How to upgrade your Synology NAS to 5Gbe networking

DogKnight · February 13, 2021

Hi all.

Recently found a handy post about upgrading network connectivity on some Synology NAS units and thought I would share it here after successfully doing it myself.

This is to upgrade some Synology NAS units to 5gbe networking using The QNAP QNA-UC5G1T - https://www.qnap.com/en-au/product/qna-uc5g1t

Someone on GitHub by the name of bb-qq has created a driver package to enable support for this.

Supported NAS platforms:

DSM 6.2
apollolake based products
- DS918+ (confirmed working)
- DS620slim
- DS1019+
- DS718+
- DS418play
- DS218+

To check what CPU type your NAS has: https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Compatibility_Peripherals/What_kind_of_CPU_does_my_NAS_have

Driver packages: https://github.com/bb-qq/aqc111/releases/tag/1.3.3.0-2
Git repo: https://github.com/bb-qq/aqc111

Once you have the appropriate driver, you can perform a manual install via the package center. After a reboot the driver shows as an installed package.

If the device was connected for the reboot, it will show up as a new link under Control Panel --> Network --> Network Interface.

When configuring the interface, make sure to increase the MTU to 9000 for Jumbo Frames.

After a restart you should be able to set it as the primary connection and disconnect the built in ethernet ports.

Now you can have 5gbe on your Synology NAS that was limited to bonded gigabit ethernet.

Obviously you need a router or switch that can support 5gbe or higher, but a great option for those that have it.

I am using a DS918+ with 4 x Ironwolf drives and a couple of NVME cache drives.
I was able to get write speeds to the NAS of about 300mb and read speeds from the NAS of about 410mb.

Credit to the original thread on Synology's forum: https://community.synology.com/enu/forum/1/post/125213?page=2&sort=oldest

Hope its helpful to someone!