Synology DiskStation DS211j NAS Review

The Software

The key to everything the DS211j does begins and ends with the DiskStation Manager (DSM) 3.0 software. Instead of a standalone application saved to a computer’s hard drive, Synology opted to use an operating system with an entirely web-based interface that can work on different browsers. You can access this by typing in the DS211j’s IP address into a browser, along with the default username and password, all of which you will find in the Quick Start Guide.

Figure 4: The Quick Start Guide can be the starting point for configuring the NAS, but you don’t always have to use it

It’s a Linux build stored on the DiskStation itself, so it’s agnostic because there is no actual OS installation on any computers. The web-based user interface looks identical in PCs, Macs and Linux, as it’s been optimized to work with multiple browsers. Synology recommends Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome, whereas others not on that list may have display issues. Even so, it all goes through a standard HTTP protocol, so it’s entirely possible that non-mainstream browsers may still display everything normally anyway.

DSM 3.1 has been simplified to a level that uses visual icons and aids, while also allowing for multitasking. You can have multiple windows open within the interface to set up or configure whatever you like, but the level of customization and multitasking doesn’t end there, which we will delve into further.

Upon login, the Quick Start welcome screen gives you four options. You can set up a volume and create a shared folder, create new users and assign them privileges as the admin, access files on your DS211j and discover more applications.

That being said, the sheer number of features within these four options is quite extensive. We simply can’t go through all of them in great detail, but we can outline the ones that are the most practical. These are just the four basic starters — the Control Panel offers the full gamut of features this NAS carries, of which there are many.