Synology added the DiskStation DS418 NAS to their Value series lineup last week. Now they are adding one more with the name of DS418Play. This NAS looks identical to the DS418Play, having a four-bay layout with a USB port in the front. However, the DiskStaion DS418Play is more for of a multimedia-enhanced personal cloud solution. It acts as a central hub with a capacity of over 40TB and supporting dual-channel HEVC/AVC 4K video transcoding.
Synology DS418Play Multimedia NAS Features
Inside, the DS418Play uses an Intel Celeron J3355 dual-core processor running at 2.0GHz base with a 2.5GHz burst frequency. It is capable of hardware transcoding MPEG-2 and VC-1 at a maximum resolution of 4096 x 2160 and with a max framerate of 30-fps. The NAS comes with 2GB of DDR3L memory pre-installed (single 2GB stick). However, there are two memory slots available in total. Plus, users can expand this up to 6GB by adding a 4GB stick.
The four drive bays support 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch SATA drives with up to 10TB per drive. A pair of 92 mm fans actively cool these drives while operating at only 20.5 dBA. Users can even set the speed to full-speed or opt for the cool mode or quiet mode presets.
It has dual Gigabit LAN ports which is handy for connectivity, although as a multimedia server, it should really have an HDMI port for direct connect.
Pricing and Availability
It is now available with a £408.00 retail price tag at Span.com.
