Introduction

I would like to thank Synology for supplying the review sample.


The successor of the highly popular Synology DS920+ is here and named DS923+. The big difference is the change from Intel to AMD for the processor. The previous model used a quad-core Intel Celeron J4125 CPU with 10 W TDP, while the new one uses a dual-core AMD Ryzen R1600. Although the latter has fewer two cores, but it provides the same threads as the Intel CPU, thanks to hyper-threading support. Still, cores are more effective than threads. The R1600's base frequency is notably higher; the same goes for the turbo frequency. The main issue is that there is no iGPU in the R1600, while the J4125 comes with an Intel UHD Graphics 600. The lack of an embedded GPU is bad news for multimedia purposes, especially when heavy transcoding is required. This is a big step backwards, and you should not expect the DS923+ to be a speed demon when acting as a server and when the client asks for heavy transcoding of the multimedia that it receives. It is a shame that Synology didn't use the R1606G instead, which besides higher CPU max frequency (3.5 GHz vs. 3.1 GHz), also has Vega 3 graphics.



Another problem is the increased TDP of the AMD processor compared to the Intel Celeron. The first has a max TDP of 25 W while the latter tops at 10 W. Only a 15 W difference might not look much to you, but we have NAS servers here, which are meant to operate all around the clock, so the energy cost will be significant after some months and years. Moreover, cooling needs to be more effective, and this can affect reliability and noise output. So far, the AMD R1600 seems to lose big time to the previous generation J4125, not to mention its successor, the Celeron N5005. Let's take a look at where the AMD CPU wins big time. For starters, it supports ECC memory, which is a huge deal in a NAS server since it ensures that your data won't be affected over time, as it can happen in NAS servers using plain memory modules. Moreover, the max amount of RAM for the DS923+ is 32 GB, covering every possible usage scenario, while the DS920+ was confined to 8 GB (the fresh N5105 supports up to 16 GB of RAM).

The R1600 also supports up to two 10 GbE interfaces and up to four USB 3.1 Gen 2, and it also comes with PCIe Gen 3 Support through eight PCIe lanes, while the J4125 is restricted to PCIe Gen 2 with six lanes only. The newer N5005 also supports PCIe Gen 3 and has eight corresponding lanes. In general, for strict storage use, the R1600 offers more thanks to the ECC memory support and the higher quantity of RAM it supports, but for mixed multimedia and storage use, I would prefer Synology to go with an Intel N5005 CPU. We should not forget also that the latter is newer, released in Q1/2021, while the R1600 was released in Q2/2019. Synology might have exploited a good bargain on the R1600 CPUs.

Specifications