Synology RX1222SAS Drive Enclosure — 12-Bay SAS/SATA Rack Expansion

The Synology RX1222SAS is a purpose-built, 12-bay drive enclosure designed to scale your NAS storage with reliability and efficiency. Engineered as a rack-mountable 2U chassis, this diskless expansion unit snaps into compatibility with Synology DiskStation and RackStation systems that support SAS-based expansion, creating a seamless path to larger, organized, and cost-effective storage. Built for professional environments—from small data centers to ambitious creative studios—the RX1222SAS blends robust build quality with flexible drive options, enabling you to choose SAS or SATA drives according to your performance requirements and budget. With a focus on data protection, expandability, and straightforward management through Synology’s DSM ecosystem, this enclosure helps you extend capacity without sacrificing uptime or control. If you’re looking to preserve bandwidth for backups, archiving, or scalable media libraries, the RX1222SAS stands out as a trusted expansion solution that keeps your data accessible, protected, and well-organized as your workload grows.

• Seamless expansion: Add 12 hot-swappable drive bays in a compact 2U chassis to scale storage for your Synology NAS without expanding your footprint.
• High-performance connectivity: SAS host interface enables rapid data transfer between your NAS and the expansion unit, helping you maintain strong throughput for RAID arrays and large datasets.
• Diskless by design: Ships without drives, giving you the freedom to select the exact SAS or SATA drives that fit your performance, capacity, and budget needs.
• Flexible drive options: Supports both SAS and SATA drives, allowing you to tailor your storage mix to workloads such as high-speed workloads, archival storage, or mixed-use environments.
• Rack-ready reliability: 2U rack-mountable design fits standard 19-inch racks, delivering a tidy, scalable solution for professional deployments with straightforward installation and maintenance.

Technical Details of Synology RX1222SAS Drive Enclosure

• Drive Bays: 12
• Form Factor: 2U rack-mountable
• Host Interface: SAS
• Drive Type Support: SAS and SATA drives (diskless)
• Compatibility: Designed as a rack expansion enclosure for Synology NAS with SAS-based expansion support
• Power and Cooling: Engineered for reliable operation in rack environments; exact power specifications depend on deployed drives and NAS configuration

The RX1222SAS is built to integrate smoothly with Synology’s ecosystem, enabling streamlined storage management across multiple devices. When used as an expansion unit, it expands capacity for existing volumes and pools, allowing you to grow storage without migrating data to a new system. The 12-bay layout provides ample space for a robust RAID strategy, enabling you to configure redundancy, performance, and capacity to match business needs. The diskless design is particularly advantageous for organizations that want precise control over drive choice, from enterprise-grade SAS drives to cost-conscious SATA options, ensuring that total cost of ownership aligns with your long-term IT strategy. In environments where data integrity and availability are paramount, the RX1222SAS works in concert with Synology’s DSM features—such as storage pool management, data scrubbing, and resilient volume creation—to deliver a scalable, reliable foundation for your data workloads. The enclosure’s rugged construction and rack compatibility also make it suitable for deployment in data centers, edge locations, or professional studios where space efficiency and reliability are essential.

Beyond sheer capacity, the RX1222SAS emphasizes ease of maintenance and operational efficiency. Its hot-swappable drive bays enable quick drive replacement and upgrades without interrupting running services, a critical capability for maintaining uptime in production environments. The enclosure’s SAS interface is designed to deliver robust data pathways between the NAS and expansion, minimizing latency and supporting complex RAID configurations that balance speed and redundancy. Administrators can manage these expansions through DSM, leveraging Synology’s familiar interface to monitor drive health, set up alerts, configure replication, and implement data protection policies across the entire storage stack. This level of integration helps organizations maintain visibility into their storage health, plan capacity growth, and implement backup and disaster recovery strategies with confidence.

For environments that value quiet operation and clean rack aesthetics, the RX1222SAS delivers a compact footprint with a professional appearance and straightforward deployment workflow. Its 2U rack footprint means it fits neatly into standard racks without occupying excessive space, while the enclosure’s design emphasizes airflow and cable management to maintain thermal stability as drive counts rise. When paired with compatible Synology NAS units, this expansion enclosure becomes part of a cohesive storage solution—one that scales with your business, supports data protection policies, and aligns with IT governance requirements. Whether you are archiving large media libraries, maintaining multi-site backups, or supporting a high-demand editing workflow, the RX1222SAS provides the scalable, dependable storage platform you need to keep data accessible and well organized.

How to install Synology RX1222SAS Drive Enclosure

• Verify compatibility: Confirm that your Synology NAS model supports SAS-based expansion and has the appropriate PCIe or SAS interface to connect the RX1222SAS.
• Prepare your rack: Schedule downtime if needed for maintenance, then mount the RX1222SAS in a standard 19-inch rack using the included rails or compatible mounting hardware.
• Connect the expansion: Use the appropriate SAS connection from your NAS to the RX1222SAS. Ensure that cables are secure and routed to avoid interference with airflow or other equipment.
• Install drives (optional): If you are populating drives at install, slide SAS or SATA drives into the 12 bays, ensuring proper seating and alignment with hot-swappable trays. If you are leaving the enclosure diskless, you can populate drives later as needed.
• Power up and configure: Power on the RX1222SAS and your NAS, then open DSM to initialize the expansion by adding it to your storage pool or creating new volumes. Follow the storage manager prompts to assign RAID configurations, hot-spare drives, and storage quotas.
• Monitor and manage: Use DSM to monitor drive health, set up alerts, configure data protection like snapshots or replication, and plan future expansion if capacity goals change.

Frequently asked questions

• What is the Synology RX1222SAS Drive Enclosure? A: It is a 12-bay SAS/SATA drive expansion enclosure designed to extend the storage capacity of a compatible Synology NAS via a SAS host interface, delivered in a 2U rack-mountable chassis and shipped diskless.
• Does RX1222SAS include drives? A: No. The unit is diskless, allowing you to select the exact SAS or SATA drives you need for performance and capacity. This provides flexibility to meet specific workload requirements.
• Can I use SATA drives in the RX1222SAS? A: Yes. The enclosure supports both SAS and SATA drives, giving you flexibility in choosing drives based on speed, endurance, and budget.
• Is the RX1222SAS hot-swappable? A: Yes. The drive bays are designed for hot-swapping, enabling drive replacement and upgrades without powering down the system, depending on the NAS and RAID configuration in use.
• What kind of environments is RX1222SAS suited for? A: It is well-suited for data centers, offices, and professional workspaces that require scalable, reliable storage expansion for Synology NAS units, including media libraries, backups, archives, and larger surveillance storage needs.