Looking for a last minute gift for the geek in your family? Look no further. This is a useful “toy” that every geek will love.

A few months back, I was looking for a NAS (Network Attached Storage) for my home network to replace an aging unit that had begun experiencing problems. After researching several options, I chose the Synology Disk Station DS209. It is not the cheapest NAS on the market, but one of the most functional.

What is a NAS?

A Network Attached Storage is similar to an external hard drive, except they can connect directly to your home or office network so that they can be accessed from several computers simultaneously. For the most part, however, they are mostly small specialized servers capable of performing some tasks of common servers. Those tasks available are specific to the implementation of the device.

Synology NAS offerings

Synology offers a range of NAS devices suitable for a variety of needs, from the home user to a large corporate environment. Their NAS range from supporting a single hard drive up to 5 hard drives, though you must purchase the hard drives separately.

However, one of the biggest advantages of the Synology offerings: they all run essentially the same firmware, which they call the Disk Station Manager. This means that no matter which model you chose, it can perform the same functions as even their most expensive offering. Of course, some are more capable of some tasks than others. And the feature set is long…more on that later.

Diskstation DS209

The DS209 is in the middle of their product offerings, targeted to the home office. It supports 2 hard drives. I chose two Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB models (WD1001FALS). The total cost for the NAS and HDDs was around $500 from NewEgg.

I installed the disks and configured them to run in a RAID mirror. That means I only have a total of 1TB of space, but it allows for the loss of one drive without losing everything on the NAS.
What else does it do?

So far, I use the following features of the DS209:

• Backups: You can create your own backup schedule. I have configured mine to back up to another share on the device weekly. It is capable of backing up to an external hard drive, but I was not able to get it to recognize an old SimpleTech I had on hand. There’s also an included utility for your PC which will backup files from your machine to the Disk Station according to your specifications, called the Data Replicator.
• Dynamic DNS client: It includes built in support for several dynamic DNS services. I use DYNDNS.org. This allows you to access your diskstation remotely even via most ISPs, even if you do not have a static IP address. I have relatively slow DSL service (1.5 MBPS), but still get adequate performance remotely.
• Audio Station: A streaming music player. I use this to stream MP3 files across the web, to listen to music at work. No more carrying around an MP3 player. The streaming works well, but you have to create playlists; it cannot just play back a search result like most MP3 players.
  
• File Station: An explorer type application, to allow you to access your files over the web.
• DLNA compliant media server: For streaming music and videos to media devices. I had some trouble getting the Playstation 3 to connect to it, but it turns out it was caused by a problem with the wireless router I have.
• Photo Station: A photo sharing package, but this is fairly inadequate when compared with the photo sharing sites available today.
• Users: Though it can integrate with ADS, it also has built-in, stand alone user security. One drawback is that mapped shares in Vista Home will not retain user credentials. This is more a limitation of Windows than the NAS, though, and is easily resolved with a startup script to map the drives.
• USB devices: It supports some USB hard drives and printers. So far, I have only hooked up a USB UPS, and the built in software will monitor the status and shut down under a low battery.

Are there other features?

I’ve only broken the surface of what the device can do. It has a Download Station useful for torrents and a Surveillance Station for managing IP cameras. The company also offers free downloadable adds ons, including a Mail Server. If that’s not enough, the box itself runs a version of Linux, and is capable of running a PHP server and MySQL. It has been tested to run a variety of PHP applications. As it runs Linux, it should be moddable, to some extent.

Overall

This is a great NAS overall. Performance is great, The built in applications may be somewhat limited, but they are more than sufficient for the average home user. The biggest quirk is that most functions are based on a single share on the device. You must use special shares it creates in order for some applications to function, like music and photos. The backups and user security can only be configured at the top level shares. But this is a small drawback.

All in all, this is a must have for any home or home office network. Pick up one for the geek in your family..even if that geek is you.

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