Synology RT2600ac review: Security, privacy, and flexibility!

Synology is a Taiwanese company that specializes in network-attached storage products, which are famous for their quality. Two former Microsoft employees founded the company that started by coding an operating system. Today, Synology manufactures wireless routers for homes and businesses, and the company offers a few attractive models. Their most premium wireless router is Synology RT2600ac. It is a solid device, with modern specs, and some incredible software. If you want to know more about Synology RT2600ac, and whether it is going to be your next favorite wireless router, read this review:

Synology RT2600ac: Who is it good for?

The Synology RT2600ac wireless router is an excellent choice for the following types of users:

• Users who want the best security for their smart home
• People who desire to remote control their router from a mobile app
• Users who want the best possible privacy
• People who desire advanced firmware that offers complete control and many features
• Users who want to use fast USB 3.0 devices on their routers and transform the router into a personal cloud storage solution or media center
• Parents who desire awesome parental controls to protect their children when online

Pros and cons

There are many great things about the Synology RT2600ac wireless router:

• It offers an awesome mobile app that is friendly, and easy to use
• Synology has the best proactive approach to firmware updates in the industry
• Many advanced options and features that allow users to personalize their router fully
• The router can be remotely controlled from anywhere on the internet
• It can be mounted on walls
• Modern hardware that can handle many clients and simultaneous connections
• Fast USB 3.0 port
• Excellent Help documentation
• Synology uses two-factor authentication to protect user accounts and network devices
• Excellent security tools and parental controls

There are a few downsides to consider too:

• The WiFi coverage area is slightly smaller than that of other AC2600 wireless routers
• The Synology Router Manager (SRM) is available only English
• It is slow to boot and restart

Verdict

We have tested many wireless routers, and very few of them managed to impress us like Synology RT2600ac. The strength of this router lies in its software platform. You get a great mobile app that respects your privacy, which is both useful and easy to use. Then, you get the Synology Router Manager on the router. This is a custom-made, Linux operating system that manages how your router works. It is incredibly powerful, reliable, and personalizable. Knowledgeable users are going to love it and appreciate its many advanced tools and features. This does not mean that beginners are not going to able to use it. On the contrary, everything is well explained, well organized, and well documented. Everyone can set up and use this wireless router. We highly recommend Synology RT2600ac to everyone that wants a powerful wireless router with state of the art security, parental controls, and that can transform itself into a personal cloud storage service or a fast media center. Synology RT2600ac is one of those few wireless routers that you will love using.

Unboxing the Synology RT2600ac wireless router

The packaging for the Synology RT2600ac wireless router is basic and boring. It comes in a simple cardboard box, with a sticker about the router on the top cover. There is no shiny packaging involved, no marketing messages, only a straightforward description of the wireless router you just bought. Inside the packaging, you find the following elements: the router itself, four detachable antennas, the power adapter, an Ethernet cable, the quick installation guide, and the warranty. The packaging used for the Synology RT2600ac wireless router is surprisingly dull. However, inside the package, you get everything you need to get up and running in minutes.

Hardware specifications and design

Synology RT2600ac is a sturdy and relatively heavy wireless router, with four detachable omnidirectional antennas. It is not good looking, but it looks like a powerful device, and it includes plenty of ventilation grids that cool the hardware found inside. On the top side, there are a few discrete LED lights that show you what the router is doing. Synology RT2600ac features a Qualcomm Krait IPQ8065 dual-core processor, running at 1.7 GHz, 512 MB of RAM DDR3, and 4 GB of eMMC storage space for the firmware and its apps. This is a wireless router with support for the latest 802.11ac Wave 2 standard, capable of delivering 4x4 MU-MIMO wireless transfers. The total maximum bandwidth is split as follows: 800Mbps on the 2.4GHz wireless band and 1733Mbps on the 5 GHz frequency. On the back, you can find the Power button and the Power jack, the Reset button, a USB 2.0 port, the WAN port, and four Ethernet LAN ports. One of them can also be used for a Dual WAN configuration so that you can enjoy up to 2Gbps combined bandwidth for your network. On the left side, you find the WPS button and the Wi-Fi button. On the right, you find a USB 3.0 port and the Eject button that can be used to prevent accidental data loss when working with attached storage on the router. They are all nicely masked from view without being difficult to access. On the bottom of the Synology RT2600ac there are plenty of ventilation grids, and two mounting holes, so that you can place the wireless router on walls and other surfaces. The Synology RT2600ac is relatively large, with a size of 3 x 11 x 6.6 inches or 77 x 280 x 169 mm in Height x Width x Depth. It also weighs 1.5 pounds or 0.7 kg. You can find all the official specifications of this router, on the following page: Synology Router RT2600ac Specs.

Setting up and using the Synology RT2600ac wireless router

You can set up the Synology RT2600ac wireless router using a web browser on a PC connected to the router, or through the DS Router mobile app for Android and iOS. The process involved is similar to other WiFi routers. First, you set the name for the user account that administers the router, and its password. Also, your password strength is automatically evaluated, which is a welcome security precaution. You name the wireless network that is going to be broadcast by the router, type its password, and choose your location. Then you set the operation mode for the router, and enter the details of your internet connection. After all your settings are applied, the network starts functioning, and you can connect your devices to it. After the initial setup is done, you are welcomed to Synology's Router Manager (SRM) or the operating system that handles how the router works. Synology's Router Manager is not your basic router firmware, but a custom version of Linux, that is built to serve as a highly customizable operating system, with top-notch security and advanced personalization built-in. One feature that we love is the modular approach. The SRM operating system comes with all the basics required for the router to broadcast and manage the network. There are no bundled extras, and this ensures optimized resource management and the fact that you get the best possible performance out of the box. If you want extra features like VPN server, DNS server, or security and parental controls, you install additional packages that are maintained and updated separately from the operating system. Each router module has its shortcut. Click on it, and you see the available settings and information. All the settings are well explained, and anyone can configure how the router works. Geeks and IT professionals are going to appreciate the level of control available in SRM. The navigation is easy, and everything is organized into logical sections. If you need help, there is a dedicated SRM Help module that you can access. It has extensive documentation about all the features of the Synology RT2600ac wireless router. The only downside of the Synology Router Manager is the fact that it is available only in English. It is not available in multiple languages like the firmware on other routers. However, Synology does offer separate user guides and installation manuals in twenty languages, in their Download Center. One aspect that we appreciate a lot is Synology's proactive approach to firmware updates. It does not matter whether you administer your network from your smartphone with the DS Router mobile app or from the web user interface, you can set the SRM operating system not only to check for firmware updates automatically but also to install them at a specific hour, without your intervention. To make things even better, you can set SRM to install automatically only the important updates, like those that fix security problems, and skip feature updates until they are demonstrated as stable, and error-free. This is the best possible approach to firmware updates, and we hope that other manufacturers will copy it. There is a small downside though: the boot procedure is slow, and it takes a couple of minutes for Synology RT2600ac to restart and apply firmware updates. Other wireless routers start much faster. However, they also have less complex firmware. Another great thing about Synology is the fact that it uses two-factor authentication to protect user accounts and network devices. When you enable the remote administration of your wireless router, you should activate two-step verification to make sure that unwanted parties cannot easily hack into your account and your home network. Other router manufacturers should copy this useful security feature. After we were done setting up the Synology RT2600ac WiFi router, we connected several devices to the network: two desktop PCs, two laptops, one tablet, several smartphones, an Xbox One console, several smart plugs, one smart bulb, and a wireless printer. They all connected with ease, and we had no problems in streaming media over the network, or in sharing files and folders. When transferring data through the network, we also looked at the variability of network transfers. Below you can see how a network transfer was performed when we used the 5 GHz wireless network, on a laptop, in a room that was separated from the router by one wall. We received a fast average speed and quite a bit of variability, slightly higher than that of other routers. When we moved to a room separated by two walls from the wireless router, the average speed dropped, and the variability increased. However, the speed never fell close to zero, which is what we expected from this router. Similar trends were noticed when using the WiFi on the 2.4 GHz band. The only notable downside that we noticed during our testing is the fact that the coverage area of the Synology RT2600ac router is slightly smaller than that of other similar routers. More details about that in the next section of this review. The user experience offered by Synology RT2600ac is worthy of a premium wireless router. Users get all the features they need, and the overall performance is at the level you expect. Synology's approach to firmware updates is the best in the industry, and more manufacturers should embrace it. If you want to see exact details about the wireless performance of this router, and the few weaknesses that it has, go to the next page of this review.

Wireless network performance

First, let's look at the apartment that was used in our testing and how it is set up. You can see that the router is placed in the living room. With most wireless routers, the signal strength is not that high in places like the Kitchen and the Medium balcony. Our testing was done using a fast 1 Gigabit Internet connection that is capable of uploads on the internet of up to 500 Mbps. We used an HP Spectre 13 laptop for all our measurements and several software tools. To get a better idea of the performance offered by Synology RT2600ac wireless router, we compared it with two competing AC2600 wireless routers: TP-Link Archer C2600 and ASUS Blue Cave. We analyzed the 2.4 GHz band first and measured the signal strength with NetSpot. You can see below how the signal strength evolved from room to room. The signal strength of Synology RT2600ac was in line with that of other wireless routers. However, in the Medium balcony, the signal strength was surprisingly low, indicating that we might have a WiFi coverage issue in that room. Next, we used SpeedTest to measure how fast the internet connection offered by this router is when using 2.4 GHz wireless network. The download speed was good in all rooms, but ASUS Blue Cave was faster. The same trend applied to the upload speed too. Continuing our measurements on the 2.4 GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. Synology RT2600ac delivered fast downloads without being the fastest router in this test. The same was true about the upload speed too. Our testing has shown that Synology RT2600ac is a fast router on the 2.4 GHz wireless band, but not the fastest you can find. Its coverage area on the 2.4 GHz band is slightly smaller than that of other AC2600 wireless routers. For the next set of measurements, we analyzed the performance of the 5GHz wireless band. We looked at the evolution of the signal strength, from room to room. Synology RT2600ac performed similarly to the wireless routers we compared it with but, in the Medium balcony, the signal strength was surprisingly low, indicating that we might have a WiFi coverage issue in that room. Then, we ran SpeedTest to see how fast the internet connection is when using the 5GHz band. To view the maximum potential of this router, we used the world's only PCI-Express network card with support for 4x4 MU-MIMO. When we used this network card, we obtained a maximum speed of 536.85 Mbps for the download and 503.07 Mbps for the upload - fast speeds but not the fastest you can get from an AC2600 wireless router. To get back to earth, and everyday devices people use, we took our HP Spectre 13 laptop and measured the download speed with SpeedTest, in every room of our test apartment. Synology RT2600ac managed to outperform ASUS Blue Cave in one room, and it had trouble providing wireless coverage in the Medium balcony. When we measured the upload speed, Synology RT2600ac was a good performer but not the best. For the last measurements on the 5GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. This time too, Synology RT2600ac managed to outperform ASUS Blue Cave in one room and had trouble providing wireless coverage in the Medium balcony. When we measured the upload speed, Synology RT2600ac was a good performer. Synology RT2600ac delivers good WiFi performance on the 5 GHz wireless frequency, without being the fastest on the market. Its coverage area on the 5 GHz band is slightly smaller than that of other AC2600 wireless routers.

Wired network performance

To test the quality of the wired Ethernet connection, we used a desktop PC, equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 six-core processor, running at 3.20GHz, 16GB of RAM and a very fast Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD, and a Lenovo IdeaCentre 610s mini PC. We measured the speed of the internet connection when using a 1 Gbps Ethernet cable, using SpeedTest. Synology RT2600ac reached 833.42 Mbps for the download, and 484.50 Mbps for the upload. A good result! NOTE: In the graph above, the TP-LINK Archer C2600 router delivers only 140.47 Mbps for the upload speed because, when we tested it, our internet connection was capped at 200 Mbps for the upload speed. In the meantime, our connection is capped at 500 Mbps. Then, we ran a network transfer between the two computers, using the PassMark Performance test. Synology RT2600ac delivered speeds that were close to 1 Gbps both for the download and the upload. The Ethernet ports on the Synology RT2600ac work at speeds close 1 Gbps, both for the download and the upload.

USB performance

We connected a portable SSD drive to the USB 3.0 port of the Synology RT2600ac. Then we ran a few transfers from a desktop computer to this drive and back. We measured 747.54 Mbps for the download speed and an upload speed of 342.29 Mbps. These are amazing speeds, making the Synology RT2600ac router the fastest that we tested so far. Users are going to love the speed potential of the USB 3.0 port on the Synology RT2600ac. It is the fastest that we have tested so far.

Extra features

The best "extra feature" of the Synology RT2600ac is the DS Router mobile app for Android and iOS. It is friendly, easy to use, and useful for remote management, including when using it without being connected to the WiFi emitted by the router. Out of all the mobile apps of its kind that we tested so far, this one had the most respect for the user's privacy and did not request access to information it should not have, as is the case with the mobile apps offered by other wireless router manufacturers. Synology RT2600ac is feature-packed, and geeks are guaranteed to love it. Here are some of the most useful things that it offers:

• Safe Access - it includes excellent cloud-based parental controls, a security advisor, safe online search and web browsing, as well as threat prevention. It is one of the best security modules available on the market.
• 3G/4G Dongle and Tethering - you can connect a USB modem to provide the router and your network with a backup internet connection. You can also use your smartphone's tethering feature to do the same. It works both with iPhones and Android smartphones. Not many wireless routers offer this feature.
• Dual WAN - excellent for both small businesses and professionals who require always-on internet connections. You can also use a Dual WAN to improve the quality of your internet connection and get the best possible performance.
• VPN Plus Server- you can set the router to work as a VPN server, and you can also use it to turn your network-connected devices into VPN-enabled clients, without additional VPN software required.
• Guest Network - you can enable a wireless network for each band, with individual security, a customized guest portal, and different access settings.
• DDNS - a service that allows you to connect to the router from the internet, even if your internet provider gives you a dynamic public IP address.
• Cloud Station - you can sync your data from multiple platforms, centralizing it on the router while keeping historical versions of important files.
• Media Server - you can turn your router into a media server with support for PS4 and Xbox One consoles.

The feature list offered by Synology RT2600ac is long and excellent. All the tools available for installation provide real value to users. They are also well maintained and updated, which you do not often see on the market of wireless routers.

What is your opinion about the Synology RT2600ac wireless router?

Now you know our opinion about the Synology RT2600ac wireless router, and the fact that we were impressed by this model, and Synology's approach to firmware and mobile apps. Before closing this review, tell us your opinion about Synology RT2600ac. Do you like this wireless router and what it has to offer? Would you consider purchasing it?