Specifications

There isn't enough information on the Alpine AL-212 this NAS uses, but based on past experiences, it is strong enough for a mid-centric NAS that won't have to work with many clients at the same time. 1 GB of RAM looks low for a modern NAS, and the fact that the RAM total cannot be increased upon is unfortunate; however, Synology's DSM OS utilizes very little RAM, so you probably won't feel as though the DS416 needs more. With that said, we would still prefer its RAM total to be upgradable since it would future-proof the NAS.

The four HDDs this NAS can accommodate make for up to 32 TB of storage before the HDDs are formatted or put into a RAID array for some protection against data loss. If you cannot afford to buy all HDDs at once, you can start with one to migrate to a RAID array of your choice at a later point in time. We must note here that most NAS servers now offer this option.

Synology equipped the DS416 with two Ethernet ports that can be teamed for increased network transfer speeds or more reliability. Given this NAS is for use at home or small offices where managed switches will most likely not be present, the choice to provide two Ethernet ports looks odd because the increase in speed these can provide through the Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) necessitates a compatible switch. Only semi-managed switches are compatible with dynamic LACP, and home users usually only have switches without LACP support.

Things have lately improved for Synology NAS servers when it comes to surveillance, and the DS416 is a fine example of it since it comes with two camera licenses instead of one. Two licenses still aren't the world since Asustor provides four, but two will cover the needs of most average user. The maximum number (25) of IP cameras this NAS supports is quite high. Combine that with Synology's Surveillance Center application and the DS416 becomes a fully featured Network Video Recorder (NVR).

The I/O consists of USB 3.0 ports and nothing else. An eSATA port for an expansion unit would have been nice; however, the SoC might not be strong enough to control all the storage space and HDDs, which is probably why Synology chose to omit it. If you need more space, you had better get a stronger NAS instead.

The NAS is as big as it should be for its storage capacity, which allows for two 92mm cooling fans in the rear. Synology used an external power supply, which reduces the NAS server's size since an internal PSU would require the chassis to be larger. Synology's provided warranty is two years long, a typical warranty period for most NAS products available on the market today, while the price is what it should be for a four-bay Synology NAS.