I chose the Synology DS720+ (2-bay) as the successor to a 7-year-old DS213 that was becoming quite slow and on which the latest backup packages from Synology could no longer be installed. I mainly use the NAS server for storage and viewing of photo/video material, as a cloud server for various devices & backup server for laptops and MacBooks within our family.
Hugely doubted between the DS720+ and the DS218+, but after a lot of reading and viewing I still opted for the DS720+ because of the heavier specs and therefore (hopefully) also more future-proof. Purchased in combination with 2x SSD M2. memory which is installed at the bottom of the NAS. Synology recommends for HDs with a total < 24Tb memory, SSDs of 500Gb.
Transferring & installing the HDs to the new NAS is, as expected, very easy via the migration assistant that already starts automatically.
With this new NAS I want to be able to use the latest features and packages from Synology for which I did a lot of reading beforehand. Nice to do because I also see the design and discovering the possibilities of a NAS as a bit of a hobby ;-)
In order to use Active Backup, the volume format of the HDs must be according to btrfs while the format I had turned out to be ext4. This means that the new NAS must first be fully backed up via hyperbackup, in my case to my old NAS in hypervault. Then remove the volume of the new NAS by software and create it again in btrfs, after which the backup can be restored.
In addition, the DS720+ has 2x LAN ports. Not so much to achieve a higher speed but to create more bandwidth. To make optimal use of this, it is desirable to connect both LAN ports to a managed switch that supports LACP. For me, this was the start of an extensive search for the right switchbox, after which I also got bogged down in technical terms such as VLANs, ieee 802.3ab protocol, LAGs and Bonding when setting it up. In the end, a short explanation on YouTube about this helped me enormously and first creating a LAG of two ports on the switch turned out to be the solution, after which the correct protocol was automatically recognized when creating a Bond on the NAS.
All in all, the implementation of this DS720+ has become a very interesting and extensive search for me.
My tip for Coolblue is therefore not only to show network cables and hard disks with the accessories of a NAS server, but from now on also the managed switches that match NAS types with multiple LAN ports as well as the appropriate SSD memory when this option is enabled. a NAS type is present.
I am ultimately very satisfied with the greatly improved performance of this DS720+ and I am already looking forward to the many years of pleasure I will experience with this NAS!
Pieter Oomens | 28 November 2020
| In the version: Synology DS720+
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Automatically translated from Dutch
