Synology DS923+ vs DS423+ vs DS920+ NAS Comparison

Please explain, why would anyone need to transcode video? Every player, every stick or tv plays everything you throw at them, why loose quality and resources for streaming? This is for in-home use only question.

I have been out of the loop for a couple of years and notice it's still the same with Synology. You get a nice looking box for way too much money with everything agonizingly capped. I have 3 and I am fairly pleased with them (they do the job) but them being so cheap and scarce on EVERYTHING remains hard to swallow. I would recommend anyone considering a NAS to look further. It's just too insulting what they're playing hardware-wise, they're yerking the consumer around.

only half the head but still the YT controls over the tech data when stopping the video to read them...

It would be great if in some DSM update M.2 can be used with another models, companies, not just from Synology. That is insane... just from Synology and limit of their storage. If they make some upgrade like as motherboard can use different memories...not just from synology.

Hi, I bought DS923 and just to say for info that everything is running great, very smooth. I made upgrade to 32GB ram, 2x4TB WD RED (personal files) , 1x 8TB RED (Plex), 1TB SSD (Business, VM, etc) and M.2 256GB cashe. I use Plex with OpenVPN and it runs very nice. Very different if you use it without OpenVPN... and If there are 4K movies in some cases, not that often, but there is a client that can handle it. At the end I am very satisfied with DS923+ from the business side (Backup, security, Snapshot, Virtual machine, etc.) and from a personal side (Photos, Plex, etc.). In the beginning I thought that I will have some problems but I organised everything how will be in use and now I am satisfied. 👍

Why I dont recommend synology if you're a linux user - you cant do basic things like give ssh keys for use with SCP unless you make every server_user in admin group - what idiotic snot at synology came up with that???? sure, you can use rsync and scp to their respective shares, all good - BUT - you have to run the trhings manually because some idiot decided non admin users cant ssh in - to setup keys...... or do synology think its more secure by allowing every server including remotes, to be added as an administrator!

Great video. How would the DS918+ compare with these? I know it's older but the reason I'm asking is that it's become available refurbished from Synology at a very decent looking price.

jus some help, if I am only interested in running PLEX, from the presentation, the 423 sound like the better unit. Even if i am using a Samsung that the PLEX app is built into the TV. would this be correct ?

Just curious how to compare the performance of different CPUs? It seems that the new version have less cores but have higher frequency. How to tell the new one is a big jump?

I paid $475 for the DS923+ brand new on Amazon 😂

I'm pretty sure that 923+ is the only one that has Docker.

i have buffering with the 423+ in plex when transcoding 4k hdr movies with tone mapping transcoding enabled.... :/

Useful info, thanks. As a photographer with half a million image files, I’m currently using a DS920 with 40TB to store them securely. However, the move to 10Gb with the 923 will speed up the system when editing in Lightroom plus the memory expansion will help I’m sure. But I’m not sure whether your points concerning the lack of integrated graphics on the 923 is relevant in the case of Lightroom image storage and editing rather than the video streams case. Any info/suggestions on this?

I have a much older DS1019+ with 5 bays and 2 NVME slots. A couple of things are common. If you are only going to use the NVME as cache then 2x256GB NVME is big enough. I use Raid 1 on my cache. I bought 2 1TB NVME but the Synology never seems to need more than 256GB. I can have different size drives in my DS1019+ but the amount of storage is roughly equal to 4 smallest drives of the 5. In the case in the video it would be the 3 smallest drives of the 4. I like the storage pool idea that mine doesn't have, I would probably use it because of my big 1TB NVME flashes. Being able to transcode is handy but I have a Ryzen 9 CPU and an Intel I9 with an older GTX1080. The internal AMD graphics seem to encode just a hair faster than the GTX1080. It helps to read and write to fast SSDs. I like synology software. I have their router two and the software looks and feels similar.

I wish there was an overlay saying which one was which, had to keep rewinding back.

Will all these drives take any Sata hdd?

Very useful - exactly what I needed. Thank you!!

423+, 920+ or stick to 918+ that's my question? Hi all, I was one of those who desperately waited to upgrade to a 923+. Since transcoding is essential, I'asking myself which option to pick. DS920+ brand-new is 699€ in DE (the rest out of stock). DS423+ (520€) downsides are very good explained in the video. Both options technically are not what I expected. So wait for the DS925+ and stick to the DS918+?

I recently bought a DS1522+ and did not realize it had an AMD chip. Most of my 4K video also has 1080p versions. How likely is it that using devices like tablets and phones, we are going to see some lag, and should I consider looking at one of the two Celeron based units as an additional device to stream from.

I'm in the process of getting a new NAS. This video was very helpful to understand what to look for. Thanks!

Okay.. If not 920+, which one of these two? My use case is: Streaming remux mkv. to my home theater, back up, photo alnum stuff and a bit of surveillance.

Thanks in advance

Thanks for compare this products!

no hard drive, no 10gbe port , no nvme drive, ram to be upgrade, 600 dollars for a box, very soon we will be working in synology factory

I always had fomo for buying the 923 bc of “integrated graphics” but this video makes it clear that I don’t need it. I’d rather use client side transcoding (if ever needed) and faster file transfer any day.

Conclusion the models x23+ are total failed for Synology. Most of the devices at home are using 1GB network, so it gives you zero improvement and need to spend more money for additional card. USELESS! CPU has only 2 real core instead of 4 real cores on the previous model, a little bit faster on single thread but it is not a home PC, again BIG FAILED! If I need to expand I will go at the beginning with bigger model with 8 disks or so, to eSATA is USELESS too. Ni IGP, so advantage of the CPU when you use it for video decoding. Conclusion, get the old model and wait next models of Synology 426+ or 926+

Good luck finding the 920+. I had to buy mine from Japan for almost twice it's original release price.

I have the QNAP TS-1655 and want to know what is the most important upgrade to purchase? I run Plex from it now so I am wondering if I'd best get an add on GPU or upgrade the RAM? I was also wondering if a GPU has to be a certain kind or can this support any GPU installed? I just started following you. Great reviews! Thank you

You are a mind reader, I was struggling to understand what was the difference between these - legend.

I have a question wheter or not the 923+ is the NAS for me. I am also looking at the 423+ and QNAP TS-464. I shoot a lot of footage with my drone in MP4 format. So will the 923+ do the job for me if I play this on my PC or on my tablet?

Do drives that sit in an expansion unit perform slower than those sitting in the main unit (because of all that cabling between the units)? I.e. do expansions come with a performance hit relative to housing all your drives inside the main unit? I.e. is buying a bigger main unit up front better than counting on expanding it later (if money is not an issue)?

Ds920+ still kicks ass! Synology’s hardware still makes no sense.

Great review - BUT a wish for improvement: I don't watch whole videos actively, I often wash dishes or don't concentrate fully on the video while watching videos (that are not purely visual). And you always point on a NAS and say 'this is better than this' or 'in this case you want this'.
Now if someone listens more to the audio - he won't understand which one you refer to.

Saying '923 is better than 920' or 'in that case you want the 920' - would be a sooooo much better.

Thanks and keep up the great work.😊

Make the comparisons on graphs and show the differences in value. The waving hand is a bit boring.

Very helpful insights, thanks

I bought today a 423+ for $525 in Ukraine. Same price as the two-disk 723+. Used 720+ and 920+ are too expensive.

great review!

The AMD R1600 may have a clock speed advantage, but I wonder why they didn't look at going with something like an embedded V1605B which has 4 cores and 8 threads as well as Vega 8 graphics for the video encode/decode while maintaining a TDB between 12-25W. It would be far superior to both the R1600 and J4125 in every way.

I bought the DS923+ and installed 32GB RAM and took a WD RED 1TB SSD for the system. The main data is stored in RAID1 on 2x WD RED Plus 14TB and an 18TB WD Ultrastar as a data grave.

Photos, Plex, Docker and VMM run great and I am very satisfied.

Thanks here for the great and informative videos. Keep up the good work.✌👍

My 920+ is still going strong! I wouldn’t run any VMs on it, but it’s great for Docker containers.

Your videos are too long. You can cut it down by half and get more views

I need at least 400 mb/second for 4k video editing. Would be nice to not have to upgrade models (obviously), and I need around 30 terabytes of storage, probably more in the future. Should I go for a 4 bay or 5 bay?

If you have seedbox and connect with ftp client on synology can remote from your phone if you not are home ?

Thank you Robbie. I have had a DS 920+ for about a year. Cracking machine.

I think about the ds423+
Two questions:
1. Is it possible to use any (kind of) nvme ssd for volumes? Or only on synology nvmes?
2. Can you make a test about how much mem i can really install? Usually in this cases it is possible to add some extra memory like 8GB instead of 4GB. What do you think?
Thanks. Great video like always

Thanks!

Could you guys at NASCompares do a video about what hardware you would put inside a 4-bay Synology NAS (let's say a 924+) if you could design one?

DS423+ soldered RAM 2GB, no thanks.

Good and interesting review.
I have a DS1821+ with 32Gb RAM, 10Gb board, running DSM-7.1, and I am very satisfied.
I may be wrong, but the problem with our review when you talk about the possibility to create a Storage Pool on NVMe drives, is that you must buy the very expensive Synology branded NVMe sticks !!
Unless I have been told something wrong, you can't use third party NVMe sticks, and this is a VERY bad news !
I am not going to pay the huge extra cost just to get a synology sticker on the NVMe drives, so unless somebody finds a hack, I will look to another brand, just because of this problem artificially created by Synology... and I would prefer to stay with Synology (so hackers are welcome !)