From Data Management, Backup to Collaboration: What a Private Cloud Solution Can Do to Streamline Your Workflow

The Synology DS925+ builds upon the solid foundation laid by its predecessor, the DS923+, introducing upgrades tailored for data-intensive users. This powerful network-attached storage (NAS) solution excels in private cloud capabilities, efficient data management, and streamlined backup functionalities—essential for modern small offices, professionals, and enthusiasts. Targeted at small offices, professional users, and enthusiasts, the DS925+ combines faster networking, smarter storage options, and improved system stability—while continuing to leverage Synology’s mature DSM ecosystem.

Refined Performance, Right Out of the Box

One of the standout changes in the DS925+ is the inclusion of dual 2.5 GbE LAN ports as standard, enhancing the device’s ability to support private cloud deployments, seamless data management, and faster backup operations. This immediately doubles the out-of-the-box bandwidth compared to typical 1 GbE NAS setups, enabling sequential read speeds of up to 522 MB/s and write speeds of 565 MB/s, provided the network and drives can keep up. These ports can be aggregated for increased throughput or used independently for redundancy.

The CPU has been upgraded from the Ryzen R1600 to the AMD Ryzen V1500B, a move that significantly enhances the NAS’s multitasking capabilities and workload handling. Notably, this translates to real-world performance gains wherein download speeds have improved by 146.23% and upload speeds see a 40.01% boost.

	DS923+	DS925+	Improvement
Download Speeds	113.01 MB/s	278.26 MB/s	146.23%
Upload Speeds	112.64 MB/s	157.71 MB/s	40.01%

Beyond just supporting SSD caching, the DS925+ enables users to configure M.2 NVMe drives as full storage pools. This opens the door to low-latency, high IOPS performance, especially advantageous for workloads involving frequent random read/write operations. While NVMe-based volumes have a smaller capacity ceiling compared to traditional SATA-based volumes, they deliver an entirely different class of responsiveness—ideal for high-speed databases, VMs, or multimedia editing.

A subtle but forward-looking change is the replacement of the legacy eSATA port with a USB-C expansion port. This move aligns the DS925+ with more widely adopted modern peripheral standards and gives users a more universal interface for connecting expansion units or compatible accessories.

DSM 7.2: Improved Interface, Robust Functionality

At the heart of the DS925+ lies DiskStation Manager 7.2 (DSM 7.2)—Synology’s custom-built operating system tailored specifically for network-attached storage. Built on principles of security, privacy, and usability, DSM 7.2 offers a consistent experience whether you’re a seasoned sysadmin or a home user looking for reliable data access.

The latest version brings enhanced encryption capabilities, more granular access control policies, and increased system responsiveness. But what makes DSM particularly valuable is its well-rounded suite of first-party applications designed to cover a broad range of everyday and enterprise-grade use cases.

Here are some of the standout apps:

Synology Drive: A robust private cloud platform designed for both individual and team collaboration, offering real-time syncing, versioning, remote access, and seamless data management across all devices. Whether you’re backing up files or working with your team, it provides a secure and efficient collaboration environment.

Synology Photos: Merging the functionality of previous apps (Moments and Photo Station), this platform supports AI-powered facial recognition, album creation, and mobile photo backup, ensuring easy access for personal or collaborative use. It supports AI-powered facial recognition, album creation, tag-based sorting, and mobile photo backup—making it suitable for prosumers and family use alike.

Hyper Backup: A comprehensive data management and backup solution, supporting multi-versioned backups to local drives, external devices, Synology NAS units, and public cloud services. With features like deduplication, compression, and scheduled backups, it ensures your data remains protected and easily recoverable. Features like deduplication, compression, and scheduled backups make it suitable for both home users and businesses.

Active Backup for Business: A comprehensive solution for data management and backup, this suite offers agentless backups for Windows PCs, physical servers, virtual machines (via VMware and Hyper-V), and file servers. Optimised for collaboration, it features bare-metal recovery, deduplication, and centralised dashboard monitoring, ensuring business continuity with minimal downtime. With features like bare-metal recovery, deduplication, centralised dashboard monitoring, and self-service restore portals, it provides enterprise-level backup capabilities without additional licensing costs. Designed for speed and reliability, it leverages the DS925+’s enhanced CPU and NVMe performance to ensure faster backup and restore operations—making it especially valuable for SMBs and branch offices looking for cost-effective business continuity.

Cloud Sync: Enables seamless synchronisation between your NAS and third-party cloud storage providers such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Amazon S3. Supports selective sync, bandwidth control, and encryption—giving users flexibility and redundancy.

Synology Office: Ideal for team collaboration, Synology Office provides an intuitive interface for working on documents, slideshows, and spreadsheets. With versioning, collaboration tools, and file recovery, it streamlines data management while ensuring teams can collaborate effectively. It even comes with file multiversioning, and even deletion recovery.

Together, these applications transform the DS925+ from a storage appliance into a full-fledged data management platform, capable of centralising, protecting, and serving digital assets with minimal overhead.

Compatibility Shift: A Controlled Hardware Ecosystem

The DS925+ introduces a revised drive compatibility policy, ensuring enhanced stability, security, and backup reliability. Only Synology-approved drives are supported for new storage pools, optimising both data management and backup performance. This decision is intended to improve system stability, thermal performance, and firmware-level integration. Synology reports that this framework has undergone over 7,000 hours of validation testing. Also, based on customer support statistics over the past few years, using Synology validated drives results in nearly 40% fewer storage-related issues and faster issue diagnostics and resolution. For users migrating from older Synology systems, existing volumes containing third-party drives can still be migrated and read, though new pools will require Synology-certified drives.

While this move may raise eyebrows among DIY users, it’s positioned as a long-term bet on reliability and consistent performance—especially important for users deploying NAS units in production environments. Providing a one-stop solution that ensures consistent performance and robust reliability – A section for 3rd party validation program: Synology intends to continuously update the Product Compatibility List. A third-party validation program is available upon request, allowing drive manufacturers to test their products using the same rigorous standards applied to Synology drives for certification.

More Than Just an Iterative Upgrade

The DS925+ represents a meaningful evolution rather than a cosmetic refresh. With the move to 2.5GbE networking, a more capable CPU, NVMe storage pool support, and streamlined hardware interfaces, it is better equipped to serve as a centralised data hub for modern workflows.

While the stricter drive compatibility policy may not suit every user’s preference, Synology is clearly aiming to build a more controlled, tightly integrated NAS platform—one that minimises variables and maximises stability.

For power users and businesses seeking a future-proof solution for private cloud deployment, data management, and reliable backup, the DS925+ is a compelling choice. It combines robust performance, seamless collaboration, and efficient backup functionality in a single, integrated NAS system. It offers the benefits of multiple productivity solutions for the price of one. Getting a powerful NAS such as the DS925+ is an absolute no-brainer. To know more about the Synology DS925+ hop over to the official web site: https://sy.to/digitDS925plus And if you have any doubts, you can always talk to Synology Experts for a personalised consultation: https://sy.to/digitDS925plusConsult