There is an Austrian software company that makes project management software for businesses that I decided to put some stock investments into. Little did I fully realize at the time, but their stock has been on the up and up and has made me a fair amount of money at this point.
While I am no financial advisor, I feel like their success comes from the fact that they take business-grade software but make it usable by anyone, and it just works without much tinkering.
With that, this is the reason that I wish Synology would go from private to public. Synology is on a successful path with their hardware and growing by the day.
Their products are built the same whether you buy the lowest end unit or the top tier model. Moreover, they are built in such a way that anyone with a little IT background could use them and perform a complete setup.
Today, let’s take a look at their latest small business and enthusiast network-attached storage device, the DS1019+.
Jam-packed with powerful hardware and software with the ability to scale beyond its own chassis, the DS1019+ is the best-looking Synology in the current lineup, but let’s dive deeper into what makes this new NAS so attractive.
Welcome to my review of the Synology DS1019+ Network Attached Storage.
Design
As we’ve come to expect from Synology, the DS1019+ is rocking the staple black powder coated metal body and takes up as little space as possible. With the largest dimension of 8 inches, the DS1019+ plays with the big boys but doesn’t need much space to do so.
The 5-Bay network-attached storage is a scalable powerhouse by offering the possibility of not only its own five hard drive bays but also still offering two individual NVMe SSD slots. Tucked way under the bottom of the unit, the DS1019+ allows its users to receive the benefits of large capacity hard drives without sacrificing SSD speeds.
Additionally, the DS1019+ can expand beyond its metal chassis by using the Synology DX517 expansion unit for even more storage.
Just like the rest of Synology’s lineup, the DS1019+ has a similar design to the rest. On the front of the unit, you’ll find the five hard drive bays, a USB-A 3.0 port, a power button with a power light, and individual status lights for drive activity, LAN, and unit status.
The front-facing drive bays are lockable by using the included Synology key. The locking mechanism is not a theft prevention system, but rather a way to stop drives from being quickly pulled out of the slot or accidentally opened.
On the sides of the DS1019+, you’ll find the expected Synology air vent logos.
On the back of the unit, there are two 92mm quiet cooling fans, dual-LAN ports, eSATA, a Kensington security slot, and a second USB 3.0 port.
Those previously mentioned NVMe SSD slots are accessible on the bottom of the DS1019+ and are completely toolless. Within a minute you can connect an NVMe drive and be ready to go!
When I say that the DS1019+ is a compact unit, I really mean it. While sitting on my L-shaped desk during this review, it barely takes up any room. Although I keep my DS1019+ in a bookshelf cubby, you can easily place this unit where you desire.
Speaking of which, the DS1019+ makes for an excellent companion to small business who may not have a server room; such as a coffee shop. Due to its powerful built-in cooling and low power draw, the DS1019+ can be used at a coffee shop, bar, office place or other small business that is looking to expand its IT infrastructure.
To finish the design section of the DS1019+, nothing else says it better than to say that this unit will last years to come. As with most Synology NASs, the DS1019+ is meant to last and meant to give you your full money’s worth.
Hardware Specifications
Installed in my DS1019+ are two Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS hard drives. These drives help power the impressive internal bits of the DS1019+.
A part of the Plus series, the DS1019+ is a small business or IT enthusiast NAS that will provide your enterprise-grade storage without breaking the bank.
Also installed in the DS1019+ is a Quad-core 1.5GHz CPU that can burst up to 2.3GHz. Paired with that are 2 x 4GB DDR3L memory modules. While neither component is upgradable, the DS1019+ can be upgraded beyond the two 4TB drives I have installed.
In its default configuration, the DS1019+ can accept five 14TB drives for an amazing 70TB storage capacity. If that isn’t enough, with an expansion unit, the DS1019+ can grow to 140TB. That’s a lot of files to store!
The hardware of the DS1019+ is similar to its sister products in the extensive Synology range.
You’ll find dual LAN ports that support 1GbE with Link Aggregation or Failover Support. Moreover, the 64bit hardware handles nearly every RAID configuration that you could desire with full support on media encoding, chat system, and the full suite that I will discuss later on.
With your data encrypted on your Synology (as it should be!), the DS1019+ can perform read and write speeds of an impressive 225 MB/s. No more are we sacrificing security over performance. This is extremely helpful for businesses that may be using their new Synology for a business file share server.
Functionality
Running the excellent Synology DiskStation Manager user interface, the DS1019+ is fully loaded and ready to go with every available feature that Synology offers its users. With data storage, data backup, multimedia support, and public server support, the DS1019+ is one of Synology’s “All-in-one servers”.
I talk about the Synology DSM UI in my first Synology review. While an older review, the interface and its features have not changed much. Likewise, learn more about Synology’s Surveillance System, which the DS1019+ can do too!
A unit such as this one can of, course, do many things, but I want to focus on its backup and storage capability for both small businesses and IT enthusiasts.
Featuring Active Backup, Hyper Backup, Desktop Backup, and Active Backup for Office 365 and G Suite, the DS1019+ will take any digital data you have in your life and securely store it on a local server.
The key word here is local. The DS1019+ is a no-monthly-fee, secure, data storage device that houses everything you need locally! The benefits of this are faster uploads and downloads: you manage your own content, and complete privacy.
Only you, not even Synology, knows what is stored on the DS1019+ and in a world where everyone wants to spy on one another, this is becoming harder and harder to come by. Furthermore, the DS1019+ can encrypt all of the stored data to make it even more difficult for your data to be stolen by an outsider. Secure passwords and two-factor authentications help too.
With Synology’s Btrfs storage mapping, you can also sleep well at night, knowing that your stored data is verified when written to the NAS.
Throughout my many months with the DS1019+, I’ve spent the time using it as a massive file storage device. I’ve uploaded all of my movies, TV shows, pictures, computer backups, and other personal digital data.
Over these months, nothing has not worked for me. I’ve successfully uploaded files, installed applications, have performed thousands of reads and writes and the DS1019+ didn’t even bother turning on the cooling fans because it never broke a sweat.
If you’ve ever used DiskStation Manager, you’ll feel right at home with the DS1019+, and you can get to know it before you purchase by using Synology’s online viewer.
Let me also mention that the hardware capacities are impressive. I never found a way to fully max out the potential of the DS1019+, but running business apps at my home, such as Chat, they were snappy, instant, and never felt sluggish.
My Final Thoughts
I never sugar coat reviews; there’s no reason to ever do that, and I say it how it is. So, believe me when I say that I never found a flaw with the Synology DS1019+. Actually, I’ve never found a flaw in any Synology products.
Everything worked flawlessly, and I was never stumped while navigating the DiskStation Manager. Even while installing third party apps, such as Plex, the DS1019+ was fine managing every app even with them all running at once.
Moreover, the DS1019+ is a device that you can set up and forget about. With auto-updating software and apps, it will manage itself and continue to run as you left it without a constant checkup like other business hardware.
The DS1019+ is an excellent and well built NAS that will provide full business functionality to anyone looking to expand their infrastructure. With the ability to back up your data, run a media server, or to spin up business apps such as a chatting system, the DS1019+ really is an “all-in-one server”.
You can never be disappointed with a Synology server and with this one priced well at $640 on Amazon, I would recommend it to both small businesses and IT enthusiasts any day of the week.
Buy it now:
© 2019 Justin Vendette