Synology DiskStation DS112 NAS device (user review three)

In this review, we examine how the Synology DS112 network attached storage (NAS) device can be used within a school environment to provide an easy-to-use file structure on iPads.

At our school, we adpoted a 1:1 iPad program for our year four students. However, we soon found ourselves looking for a solution to the lack of a file structure on those iPads.

Moving photos around was a big problem, work was being emailed out to students and returned by email for assessment. Everything seemed to require a two- or three-stage process.

We needed a simpler solution to the storage and transfer of work to and from iPads — we needed a file structure. We trialled a few options like Dropbox and the like, but it wasn’t until we tried the Synology DS112 unit that we found an answer to almost all of our problems.

Many apps have a WebDAV option that allows students to save work directly to our unit, where we can assess it, and photos go straight to or from the camera roll. The unit also allows us to control who has access to each folder.

The simplicity of the structure means that the year four students can use the unit within minutes of the free apps being installed. Seeing a file structure on an iPad for the first time is a bit odd, but you’ll soon be using for just about everything.

The screenshots below show how the students are using the DS112 to store and access data through their iPads.

Note: we recently conducted a Synology competition in which users had to tell us how winning a Synology NAS device would increase their office productivity. The winners of these NAS devices (including the author of this user review) kindly agreed to review these devices to further illustrate how they will be using them for their day-to-day work.