Synology DiskStation DS1825+ 2025, Ryzen V1500B, 8GB, Schwarz

The DS1825+ is a boring, dependable storage workhorse that grows to 18 bays and 360 TB. Buy it for the office, not for fun.

Synology claims up to 2,239 MB/s sequential reads and 1,573 MB/s writes, and for a desktop NAS that's genuinely strong. The Ryzen V1500B is a low-power embedded chip, not a speed demon, but it's built for exactly this kind of always-on file serving. What surprised us is how well the networking options scale. Built-in 2.5GbE is nice, but the fact you can drop in a 25GbE SFP28 card later means this box can grow with your team instead of becoming e-waste in two years.

The DS1825+ doesn't really compete with the Mac Studio M3 Ultra or gaming towers like the Legion Tower 5a, those are different animals entirely. The real comparison is against other Synology boxes and maybe QNAP's 8-bay lineup. Against a DS1821+, the DS1825+ gives you faster networking options and the same expansion story. If you're cross-shopping a QNAP TS-873A, the Synology wins on DSM polish and backup software, but QNAP often gives you more CPU and RAM for the money. For pure office file serving and backup, the DS1825+ is the safer, more boring choice, and boring is good here.

At around $1,150 USD diskless, this isn't cheap, but it's not outrageous for an 8-bay business NAS with this expansion ceiling. You'll spend real money on drives, but the chassis itself is a long-term investment. If you need 18 bays of raw storage without buying a rackmount server, this is one of the cleaner paths there.

The Synology DS1825+ is an 8-bay NAS built for offices that need serious storage without the server-room drama. The headline here is expandability: slap on two DX525 units and you're looking at 18 bays and up to 360 TB of raw storage. That's a lot of spreadsheets. It's diskless, so budget for drives separately, but the 2.5GbE ports and optional 10GbE or 25GbE upgrades mean this thing won't choke when the whole office hits it at once.

If you're looking for a home media server with built-in 10GbE and a beefy CPU for transcoding, this isn't it. Go grab a QNAP with more RAM and a faster processor, or just build your own TrueNAS box and save some cash.

Buy the DS1825+ if you run an office that's outgrowing smaller NAS boxes and you want something that scales to 18 bays without a rack. It's not exciting, but it's dependable, and the DSM software is still the best in the business. Skip it if you need raw compute power or built-in 10GbE without paying extra.