Synology DiskStation DS120j single bay NAS Review – sub £100 NAS !

Rating: 8.0.

The latest addition to Synology's popular j range of entry-level home use DiskStation NAS units is the single-bay DS120j, powered by a dual-core processor. For less than £100, is this a NAS worth buying?

The processor in the new DiskStation 120j is the same 64-bit dual-core Marvell Armada 3700 88F3720, clocked at 800MHz that powered its predecessor, the DiskStation DS119j. But while the processor might have stayed the same, the DS120J gets a memory upgrade with twice the amount, 512MB, compared to the 256MB of the DS119J of DDR3L. If you feel that you still need a bit more poke from the memory department, sadly you are out of luck as you can’t add to the system’s memory.

The DiskStation DS120j combines frugal power demands – 4.86W in HDD hibernation and just 9.81W when fully active, very slightly down from the DS119j – with low noise emissions when it’s hard at work.

Physical Specifications

• Processor: Marvell Armada 3700 88F3720 (800MHz) dual-core
• Memory: 512MB DDR3L
• Gigabit Ethernet Ports: 1
• Rear panel connectors: 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x RJ45
• Front panel connectors: none
• RAID support: N/A
• Cooling: Active – 1 x 60mm
• Drive Bays Supported: 1
• Maximum hard drive size supported: 16TB
• Maximum Capacity: 16TB
• Maximum single volume size: 108TB
• Internal File System support: EXT4
• Dimensions (D x W x H): 166 x 71 x 224mm.
• Weight: 0.7kg.

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