Synology DS220+ 2-Bay DiskStation NAS (Diskless)

The Synology DS220+ is a 2-bay diskless NAS running Synology's DSM operating system on a dual-core processor with hardware transcoding support. In practical terms, the hardware transcoding capability is the specification that most differentiates the DS220+ from entry-level NAS units at this price point: it allows the device to serve H.264 and H.265 video streams to incompatible client devices in real time without collapsing the CPU under re-encoding load. The 2-bay architecture supports up to 40TB of raw capacity with current large-format SATA drives, and Synology Hybrid RAID or standard RAID 1 provides the drive redundancy most home and small-office users require. Network connectivity is Gigabit Ethernet, which delivers approximately 110 MB/s real-world throughput — sufficient for simultaneous multi-user file access but a bottleneck for single-client large-file transfers on a modern LAN.

The DS220+ is the right device for home offices, small creative studios, and prosumer media libraries where a centralized, always-on storage device needs to handle multiple concurrent workloads: Time Machine backups from macOS, network file shares for Windows and Linux clients, photo indexing via Synology Photos, and video streaming via Plex or Synology Video Station. DSM's package center extends the platform well beyond basic file serving — surveillance, download management, VPN hosting, and container-based applications are all within scope. The hardware is not a high-performance server; it is a reliable, low-power storage appliance that punches above its watt-count because DSM's software quality closes the gap between specification and capability.