Synology DS124 4TB NAS Review 2026

Spec sheets for NAS devices are almost universally useless for making a buying decision. They'll tell you the processor clock speed and RAM capacity, but they won't tell you whether the thing runs quietly enough to live in your home office, how long setup actually takes if you've never touched a NAS before, or whether the software ecosystem is worth a damn three years down the line. I've spent three weeks with the Synology DS124 NAS, paired with a 4TB HAT3300 drive, doing the things you'd actually do with it: backing up laptops, streaming media, running scheduled tasks, and generally poking at it to see where it holds up and where it doesn't.

The DS124 is Synology's current entry-level single-bay desktop NAS, and it sits in a slightly awkward position in the market. It's not cheap enough to be an impulse buy, and it's not powerful enough to be a serious home server. But that framing misses the point of what it actually is: a reliable, well-supported personal cloud device for someone who wants proper data redundancy and remote access without the complexity of a multi-bay setup. Whether that's worth the upper mid-range asking price is what I'm here to work out.

I tested this unit from 17 April 2026, running it continuously in a home office environment alongside a Windows 11 desktop, two MacBooks, and an Android phone. I used it for Time Machine backups, Plex media serving, photo syncing via Synology Photos, and general file storage. Three weeks is enough time to get past the honeymoon period and find the genuine friction points.

The HAT3300 4TB drive bundled in this package is Synology's own NAS-optimised hard drive, rated for 180TB per year workload and carrying a 3-year warranty. It's not the fastest drive on the market, sequential reads sit around 180MB/s, but it's designed for the 24/7 operation a NAS demands, and it's been validated by Synology for use in their enclosures. That matters more than people realise; using an off-brand drive in a Synology NAS can trigger compatibility warnings and, in some cases, limit DSM features.

One thing worth flagging upfront: with a single bay, there's no RAID redundancy here. If the drive fails, you lose your data unless you have a separate backup. Synology is clear about this in their documentation, and DSM will remind you regularly, but it's the fundamental limitation of any single-bay NAS. The DS124 is a primary storage and access device, not a self-contained backup solution. You need to treat it as one layer of a broader backup strategy, ideally following the 3-2-1 rule.

Synology Photos is bundled and it's legitimately good. It does face recognition, automatic album organisation, and mobile backup from iOS and Android. Think of it as a self-hosted Google Photos, you own the data, it lives on your hardware, and you're not paying a monthly subscription. For anyone who's been burned by Google Photos' storage policy changes or Apple's iCloud pricing, this alone might justify the purchase. The mobile app is responsive and the web interface is clean. I backed up around 12,000 photos during testing and the indexing completed overnight without any drama.

The Hybrid Share and Active Backup for Business features are more relevant for small business users, but worth mentioning. Active Backup lets you back up multiple PCs, Macs, and even virtual machines to the NAS without per-device licensing fees, which is a genuinely unusual value proposition at this price point. The DS124's single bay and 1GB RAM do limit how aggressively you can run these features simultaneously, but for a home with two or three computers, it works. I ran simultaneous Time Machine backups from two MacBooks and a Windows backup job during testing, and while the NAS slowed down noticeably, it didn't fall over.

Remote access via QuickConnect is another strong point. Synology's relay service lets you access your NAS from anywhere without port forwarding or a static IP, you just log in through Synology's portal. It's not the fastest method (direct connection via your home IP is quicker), but it works reliably and it's free. I accessed files from a 4G connection during testing and transfer speeds were acceptable for documents and photos, though streaming video over QuickConnect is a bit sluggish.

Finally, the energy efficiency deserves a mention. At under 13W peak and around 3.4W in HDD hibernation, this is a device you can leave running 24/7 without guilt. Over a year of continuous operation, you're looking at roughly 30-60kWh depending on usage patterns, at current UK electricity rates, that's a pretty modest running cost. The drive hibernation feature works well; after 20 minutes of inactivity, the drive spins down and the unit goes near-silent.

For smaller files, the kind of mixed workload you get when backing up a typical Documents folder, speeds dropped to around 60-80MB/s, which is normal for any spinning hard drive dealing with random I/O. This isn't a criticism of the DS124 specifically; it's just the physics of a 5400RPM HDD. If you need faster small-file performance, you'd want to look at a NAS that supports an SSD cache drive, which the DS124 doesn't support given it only has one bay. Worth keeping in mind.

Plex media serving worked well for 1080p content with direct play, the DS124 handled it without breaking a sweat. Hardware transcoding is where things get more complicated. The RTD1619B does support hardware transcoding, but Plex requires a Plex Pass subscription to use it, and even then, I found the DS124 could handle one or two simultaneous 1080p transcode streams before the CPU started to struggle. 4K transcoding is essentially off the table, the processor just isn't up to it. If 4K Plex transcoding is your primary use case, this isn't the right device. But for a household streaming 1080p content to a couple of devices, it's fine.

I also ran the NAS through a sustained write test, copying 200GB of mixed media files in a single session. The HAT3300 maintained consistent speeds throughout with no thermal throttling, and the enclosure stayed cool to the touch. The fan (a single 92mm unit) ramped up slightly during the sustained write but never became intrusive. DSM's resource monitor showed CPU usage peaking at around 40% during the heavy write, with RAM usage sitting at around 700MB, leaving very little headroom if you're running multiple packages simultaneously. That 1GB RAM ceiling is the DS124's most significant hardware constraint.

Drive installation is tool-free, which is a nice touch. The drive tray slides out from the front, you clip the HAT3300 in using the side rails, and it clicks back into place. The whole process took me about two minutes. The tray itself is solid plastic with metal rails, it doesn't feel like it's going to snap if you handle it a bit roughly, which matters when you're swapping drives. The SATA connector on the tray engages positively with the backplane; there's no wobble or uncertainty about whether it's seated correctly.

Thermal management is handled by that single 92mm rear fan, and Synology has tuned it well. Under normal file serving loads, it's essentially inaudible from a metre away. Synology quotes 18.2 dB(A) in hibernation mode, and that tracks with my experience, I had to put my ear close to the unit to hear it during quiet periods. Under sustained load it's more noticeable, but still quieter than most desktop hard drives running in an open case. For a home office or living room setup, noise won't be an issue.

The front panel has a single LED indicator and a power button, that's it. No drive activity light, which I found mildly annoying when trying to confirm whether a backup was still running. The rear panel has the Ethernet port, two USB 3.2 ports, the power connector, and a Kensington lock slot. It's a clean, minimal layout. The unit ships with a power brick rather than an internal PSU, which keeps the enclosure compact but adds a cable to manage. The power brick is reasonably small and doesn't block adjacent sockets on a typical UK power strip.

DSM's interface is genuinely well-designed. It uses a desktop metaphor, windows, a taskbar, a file manager, that feels intuitive if you're coming from Windows or macOS. The package centre is where you install additional apps like Plex, Synology Photos, or Active Backup, and it works like a proper app store. Installing Synology Photos took about three minutes; it was immediately accessible from the main DSM interface and the mobile app connected without any fuss. The learning curve is real, DSM has a lot of depth, but the basics are accessible within an hour.

Day-to-day operation is largely hands-off once you've set things up. Scheduled backups run in the background, DSM updates itself (with your permission), and the mobile apps handle photo syncing automatically. I did run into one friction point: configuring Time Machine on macOS requires creating a dedicated shared folder with specific permissions, and the DSM documentation for this is a bit scattered. It took me about 20 minutes of forum-reading to get it working correctly. Not a dealbreaker, but it's the kind of thing that could frustrate a less technically-confident user.

DSM's notification system is solid. You can set up email or push notifications for drive health warnings, failed login attempts, backup completion, and a dozen other events. During testing, I received a notification when I deliberately disconnected the Ethernet cable, the system flagged it within about 30 seconds. That kind of proactive monitoring is exactly what you want from a device that's supposed to be protecting your data. The DSM mobile app (DS File, DS Photo, DS Finder) are all competent, if not beautiful. They do the job.

The two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports are more useful than they might appear. You can attach an external USB drive for additional storage or as a backup destination for the NAS itself (which is how I'd recommend using it, back up the NAS to an external drive for proper redundancy). USB printers can also be shared through DSM's print server functionality, which is a handy feature if you have an older printer without network capabilities. I tested this with a USB laser printer and it worked without any driver installation on the client machines.

Platform compatibility is broad. DSM works with Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. SMB sharing works natively with Windows and macOS. Time Machine backup works out of the box with macOS. The DS File app handles mobile access. There's also WebDAV support for third-party apps, and DLNA for media streaming to smart TVs and game consoles. I tested with a PlayStation 5 and it appeared as a DLNA server immediately, streaming 1080p video worked without any configuration. Synology also maintains a compatibility list on their website covering drives, expansion units, and network adapters, which is worth checking before you buy additional hardware.

Self-hosted photo library: Synology Photos is the killer app for households drowning in smartphone photos. If you're paying for Google Photos or iCloud storage and you're uncomfortable with your photos living on someone else's servers, the DS124 gives you a credible alternative. The face recognition and automatic organisation work well, and the mobile backup is genuinely set-and-forget. Four terabytes holds a lot of photos, roughly 500,000 average-sized JPEGs, so you're unlikely to fill it quickly.

Home media server: Plex works well on the DS124 for 1080p direct play. If your TV, streaming stick, or media player can direct-play the file format (which most modern devices can for common formats like H.264 MKV), the DS124 handles it easily. The caveat is transcoding, if you need the NAS to convert video on the fly for an older device, you'll hit the processor's limits quickly. Know your use case before buying for this purpose.

Small home office file server: For a freelancer or small home business needing a central place to store and access files, including remotely via QuickConnect, the DS124 is a solid choice. The 4TB capacity is generous for document storage, and DSM's user management lets you create separate accounts with different permissions if you share the device with a partner or colleague. It's not a replacement for a proper business NAS with RAID redundancy, but for a sole trader or small team, it's practical and well-priced.

The honest value question is whether DSM justifies the Synology premium over cheaper alternatives. I think it does, but with caveats. If you're going to use the NAS purely as a dumb file share, just a network drive, then a cheaper QNAP or even a WD My Cloud Home will do the job for less money. But if you want the full ecosystem, Photos, Active Backup, proper remote access, a software platform that gets regular updates and security patches, Synology's software advantage is real and measurable. DSM 7.2 is genuinely better than anything QNAP ships at this price point, and the update cadence is more reliable.

Running costs are worth factoring in. At roughly 3-13W depending on load, the DS124 costs very little to run continuously. Over three years (the drive warranty period), you're looking at a modest electricity cost, significantly less than a cloud storage subscription that would give you equivalent capacity. If you're currently paying for Google One, iCloud, or Dropbox storage, the DS124 can pay for itself in subscription savings within a couple of years, depending on your current plan. That's a legitimate part of the value calculation, not just marketing spin.

Where the value proposition weakens is if you need more than 4TB of storage or want drive redundancy. At that point, you're looking at the DS223 or DS224+ (two-bay units), which cost more but give you RAID 1 mirroring and the ability to expand. The DS124 is the right choice if 4TB is sufficient and you're comfortable managing your own backup strategy. It's the wrong choice if you want the NAS itself to protect you from drive failure, single bay means single point of failure, full stop.

The QNAP TS-133 runs QTS, QNAP's operating system, which has more raw features than DSM but is noticeably less polished. QNAP has also had a rougher security track record in recent years, with several high-profile ransomware incidents targeting QTS vulnerabilities. That's not a reason to avoid QNAP entirely, but it's a factor worth weighing. The TS-133 is typically cheaper than the DS124, which matters if budget is tight. But for most home users, DSM's polish and Synology's security response record tip the balance toward the DS124.

The WD My Cloud Home is a fundamentally different product, it's a consumer cloud device rather than a proper NAS. It's easier to set up and cheaper to buy, but the software is far more limited, there's no proper package ecosystem, and WD's track record for long-term software support is patchy. If you want something that just works as a basic network drive and photo backup, the WD is fine. If you want the flexibility to run Plex, Active Backup, and a self-hosted photo library, the DS124 is in a different league.

The hardware limitations are real. One gigabit Ethernet, 1GB of non-expandable RAM, and a single drive bay with no redundancy, these are genuine constraints, not minor quibbles. The DS124 is not a device for power users who want to run a dozen Docker containers, transcode 4K video, or build a home lab. If that's you, look at the DS223+ or DS923+ and budget accordingly. But for the target audience, a home user who wants reliable backups, a self-hosted photo library, and maybe a Plex server for 1080p content, the DS124 is a well-executed, appropriately-priced solution.

What tips the balance in the DS124's favour is DSM. Synology's software platform is genuinely the best in the consumer NAS market, and it's the reason this unit earns a recommendation over cheaper alternatives. The package ecosystem, the security update cadence, the polished mobile apps, the free Active Backup licensing, these aren't marketing bullet points, they're features I used daily during testing and found genuinely useful. You're paying a Synology premium, but you're getting Synology quality in return.

I'd give the DS124 with 4TB HAT3300 a 7.5 out of 10. It loses points for the Gigabit-only networking in an era where 2.5GbE is becoming standard, the non-expandable RAM, and the inherent single-point-of-failure risk of a single-bay design. It earns its score through excellent software, solid build quality, low running costs, and a genuinely useful app ecosystem. Buy it if you want a reliable, well-supported personal cloud device with 4TB of storage and don't need drive redundancy. Skip it if you need more than one bay, faster networking, or serious transcoding power.