Designed to boost the performance of select Synology NAS systems, the M2D18 Dual M.2 SSD Adapter Card from Synology is a PCIe 2.0 x8 expansion card with two M.2 slots exclusively for SSD read/write caching, which will reduce random I/O latency and benefit applications such as photo indexing, file search, and virtualization environments. The M2D18 supports both NVMe and SATA SSDs with form factors of 2280, 2260, and 2242. To help keep things running cool, an attachable heatsink accelerates thermal dissipation and ensure system stability with strong performance. Its integrated bracket will accommodate low-profile and full-height slots.
When used with a compatible NAS, users who want to take advantage of SSD caching will no longer need to use a standard storage bay or bays for caching purposes. For example, a 5-bay array with three 10TB hard drives that has two bays set aside for caching will only have 20TB available as a RAID 5. Installing the M2D18 will allow all five bays to be used for storage, meaning that your NAS will have a greater overall capacity. When configured as a RAID 5 with a 10TB drive in each of the five drive bays, you’ll have 40TB available.
Preston Kirlin (verified owner) –
I purchased this card to add into an RS1219+. Yes it installed fine. First, the SSD’s that are supported are VERY LIMITED. You go to the Synology site to check for supported devices. But you have to look under each device to ensure that the host (RS1219+ in my case) is listed. Their filter doesn’t help. OK, so you settle on a SSD. Now the performance. Your improvement is marginal for common NAS functions. Save your money for the hard drives. Larger, more local cache, higher RPM. Synology needs to improve their support for more SSD’s. Yes, you can find some SATA and some NVMe’s but only very limited. Based on the drive support and the marginal performance improvements, it doesn’t appear that this product is really supported. Save your money.
Dan Satterfield (verified owner) –
Easy install and great improvement to movement of large files. It makes things go faster daily.
Everette Casper (verified owner) –
I bought this with 2: 1TB SSD cards to speed up the browsing and read/write on a Synology 1517+ NAS It is a great upgrade. Easy to install, recognized the card at boot up. Only had to create the SSD cashe and it was up and running.
Elissa Purdy (verified owner) –
Boost Synology NAS performance
Alessandro Marks (verified owner) –
This cart have very specific requirements for the supported SSDs. I’d recommend to use ONLY one of the SSDs listed in the Synology website. I thought it would be compatible with any M2 SSD with form factor 2280 but it isn’t. It took me three roundtrips to B&H to get it right. Here is the link for SSDs compatible with a DS1517+ using this card: https://www.synology.com/en-ph/compatibility?search_by=products&model=DS1817%2B&category=m2_ssd_m2d18&p=1&change_log_p=1
Lucie Kuhn (verified owner) –
good instruction how to set it up. Working well.
Annabelle Mann (verified owner) –
I have no issues with this card. It is a dual more SSD adapter card. It just seems odd to me that I have to buy a card to install SSD’s… It seems like it would be integrated into the hardware/motherboard from the Synology. That is the only reason I give it 4 stars. As for the hardware itself, it works perfectly, comes with everything you need to install and mount the SSD along with heat syncs and a good set of instructions. If you want SSD’s in your Synology and you have a compatible slot, it is what you need and works well.
Ole Nicolas (verified owner) –
but the shipping are late about one week