The bears are proud of their IT systems, and the fact that their existing Synology DS411j boxes were getting very slow was troubling them. Synology have a very good name for their NAS OS, but some of their machines have been a little underpowered in the past. It was time for the bears to update to something that could handle their requirements with a little more élan!

The DS916+ launched recently and seemed to fit the bill. It has a four-core processor and is available with either 2 or 8Gb of memory. It allows for four drives, and looks to have sufficient horsepower to cope with the next few years of OS upgrades without too much issue.

The difference over the old DS411j was immediately noticeable. Operations that had been interminable now flash past very quickly. The new unit shows little load on CPU most of the time, and multi-tasking is something that you can take for granted - rather than avoid like the plague. The overall experience of using the NAS is transformed.

The Synology comes with a very good suite of applications covering areas such as Notes, Video, Audio and Photos as well as performing as an iTunes Server and (naturally) a file server. The speed of the DS916+ means that these all become usable and access from the outside world is limited by the speed of your connection rather being limited by the NAS box itself. If you need more than 4 hard drives worth of storage, the DX513 storage unit can be added - giving an additional five slots for drives.

The build quality of the DS916+ is a little cheaper than some older Synology boxes. The plastic body means that it is very light - but on the other hand the drives are easily installed into some very neat tool free plastic rails. You can’t lock the drives in, but then this is targeted at home users.

The bears have no hesitation in giving the DS916+ full marks. It is good value, fast and has an excellent software suite which is easy to use. The 8Gb model is only a little more expensive than the 2Gb model so it is worth future-proofing your purchase if you can.