Synology 12 Bay DiskStation DS2422+ Desktop NAS (Diskless)

Pros: - 8 Bays with option to expand to max of 18 supports a lot of SMB or enthusiast use cases
- 8GB included memory is ok I suppose ;) upgrading ram is a lot easier than the 1815+ or before due to better placement of the mobo
- Ability to add NVME for cache and 10GB NICs for expansion has been sorely needed
- Same great usability of DSM
- Well-supported 3rd party package lines
- usability of basically whatever SATA drive you put in it along with any desired RAID you want to use
- Same drive trays as its predecessors
- Did I mention a lot of functionality? If you can think of it, you can probably do it with a Synology
- Ryzen CPU vs older Intels in previous units is a big difference; if you owned, say, an 1815+ or earlier you'll see a radical difference in overall performance

Cons: - Pricey, but Synology stuff is going to be; this isn't so much a con as a barrier to entry; Synology units are pretty solid and well-supported, but you need $1k for this BEFORE you buy any drives for it
- Warranty should really be for 5 years, but you get what you get
- Only a limited # of supported PCI-E NICs for the expansion bay will actually work (as of this writing), so you can't put that cheap quad 10GB SFP+ nic in and expect it to work :(

Overall Review: - 3-year warranty is OK, would be nice to have a longer one, but you can choose that at purchase time from Square, etc.
- Synology community is pretty knowledgeable, so if you're exploring what you can do with this thing, there's someone out there that's done it and documented it.
- This is my 3rd 5+ bay synology, have had great luck with them so far. As a Plex MS / backup dump / file share, can't ask for much more
- If you're going with SHR-2, do yourself a favor and throw in a hot spare anyway; your raid's only as good as the quality of your drives (I've mostly used WD Reds with these with 1x expansion unit)
- Make sure to keep these clean; fans will cool unit well, but it's easier with these units than other NAS / Servers for dust / hair to accumulate near the mobo. Get an air pump to use now and then or a can of compressed air now and then.

Pros: None

Cons: Synology customer service isn't what it used to be. When I purchased my first NAS, you could call a tech and resolve issues quickly. Now it's done via email after email after email. Sometimes tech vent and start blaming other service providers and software for Synology issues. To date, everyone a tech pointed the finger to someone else it was wrong.

Overall Review: 8yr old NAS is working fine. The new DS1821+ haven't had the opportunity to use it yet. Why: purchased eight Western Digital Red Pro 4TB drives. Thus far six have failed. That's a 75% failure rate within a 60-day period. Synology NAS drive bays 1, 4 and 7 are where the failures are occurring. Returned the two HDs 8 Jan and now I wait for DW to replace them. Hence, NAS is turned off, don't have access to data until the two HDs arrive and installed. If over the next two months the HDs continue to fail, returning DS1821+ as there has be something wrong with the drive bays. 75% failure is very high for DW HD. For example, have five 4TB DW Red plus drives in my older Synology NAS and have not had one problem (8yrs and going strong). More to follow.