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I chose Synology DS918+ for a home office network storage device, but it came with a drawback: only two USB ports. I needed to attach four USB devices to fit my backup strategy: An external USB hard drive (Seagate 4TB Expansion USB 3.0), an external USB hard drive dock (Thermaltake BlackX), a USB attached battery backup (APC 1500VA),a flash drive (anything USB 2.0 will suffice), and of course, a USB hub.
From what I’ve read and what has worked for me, the key is to use a USB 2.0 hub. Sure, you’ll have to sacrifice transfer speeds to USB 3.0 devices, but that may be an acceptable trade off to you. I dusted off a powered Belkin hub that’s been sitting in storage for almost a decade and it has been working perfectly. While mine has been long discontinued, this hub should work just fine if you’re in the market. I have the USB 3.0 drive plugged into one port and the hub plugged into the other.
Here’s what everything looks like in DSM:
One reply on “Synology NAS USB Hub Support”
I followed your advice and purchased the Sabrent USB hub as I too need more than 3 USB drives. Here’s a good one…even though I eject the relevant USB drive before turning it off, my DS218 will re-assign the drive to another port. In other words, USB 3 will take on USB 4’s name but the details of the drive show that it’s actually USB 3. That causes my backup to fail since that program is looking for “all the right drives in all the wrong places”! Apparently Synology is aware of the issue but due to their architecture, the drives are written to a file of some sort and that causes the mixup. Any suggestions? I’ve tried a workaround that it works once or twice but then…bang…BACKUP FAILED. I look at the DSM and sure enough…USB drive renamed.