DS File lets you browse your folders and access compatible content such as photos and videos, but there’s separate DS photo, DS audio and DS video apps for each media type as well. Synology’s own apps don’t all have wonderful, slick interfaces but they get the job done. There are plenty of features baked in, and plenty of native and third-party apps to download either through the on-board app store (Package Center) or directly from the app makers. It’s also worth noting that DSM 6.0 isn’t far away and should bring new features for the 216play, such as offline transcoding. It’s more of a fully-fledged operating system these days and while some others (QNAP) come close, it’s widely regarded as the best. We’re not going to cover DiskStation Manager in depth here, but for those unfamiliar this is the software which runs on all DiskStations. Synology DiskStation 216play review: DSM 5.2 Of course, transfer speeds will depend mainly on your broadband upload speed and your mobile network (or Wi-Fi). The new QuickConnect service makes it easy to setup an ID and access your DiskStation remotely without the hassle of port forwarding and using a dynamic DNS service. The old manual downloading and installing process is automated and with the online discovery app, you don’t even have to install Synology Assistant, although you can still do that if you have problems. Less than 10 minutes later you can start using it.

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