Synology 2-Bay DiskStation DS723+ (Diskless)

Product Information

Although 2x SATA drive 10G performance on the DS723+ and it’s CPU+Memory combo cannot be confirmed right now, I CAN answer the question of how the R1600 CPU and pro-class hard drives will perform over 10GbE in a four drive combo. Previously here on the NASCompares, I was fortunate enough to run ATTO tests on the DS1522+ (same R1600 CPU, but 8GB Memory and more bays) with RAID 0 and RAID 5, over four WD Red Pro 22TB Hard Drives. Now, it is worth remembering that these are NOT your common, everyday SATA hard drives and are designed to be rugged, high-performance disks (7200RPM, 512MB Cache, 10x 2.2TB platters, etc) AND the DS1522+ was populated with four drives (twice the maximum bays of the DS723+). That said, the results in both a RAID 0 and RAID 5 setup and in particular file size tests, full saturation of read transfers of 1.15GB/s was achieved, with write performance peaking at around 800-900MB/s. Now, these ARE artificial tests (so, not really representative of everyday use), but are nevertheless very compelling results for the CPU inside the DS723+ being able (with sufficient media) to sufficiently saturate the E10G22-T1-mini upgrade. More domestic/smaller scale HDDs such as the WD Red Plus or Seagate Ironwolf drives in a 2-Bay configuration of the DS723+ would likely cap at around 400-50MB/s at most.

Moving on to the underside of the Synology DS723+ you’ll find 2 x M.2 NVMes SSD slots, again designed to have plenty of ventilation to keep the drives cool during operation. For the first time Synology have finally catered for the possibility to create storage pools via these SSD drives in addtion to simply cache storage with the only caveat that you need to use Synology NVMe drives ( SNV3410-400G and SNV3410-800G). If you use non Synology SSD drives, you can only use them as cache drives. The DS723+ is the 6th generation after the DS720+, DS718+, DS716+, DS713+, and DS710+. The last two digits signify their model year.

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Synology SNV3400 series M.2 NVMe SSD drives can be installed through the built-in M.2 slots to enable SSD caching or create SSD storage pools. Drives are sold separately.

Make the most of high-performance networking and file access without taking up unnecessary space. DS723+ comes equipped with 2 bays and can scale up to 7 bays with the DX517 expansion unit as your data needs grow. Transform your Synology device into a full-featured video management system for a wide range of compatible IP cameras. I'd recommend maxing out its RAM and getting a 10GbE E10G22-T1-Mini module. The NVMe storage is always a bonus though that's not a must unless you intend to run virtual machines, such as a Windows server, within it.Surveillance Station includes 2 free licenses. Connecting more cameras and devices requires additional licenses. Reduce transfer times with the DS723+, designed to accelerate your workloads. Easily add faster networking and NVMe drives to further boost performance.

However when it comes to transcoding a 4K video to 1080p the Synology DS723+ was struggling to keep up and as seen in the metrics below CPU and Memory utilization was reaching its peak. The video was buffering and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. 1080p to 720p conversion faired better and while the CPU utilization peaked again, it hovered around 45% mark after approximately 40 seconds.Only caveat here is if you require hardware transcoding then the DS723+ might not be the best solution for you. We tested out the unit with Plex 4K Direct play Performance figures are obtained through internal testing by Synology. Actual performance may vary depending on the testing environment, usage, and configuration. See performance charts for more information.