Pros & Cons
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- Fast performance
- Expandable
- Large app catalog
- User-friendly OS
- Dual multi-gig LAN ports
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- No HDMI port
- Only supports Synology-branded M.2 SSDs
Synology DS1525+ Specs
| Bay Size | 2.5 and 3.5-inch |
| Connection Type | 2.5Gbe (2) |
| Connection Type | USB 3.2 (2) |
| External USB Hard Disk Expansion | |
| Hard Disk Configuration | SHR |
| Media Server | |
| Network Medium | Wired |
| Number of Bays | 5 |
| Printer Server | |
| Rack-mount or Standalone | Standalone |
| RAID Level | JBOD |
| RAID Level | RAID 0 |
| RAID Level | RAID 1 |
| RAID Level | RAID 10 |
| RAID Level | RAID 5 |
| RAID Level | RAID 6 |
| RAID Level | SHR |
| RAID Level | single |
| Remote Access | |
| UPnP Capable | |
| Wired Network Speed | 10/100/1000/2.5GbE |
When we reviewed Synology’s DiskStation DS1522+ a few years back, it earned high marks for its expandability, performance, and generous port selection. The new DS1525+ from Synology, a PCMag Readers' Choice award-winning brand for 14 years, also delivers speedy performance and is highly expandable. While it doesn’t offer quite as many ports as the DS1522+, it does feature a pair of 2.5GbE ports with room to easily install a 10GbE add-on port. At $799.99, it’s not cheap, and it doesn't accept third-party M.2 SSDs for caching, but it’s still a top choice for small businesses and home office users seeking a five-bay, scalable network-attached storage solution. If you have a much bigger budget and can live with one less drive bay, the Editors' Choice-winning Asustor Lockerstor 4 Gen 3 AS6804T ($1,299) offers more high-speed LAN ports, USB4 connectivity, and support for third-party SSDs.
Design: Five Bays and Plenty of Ports
The DS1525+ features a black desktop enclosure that closely resembles the DS1522+. It measures 6.5 by 9.0 by 8.7 inches (HWD) and has five front-loading lockable drive bays with tool-free sleds that will hold 2.5-inch SATA solid-state drives and 3.5-inch SATA hard drives. A series of small LEDs to the right of the bays indicates system status and drive activity. Below the LEDs are a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port and a power button.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The rear panel is home to a second USB 3.2 port, a pair of 2.5GbE LAN ports, a pair of USB-C expansion ports, two 92mm cooling fans, a reset button, and a power port. Here you’ll also find a removable panel that covers a network upgrade slot for use with an optional 10GbE PCIe LAN card. The bottom of the enclosure has two M.2 slots that will accommodate optional Synology-branded SSD drives for fast caching and storage. (You can't use third-party SSDs in this slot unless you're moving some that are already configured from another Synology system.)
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The DS15125+ features a 2.2GHz quad-core AMD Ryzen V1500B CPU and 8GB of DDR4 RAM, which can be upgraded to 32GB by using two 16GB modules. It can be populated with five 20TB drives for a maximum internal capacity of 100TB. As is the case with the DS425+, this NAS only supported Synology-branded drives at launch, but now it accepts third-party 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives, with the Synology-branded restriction limited to M.2 drives. You can add up to 10 more drive bays for a total of 300TB of raw storage using two Synology DX525 expansion units.
Software: Going Beyond Mere File Storage
The DS1525+ uses Synology’s DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system, which makes it easy to configure and manage the NAS. It offers a Windows-like desktop interface that is populated with tiles labeled Package Center, Control Panel, File Station, and DSM Help. The Package Center tile opens a screen where you can view and download more than 100 apps that can be used to deploy the DS1525+ as a surveillance center, a backup and mail server, a cloud server, a media server, and more.
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(Credit: Synology)Tap the Control Panel tile to open a screen where you can create shared folders and user groups, configure network settings and indexing services, and configure firewall settings. The File Station tile opens a screen where you can upload, download, move, and delete files, while the DSM Help tile gives you access to help files and tutorials.
(Credit: Synology)Tapping the Main Menu tile at the top of the screen opens a screen with the above-mentioned tiles as well as a Storage Manager tile, which lets you organize and monitor storage drives, check drive health, and create storage pools. There’s also a Search tile that allows you to search for applications and files, as well as a Resource Monitor tile that displays CPU and memory usage, network traffic, and volume information.
Setup and Performance: Respectable Speed
Using the DSM operating system and the find.synology.com web utility, the DS1525+ is easy to install and configure. To test it, I started by installing four Synology 4TB drives that the company sent along for testing, connected the device to a 2.5GbE switch, connected my desktop PC to the switch, and powered up the NAS. I typed http://find.synology.com into my web browser, and the NAS was immediately discovered. I tapped Next, then Install to download the DSM operating system. I created a username and a password and then created a storage pool and volume when prompted. I configured the NAS for SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) using the Btrfs file system, and after a 6-hour drive optimization period, I was ready for testing.
The DS1525+ turned in respectable scores on our file transfer tests, where we move a 4.9GB folder containing a mix of music, video, photo, and office document files back and forth between the NAS and the desktop PC to measure NAS read and write performance.
Its scores of 283MBps on the write test and 281MBps on the read test were comparable with those of the Asustor AS6804T and the ZimaCube Pro, both of which scored 283Mbps on the write and read tests. Meanwhile, the QNAP TS-432X-4G scored 245MBps on the write test and 272MBps on the read test.