So, I’ve been fiddling around with NAS setups for a while now, and the latest thing I got my hands on was these two Synology boxes – the DS423 and the DS423+. They look pretty similar, both having 4 bays for your hard drives, but there are some key differences. I figured I’d jot down my experience for anyone else who’s scratching their heads over these two.
First off, I grabbed the DS423, thinking it might be enough for my needs. I mean, it’s got four bays, supports the Btrfs file system, which I heard is pretty neat. I loaded it up with some 2TB Seagate drives I had lying around. Setting it up was a breeze, I gotta say. The Synology DiskStation Manager, or DSM as they call it, is pretty user-friendly. I got it running, did some noise tests with a couple of microphones, and it was surprisingly quiet.
But then, I started thinking, “What if I need a bit more oomph?” That’s where the DS423+ came in. The main thing that caught my eye was that it had an Intel Celeron processor instead of whatever was in the DS423, and it also had these slots for M.2 SSDs. I thought, “Hey, maybe I could use those for caching and speed things up a bit.” Plus, it came with 2GB of RAM, which seemed decent.
So, I got my hands on the DS423+ and started playing around with it. I transferred all my data over, which took a while, but that’s expected with a ton of files. I popped in a couple of SSDs into those M.2 slots and set them up for caching. Honestly, I was hoping for a bigger difference in speed, but it wasn’t like night and day or anything. It was a bit faster, sure, but not mind-blowing.
I did a bunch of tests, moving files around, backing stuff up, you know, the usual NAS stuff. The DS423+ did feel a bit snappier, I’ll give it that. The extra RAM and the Celeron processor probably helped there. But was it worth the extra cash? That’s a tough one.
In the end, I decided to stick with the DS423+ for my main setup. It just felt a bit more future-proof, and those M.2 slots gave me some flexibility. But here’s the thing – if you’re on a budget or you don’t think you’ll be pushing your NAS to its limits, the DS423 is still a solid choice. It does what it’s supposed to do, and it does it well. I ended up using the DS423 as a backup for my backup, which is probably overkill, but hey, better safe than sorry, right?
Here’s the bottom line:
- DS423: Good for basic NAS stuff, quiet, easy to set up.
- DS423+: A bit faster, has M.2 slots for caching, feels more powerful.
It really comes down to what you need and how much you’re willing to spend. Both are good in my book, but for me, the DS423+ just edged it out.