The new Synology network attached storage (NAS) devices are being announced now, and I have had the 925+ here for a couple of weeks for this review. We will look at some of the big changes coming this refresh.
The new DS925+ is similar in design and dimensions to the legacy DS923+ model. It measures 166 x 199 x 223 mm, weighing 2.25 kg.
A few things have changed with this new model.
First, a USB-C port replaces the eSATA as an expansion port, allowing you to add more drives with an external expansion unit. Despite the port being available for this expansion, it can’t be used for other USB-C functionality. For this we continue to rely on two USB 3.2 type A ports, one in the front and one in the back of the NAS. These ports are useful for things like external storage for quick backups or file transfer or connecting other peripherals—in my case I have a UPS USB cable connected to the port in the back, so the NAS can perform a controlled shutdown in case of an extended power cut. These ports can be disabled if your security requirements mandate it, preventing data extraction.
The next change is in the networking system. The DS925+ has two RJ45 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, an upgrade from the DS923+'s two RJ45 1Gb Ethernet ports. You can still configure these individually, as failover options or use Link Aggregation (LCAP) for even more speed, depending on if are looking for performance or reliability. The 10 Gb Ethernet expansion port for the optional module is gone.
An AMD Ryzen V1500B CPU replaces the old processor. This is not a huge generation jump, as the AMD Ryzen V1500B is similar in age to the AMD Ryzen R1600 CPU used in the previous model. The main difference here is performance though.
The AMD Ryzen V1500B has four physical cores with eight threads, double the specs of the older model. It also requires significantly less energy than the AMD Ryzen R1600 to run, 16 Watt vs 25 Watt.
The new processor has double the L2 cache and supports double the PCie bandwith, with a 15.8 GB/s rate. This could come in handy for those using the available M2 NVME slots for cache. I didn’t test this for reasons that will become clear later.
The DS925+ has the same two RAM slots as before and comes with a single 4 GB RAM SODIMM. You can add more memory if wanted`, but I wish the NAS came with at least 8 GB RAM out of the box (on a single stick). For better memory access and efficiency, you should use the same amount of memory on the second slot or replace the existing RAM with two similar, but larger, SODIMM.
Having more RAM will help your DS925+ better manage larger pools and give you the ability to run more advanced features. I have been running around twenty Docker containers plus a couple of virtual machines (Linux and Windows) on a DS925+ with 16 GB RAM and 4x 8TB drives, with great performance.
The DS925+ runs the same DiskStation Manager (DSM) as previous models. In fact, I’m running this review unit with the same DSM 7.2.2-7286 as the DS923+ next to it.
All this together means the DS925+ runs a bit faster than the model it replaces. The DSM is still a pleasure to use, simple and elegant with its browser-based graphical user interface. Some of the add-on applications provided by Synology make it a lot easier to manage your personal data.
For example, because we can’t always be sure cloud-based service will be always available, I use the Active Backup for Microsoft 365 and Active Backup for Google Workspace to create backups of my Microsoft 365 account amd my family's Google Workspace accounts, respectively. I also run Cloudsync to create backups of our family’s OneDrive storage.
To make things a bit safer I use a combination of folder Snapshots with the immutable option set, so every few days important folders have a snapshot taken and set as immutable for a few weeks. This could come in handy if we ever need to restore data in case of a malware infection. Just to be on the safe side I do not have my NAS devices exposed to the Internet and all access is through a Tailscale VPN or Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnel.
In terms of storage, the DS925+ comes with four, hot-swappable drive bays that can accomodate up to four 2.5" SATA SSD or 3.5" SATA HDD, plus two M2. NVMe SSD slots for cache. You can add five storage bays with a DS525 appliance, for up to nine total bays and 180 TB of storage space. It promises up to 522 MB/s sequential read and 565 MB/s write throughput.
This allows you to start small and grow your storage as needed. The Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR) system is very flexible and allow drives of different capacities to be used in a storage pool.
This is all good but there are big storage policy changes that you need to know when planning the next steps.
A lot have been talked already about Synology’s decision to make Synology-branded storage the only drives that can be used on the new consumer models. An exception exists for existing pools being migrated to a new NAS.
Synology says “the DS925+ is engineered as a full-featured system to deliver consistent performance and reliability with Synology hard drives. It follows a carefully curated drive compatibility framework backed by over 7,0000 hours of rigorous testing.”
This is not something new in the enterprise world, with many manufacturers requiring the use of compatible or white-labelled storage drives. This reduces overall support time and costs, leading to an easier-to-manage system.
How does this work in real life?
Synology sent me a DS925+ with four 4TB Synology drives. When powered on for the first time, it installs the DSM and guides you through the basic storage pool configuration and user creation. The whole process is very fast and will take just a few minutes. According to the new policy, you can only start this way if you are using Synology drives.
In my tests I installed the Synology Virtual Machine Manager and imported one of the VMs from the old system, in this case a Windows machine I use for development. Leaving the system for a while so it can finish any all its IO operations, I then ran a series of CrystalDiskMark tests. What I saw was slightly better performance in read operations, and very large improvements in write operations.
Ok, this confirms the DS925+ can perform better than the previous DS923+ model.
What if you already have an old Synology NAS and want to migrate to the new models?
In this case there are a few options available and one of them allows you to reue your old drives. Let's check them out.
You can perform an Assistant-supported migration, which requires you to install the Migration Assistant in the new machine and let it copy all system settings, install packages and their settings, plus data across from the old NAS. For this to work you need to have storage that is the same size or larger than the old system. It also means that the new NAS storage will have to be using Synology drives as this requires a fresh install.
Another option is to manually import the settings from the old NAS and then copy your files across. Then reinstall packages, etc. This could be useful in case the new NAS has less storage space than the current one and again, the new NAS will need a fresh install, so new Synology drives.
The third option is what I have done, a drive migration. This is the one scenario that Synology allows the use of non-Synology branded drives.
For this to work you should export all current settings, move your existing drives to the new NAS in the same storage bay order and follow the instructions provided. The first time you access the new NAS it will tell you that your storage is being migrated from an older NAS and if it can be done or not—there are some restrictions between different models, but it worked between my DS923+ and the new DS925+.
If it's possible to migrate the system, it will install DSM. Once it is installed and you login for the first time, import the saved settings and make sure to update any package that needs updating. In my case the Active Backup packages needed to be "licenced" again, which was just a click for each packagge after logging into my Synology account.
The Synology Container Manager (its Docker GUI manager) package needed to be “repaired” but it took only a few minutes to do it.
In a matter of minutes I had the DS925+ running exactly like the old NAS. Note that Storage Manager will flag all non-Synology drives though with a “Migrated from another system” status and recommend those to be replaced. This means that in case of a drive failure in the future you need to swap it with a Synology-branded drive.
If you are using the M.2 NVMe cache on your old machine, it’s important you deactivate it before hard drive migration. This is because the M.2 NVMe cache stores part of the file system on SSD and this needs to be flushed to the storage pools to ensure consistency.
I found out the mandatory Synology-branded drives policy also applies to the M.2 NVMe storage. My old DS923+ had two Seagate M.2 NVMe SSD as cache and those cannot be used on the DS925+ now.
Looking at local prices I found out that a Synology Plus series 8 TB drive is around 28% more expensive than a WD Red Plus drive of same capacity. But the only Synology M.2 NVMe drive available (400GB) costs five times more than the HP M.2 NVMe 512 GB drive.
The DS925+ is a great system for small and medium businesses (SMB), and for the home enthusiast who can spend a bit more. It’s easy to manage, it has great features and packages. You can expand it and create your own on-premises cloud with it, through Synology packages (I didn’t mention document collaboration, chat, email, in this review but it's all there) or containerised applications. You can even have a hybrid storage cloud solution if you add a Synology C2 subscription (a free tier is available) and the Hybrid Storage package.
But it now costs a bit more to get it up and running, unless you are migrating from an existing system. The SMB might absorb the cost because data security needs and the reliance on that data justifies the ROI. Consumers and enthusiasts on the other hand might think harder about it.
