offers lots of third-party apps and a user-friendly management console. Despite its relatively affordable price, you can configure it to act as a cloud server, a media server, an IP camera surveillance station, and a full-featured backup solution with multiple RAID options. It's also easy to install and uses Synology's intuitive DiskStation Manager operating system. An App for Everything With the same sleek glossy white enclosure as the DS216j that we reviewed back in 2016, the DS218j measures 6.5 by 3.9 by 8.9 inches (HWD). It has four LED status indicators on the front for system status, drive activity, and LAN activity. Below these indicators is a power switch, and around back are two USB 3.0 ports, a gigabit LAN port, a reset button, and a power jack. Powered by a 1.3GHz dual-core processor and 512MB of DDR3 memory, the DS218j can...

The Synology DiskStation DS218j is an excellent entry-level two-bay NAS device that's supported by a bevy of management options and third-party apps.

Very easy to install and manage; Robust apps; Stylish design; Reasonably priced

Middling file-transfer performance in testing; Does not come with hard drives

Across Synology's bewildering array of models, a ‘j' suffix generally denotes a cheaper, home-orientated model. Synology describes the two-bay DS218j as ‘entry-level', but its performance is anything but. This is a two-bay NAS.

Easy to use; Great performance; Loads of apps

Some software quirks

Synology often releases its new hardware in a series of tranches, we've noticed. The initial release brings the flagship designs for those that want the latest tech, to be followed later by those represent better value for money.

Easy to use; Great performance; Loads of apps;

Some software quirks;

My photo and music collection is quite large and growing, and I wanted a better local storage solution in addition to the internal drives on several computers. I have used external hard drives for backup, but found that to be a little awkward, especially since my files are distributed across several...