Synology DiskStation DS1525+

A well-priced and powerful desktop NAS with top performance and heaps of data protection features

- DAVE MITCHELL

The DiskStation DS1522+ has always been one of Synology’s most popular desktop NAS appliances thanks to its combination of capacity, performance and value. It's given three years of sterling service, but retirement beckons and has now been replaced by the DS1525+.

From the front, you'd be hard pushed to spot any differences as they’re both clothed in the same charcoal-black chassis and present their five drive bays with lockable plastic tool-free drive carriers. It’s all change at the rear, though, as the DS1525+ replaces the four gigabit ports of its predecessor with dual 2.5GbE multi-gig ports.

The two eSATA expansion ports in the DS1522+ change to dedicated USB Type-C ports for connecting up to two DX525 5-bay expansion units - hence the “15” in the model name. Unlike the four-bay DS925+, the DS1525+ keeps the dedicated PCIe Gen 3 x2 expansion slot for upgrading to 10GbE with Synology’s proprietary E10G22-T1-Mini single-port card.

Processing gets an upgrade as the DS1525+ has the same quad-core 2.2GHz AMD Ryzen V1500B CPU appearing in most of Synology’s new 2025 desktop models. Memory remains the same, with the appliance supplied with a single 8GB stick of ECC DDR4, upgradable to 32GB using the two SO-DIMM slots lurking behind the fifth drive bay.