Synology DS923+ Review: The Best NAS Speeds to Date

If you ask me for the one gadget to safely put in the shopping cart right now before hitting that “buy” button as the year turns, the Synology DiskStation DS923+ (that’s DS923 Plus) would be it.

Among other things, it has a novelty that delivers the best NAS performance to date — if you’re willing to pay for the upgrades. And, as a 2023 model, the server is built specifically for the new year anyway.

Here’s the bottom line: If you’re looking for a robust 4-bay NAS server that gives you more than just the option to add 5 more bays via an expansion unit, the DS923+ is an excellent choice at $599 (diskless).

So drop one in that shopping cart today, and don’t forget to include the 10GbE upgrade module. It would be even better also to consider a couple of supported NVMe SSDs for the package.

Dong’s note: I first published this piece on November 16, 2022, as a preview and updated it to an in-depth review on December 30 after thorough hands-on testing.

Synology DS923+: An all-new and exciting member of the 4-bay single-expansion family

The DS923+ is part of Synology’s family of 4-bay servers that can handle up to 9 internal drives. It’s the fourth generation — the product line started with the DS916+ (2016 model year.)

The server can host four internal drives by itself, but it comes with one eSATA port to host a 5-bay DX517 expansion unit, so it has 9 bays in total, which explains the DS923+ in the model name, per Synology’s naming convention.

That general information aside, the DS923+ is unlike any of its predecessors. It’s the first within the lineage that has novelties collectively available in all those Synology released in recent years, including the latest DS1522+.

Specifically, it has two built-in NVMe M.2 slots and support for the new 10GbE upgrade module. And then it has something no existing consumer-grade Synology server has ever had: The ability to use NVMe SSDs as general storage.

Let’s check out the hardware specs to see how the DS923+ family has evolved over the years.

Synology DS923+ vs DS920+ vs DS918+ vs DS916+: Hardware specifcations

DSM 7, AMD CPU, and 10GbE upgrade module support

As you might have noticed in the table above, the new DS923+ differs from previous gens in hardware and software. Specifically:

• It runs DSM 7 right out of the box. You won’t be able to run DSM 6 on it, not that there are many reasons you want to do that.
• The new server is the first of the family and the second from Synology, besides the DS1522+, which comes with a quick slot for a 10GbE upgrade via the $150 Synology E10G22-T1-Mini module.
• It’s the first in the DS9xx family that moves from an Intel to AMD. Specifically, it runs on a Ryzen R1600 dual-core CPU.

The transition to AMD CPUs generally means better overall performance. But conventional wisdom has been that the new CPUs come at the expense of media transcoding due to the lack of built-in graphics processing unit (GPU).

In my experience, the move to AMD has proven excellent all around. Modern front-end streamers, such as the Amazon Fire TV or Google TV, have a lot of power and support apps that can transcode on the fly.

That, plus generally faster broadband and the demand for high resolutions even on mobile devices, means the need for media transcoding at the server’s hardware level has slowly become obsolete. (Transcoding reduces the data size and, therefore, the bandwidth needed when you stream to a remote device). But if you’re adamant about this feature, the DS920+ is the last server of this family to consider.

On the other hand, the new 10GbE Multi-Gig upgrade module is purely welcome news. Based on my experience with the DS1522+, it’s the must-upgrade accessory if you want to get the most out of these servers.

And finally, again, the DS923+ is also the very first server that can deliver an NVMe-based storage volume (instead of cache-only purposes) which is something I’m most excited about.

NVMe storage is excellent but not without caveats

Before the DS923+, the use of NVMe SSDs limited to caching, which is generally useless in most home applications.

The new server makes its M.2 slots more useful by allowing users to create general storage volumes from them. In other words, you can use NVMe SSDs to host shared folders and other general data, such as apps or databases.

I put this novelty to the test, and the results proved exciting and somewhat of a letdown. Let’s start with some caveats.

First, you can’t just use any NVMe SSDs.

Currently, the Synology SNV3410 (presently available in 400GB and 800GB) is the only supported drive. And it’s pretty expensive, almost doubling the cost of other same-capacity options from known storage vendors.

Secondly, you can’t use NVMe SSDs for the server’s boot volume — or its only volume. You must install the operating system on its SATA drives — those you put in the server’s drive bays — before you can manage the NVMe storage.

This is not a huge deal — you can still use the NVMe volume to store applications and different data types afterward. But if you want to use it to host the operating system to improve overall performance, that’s not possible. And that’s a bummer.

Hopefully, this will change via future firmware updates.

And finally, the NVMe volume doesn’t support hot-swapping. That means if you need to change a drive — either to rebuild a RAID or to scale up the storage space (via SHR) — you will need to turn the server off first.

Other than that, you can manage the NVMe SSDs like any other SATA drive. It’s self-explanatory via the server’s built-in Storage Manager app.

And in my trial, this volume delivers exceptional fast performance — more below.

A familiar server at heart

Like all other Synology NAS servers, DS923+ is powered by the well-known DSM operating system with a robust web-based user interface — similar to that of a native OS like Windows or macOS.

The OS by itself has lots of features and settings for home and business users alike. On top of that, it has more than hundreds of well-made Synology-approved apps that you can add to the server via the Package Center. And you can also install homemade, third-party Linux packages.

In short, the DS923+ will give you all you’d want from a NAS server, possibly more than you can imagine if you’re a first-time user. I wrote more about that in the primer piece on Synology NAS. (Please give it a read!)

Synology NAS servers: Why you’d want one

That said, the only things that make the new server different from the rest of the herd are its processing power, the number of drive bays, and storage options. This is where the support for NVMe plays a significant role in making it the fastest NAS server I’ve tested.

Synology DS923+: Unprecedentedly fast NAS performance

Before publishing this review, I used the server for over two weeks and had a good time with it.

Overall, it proved a reliable server, and it ran quietly, too. But, as mentioned above, it’s been a familiar experience. In most cases, you wouldn’t know the difference between it and, say, the DS1522+. That’s especially true if you use both servers with their stock hardware.

If you upgrade the DS923+ to 10GbE Ethernet and NVMe storage, things will be significantly different. And that’s precisely what I did.

As you will notice in the charts, thanks to the super-fast NVMe SSDs, via a 10Gbps connection, the DS923+ delivered the fastest sustained copy speeds ever seen in any consumer-grade NAS server. It was faster than many portable SSDs, which has been unheard of before this point.

But if you use it with the stock network ports, the best you’ll get is Gigabit’s ceiling sustained speed, around 100MB/s.

Overall, I’m impressed with the server’s performance and applaud its support for NVMe SSDs as storage.

Keep in mind, though, that when other servers with this feature are available — and they will be sooner or later — this type of performance will no longer be the DS923+’s exclusive offer. But until then, you’ll get a lot of well-deserved bragging rights from it.

Conclusion

As a 4-bay server, the new DiskStation DS923+ has fewer storage-related options than other larger servers, such as the 5-bay DS1522+ — for example, it has no option for RAID 6.

But thanks to the NVMe storage novelty, it’s, for now, the only consumer-grade Synology NAS server that can deliver over 1000MB/s of real-world sustained throughput speed.

If you’ve got yourself a Multi-Gig network — namely a 10GbE switch and a computer with a 10Gbps network card — the DS923+ (with upgrades) is an easy choice. It won’t seem financially easy at first, but those needing the performance will find it worth every penny.

It’s an experience that’s hard to come back from.