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I hope this finds you well. I'm a fan of your YouTube Chanel. I want an older Synology 2U NAS.
Desired specifications:
2U Rack (Prefer shallow depth, but not a deal breaker)
Upgradeable Intel CPU
Upgradeable RAM
Upgradeable NIC to 10bg
Read/Write cache drives.
Accepts Western Digital Red drives.
I appreciate you sharing your knowledge. Thank you for your time.
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The RS1221+ really is the sweet spot here for a home lab in your budget. The shallow depth and relatively low power draw make it much more manageable than a full-size enterprise chassis, and you’re still getting solid specs with good upgrade options.
For your plans:
• RAM: It comes with 4GB by default, but you’ll want to bump it to at least 16GB if you’re going to run heavier workloads or multiple services. You can use Synology-branded RAM or compatible DDR4 ECC UDIMMs.
• 10GbE NIC: Synology’s own E10G18-T1 or E10G21-T1 cards are both plug-and-play in the RS1221+. Third-party Intel X540-T1 or X550-T1 cards often work as well, though support is unofficial.
• SSD Cache: Works well in the RS1221+ with standard SATA SSDs (like WD Red SA500s or Samsung 860/870s). You can dedicate 1–2 bays to cache and use the rest for your main array.
If you can find the RS1221RP+ at a good price, the redundant PSUs are a nice-to-have, but definitely not essential for home use if it costs significantly more.
On the other hand, if you do expect to scale to 12–24 bays in the future and your budget allows, then the RS2423+ would make more sense long term — but it’s a lot bigger and more expensive upfront.
