Likelihood to Recommend The Synology DiskStation is well suited as a NAS solution, easy enough to mirror a Windows file server shares setup. Access to the Hyperbackup utility eliminates the need to purchase a tape backup solution. A portable USB drive can be used as the initial backup target. For air gap purposes can connect Hyperbackup to the various cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, GCP to copy backup data there. Utilizing it as a backup solution has also been great, instead of purchasing a tape solution, tapes and an offsite tape repository. Active Backup for Business is another excellent backup utility for physical servers, VMWare virtual machines, etc. Restoring files is fairly intuitive. Until Synology introduced the dual controller setup, using it as a SAN was less appropriate as there was occasional downtime when the controller had an issue but this was less important for the scenarios we were using it for. It would be more of a concern if we had used it for things that require more robust uptime requirements. Overall we are happy with the features of the Synology DiskStation.
Read full review Users who accidentally deleted databases stored in their OneDrive were not able to recover them via Microsoft backup, so I used Veeam backup for Office 365 to recover the files needed for an important project. Veeam for Office 365 is great, and it is easy to recover lost Microsoft Teams files in a meeting.
Read full review Pros Synology DiskStation offers lots of options for creating links to share files or request that some uploads files. It makes it really easy to just share a link that can have an expiration or a set number of times it is accessed. We always had enough storage on our Synology DiskStation, we never had to worry about something being too big to upload or share. Love how you can create folders that are shared and also have some that are private. This makes it so easy to have shared collaborations with coworkers or clients, but also allows you to have a private place to save things that only you need. Read full review My CFO seemed to have lost a whole year of important emails. I simply restored them to his mailbox in a matter of minutes. An employee left the company but an issue came up with a quote this person sent out. I could search his mailbox and got the quote as well as all communications from that customer. It is nice to be able to search emails in various mailboxes without disturbing the user. It is also nice to go back in time. Say they deleted those emails last month I can go back years if needed. Read full review Cons While BTRFS is a more advanced file system than ext4, it also is in a perpetual state of development, with many features not fully functional and a plethora of bugs. Synology has managed to overcome many of these limitations by placing BTRFS on top of a LVM, but there are much better file systems that Synology could have used, such as OpenZFS. DSM's built-in backup software, HyperBackup, while robust, oftentimes runs into issues. Specifically, backups can be working fine for months or years, and then suddenly the backups will fail. Sometimes these failures can be resolved, but oftentimes the backups need to be completely restarted. Fortunately, even when the backup fails, the existing backups are still accessible, it is just that new backups can not be performed. The underlying Linux OS provides significant benefits, but also adds a fair amount of complexity. Most of that complexity is wonderfully hidden by the DSM interface, but when certain problems arise, delving into the Linux command line is not out of the question. Perhaps the biggest issue with Synology DiskStation is Synology's support. The issue isn't that the support is bad, but it can be frustratingly slow when dealing with a major issue. Synology does have a very active community that is always willing to help, but nothing beats first-party support. Read full review Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 isn't 'multi geo' aware - this means we have to manually select resources to back up depending on their geo-location. Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 doesn't backup Private Channels users create in a Team - there are workarounds for this but it would be nice if this just worked. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It provides us with great ROI compared with other solutions. It is also a versatile product, having NAS and SAN product lines depending on the business requirement. Furthermore, the implementation of dual controller lines would allow us to consider it for more critical applications to supplement the more enterprise-level SAN solution. It also is a wonderful backup solution, having all the applications available after purchase of the appliance without the further need to purchase additional software or licensing.
Read full review Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 just works so well and is so easy to use. I researched multiple options for Office 365 backup and none seemed to be as easy to setup and use as Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and the pricing was very comfortable to us. I can't imagine any reason why we would change away from Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365.
Read full review Usability The Synology DiskStation is fairly easy to use, but maybe a challenge for those who not super IT savvy. With some trial and error, you can pretty much figure out how to configure the NAS the way you want it configured. I would say it is easy to use once it is set up and maintaining the device is likewise pretty straightforward as well.
Read full review The functionality is very intuitive and easy to understand how to use the product. If anything, the information presented could be a little more verbose. I feel like it is lacking in the amount of information being shared regarding the backups compared to other products like Veeam Backup and Recovery.
Read full review Support Rating Unfortunately, the one time I've had to reach out to DiskStation support, it did not go well. My NAS appliance wasn't appearing on the network, and no matter what the support team tried, they could not get it back online. Instead of offering to send me a new unit, they told me to go buy a new one - obviously, this was a disappointing response and not very eco-friendly either! Fortunately, through some internet research of my own, and some ingenuity, I figured out I could restore my NAS to factory settings by removing all the drives and resetting. Only then did I realize I had a bad disk. I had to experiment for a while to figure out which one it was. Once I had done that, though, I was able to get the latest DiskStation loaded back on, no thanks to the DiskStation support crew. If notifications were rock solid, I suspect I would have caught the bad disk before it because an OS problem, but I never received a bad-disk notification.
Read full review Even though we are a small non-profit, support has always been there for help when needed. They are responsive and knowledgeable. If there are any shortcomings from Veeam for support, it is entirely on our end. With a small IT department, we easily get backlogged with projects.
Read full review Implementation Rating Would have marked a 10 but the storage in AWS was very complicated. Would be nice to have more help/guidance connecting to external storage.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Synology DiskStation packs a punch with the latest and greatest feature set which goes above and beyond many other vendors. It allows for a turn-key solution to cover almost every use case in the SMB market leaving other vendors behind.
Read full review As I stated earlier, Veeam is a great solution that just works and isn’t super expensive like with
Rubrik ,
Cohesity etc. however it is bring your own storage. Whether that’s disk or cloud. However as a result it doesn’t have quite as many add one and features as those other products. But it does backup great.
Read full review Return on Investment It has helped us go from printing things out to file them away to going 100% digital with our files and documents because we have a secure place to save stuff. We are organized. I can't really put a value or number to how amazing this is for us, but when we deal with so many documents and files it can be so hard to keep things organized, but with Synology DiskStation, we have all our files in specific places and it helps us stay organized and definitely saves time because things are so easy to find. One negative thing has been that our Synology DiskStation relies on us either being plugged into the network in the office or having a strong internet connection at home. With the pandemic and everyone working from home, we have had "outages" where we were not able to sync our data, and things were lost and we had to start over. Read full review We use this tool to store our most sensitive Data safely where it's easy to get access while even offline mode. Streamlines our off boarding process for data retention by leveraging Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. Flexible data storage either onsite or in the cloud. Which is very cost effective. Read full review ScreenShots Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 Screenshots