- Rackmount - Minimal dept (works with shallow racks) - Good cooling - Possibility of 2 PSU - Possibility of extra disks units *. - SSH is available for advanced system admin**. *Read well on Synology website if you are planning to use it. ** DSM is NOT a regular linux release, so make SURE you know what you are doing. Refer to the documentation and community forum to learn more.
Straightforward rack install. Took about an hour with the optional brackets (you need those; they are not optional). First time using Synology. It is even better than I expected. The machine is largely quiet (see cons). I got Docker working relatively quickly and was able to host containers that I could easily access from another machine w/o issue.
Installing and setting up the RX418 was very easy. It installed into the rack just like any other component with the included parts. From there it was plugging in the power, connecting it to my RX820+ with the included eSATA cable, and installing the hard drives. I had the RS820+ turned off while the RX418 was being connected just to be extra safe. I turned on both units and logged onto the DSM of the RX820+ from a computer. While in the DSM I saw that the RX418 along with the hard drives had been discovered. One may treat the hard drives as if they were on the host machine. I decided create a storage pool with the disks in the RX418. If the host system (my RS820+ in my case) is connected to a UPS then it handles shutting down the RX418. (It's possible to configure the DSM such that alerts from the UPS are passed onto other machines on the network. I was using this because I had two Synology NASs, one which was replaced by the RX418, but there was only one USB connection to the UPS. This feature let me shut down the second NAS safely. Go to Control Panel -> Hardware & Power -> UPS. It might be placed differently depending on which version of the DSM you are running but at there bottom there is a button labelled "Device Information" to get details about the UPS. Above that there is a checkbox for "Enable network UPS server". To send notices to other Synology devices, I don't know about other brands, ensure that it is enabled, and click on the button below labelled "Permitted Synology NAS Devices" which will let you enter the IP addresses of any NASs you wish to shut down at the same time as the one you are logged onto.