Synology DS213 Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅29-08-12
Closer Look

Continuing with their notorious styling, Synology have reserved the use of the white plastic fascia for the budget model of NAS units. Last year’s DS212 featured exactly the same physical appearance as the new DS213. Synology have chosen to leave this aspect of the NAS untouched, personally I think this isn’t something to be criticised, if it looks great there is no need to redesign. The outer shell has a rough, matt finish – a stencil of the Synology logo is carved out on either side of the unit, underneath lies a combo of grey and black horizontal stripes. All of this results in a rather professional looking unit.


Matt steel outer construction – sleek, stylish and professional



Synology logo on either side


Moving to the front of the unit the DS213 has a glossy plastic front fascia which is removable. Running along the right edge of the unit are various LED indicators, ports and buttons. From top to bottom there are the following:

• Status LED
• LAN LED
• Disk 1 LED
• Disk 2 LED
• SD card port
• USB 2.0 port
• Reset button
• Power button


Glossy plastic front with LEDs, ports and buttons


Spinning the DS213 round to the back we see the unit still has a 90mm exhaust fan for extracting heat from the PCB and HDDs. Beneath this fan are 2x USB 3.0 ports and a RJ45 Gigabit LAN port. Also on the back panel is the AC connector and a label with the mac address and serial number should you need these details for technical requirements.


The back of DS213 with dual USB 3.0 ports


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