In the video, the Synology runs as a virtual machine on VMware. Two extra network cards go in, each gets its own MAC address and static IP, and the ports take separate jobs — LAN on one side, WAN on the other. This page follows that same build and adds the part nobody says out loud: what extra ports honestly change, and what they never will.
Most NAS boxes ship with one or two LAN ports, and most owners never touch the second one. The video shows a fuller build: the Synology is a VMware virtual machine, so "adding a LAN card" means adding virtual adapters — VMXNET3 cards with manually assigned MAC addresses — then giving each interface its own static IP and its own job inside DSM. Below is that same route, in order, with the honest expectations filled in: extra ports buy you separate duties, more simultaneous users and a spare path when something fails. They do not buy one user double speed, and pretending otherwise is how people end up disappointed.
In the video, the Synology is a VMware virtual machine, so the hardware step happens inside the VM settings, not with a screwdriver. On a physical Synology this same step is simply plugging the switch cables into ports you already have.
Why the manual MAC matters: an automatic virtual MAC can change when VM settings are edited, and DSM ties each interface to its card. A changing MAC makes ports shuffle places, so your carefully set static IPs land on the wrong interface and the NAS seems to "randomly" vanish. One card, one permanent MAC, written down — that is the discipline the whole build rests on.
In DSM, open Control Panel > Network > Network Interface. The new adapters appear as extra LAN entries. Before changing anything, decide each card's single job: this one serves the office LAN, that one faces the WAN side, the third is a spare.
DHCP is fine for a printer. It is wrong for a server: the NAS is the box every PC and backup job points at, so its addresses must never move.
The video's layout keeps the cards independent. The LAN card serves the office PCs — file shares, backups, everyday access. The second card faces the WAN side — that is where remote access and outside-facing services arrive, while sharing stays on the internal port.
Then harden the split exactly as shown in the video: open Control Panel > Security > Protection and enable Auto Block and DoS protection. Add firewall rules to match the design — full access from the LAN subnet, and on the WAN-facing interface only the ports of services you deliberately publish. A port with no job stays shut.
If separate duties are not the goal, DSM can join two ports into a single logical interface called a bond. One IP address, two cables behind it.
Control Panel > Network > Network Interface > Create > Create BondA bond pays off when many users hit the NAS at the same time, or when one port is kept as insurance for the other. What it does not do is the subject of the next honesty check — and of a full page in this series.
Here is the part the product boxes skip. Extra ports genuinely buy three things: separate duties (the LAN/WAN split in this video), more people at full speed simultaneously, and a spare path so a dead cable or port does not take the NAS offline.
They do not buy one user double speed. A single file copy is a single connection, and a connection lives on a single link — two gigabit ports still give one copy roughly one gigabit, about 110 MB/s. If one PC truly needs more, the honest answers are a single faster port (2.5 or 10 GbE), or SMB Multichannel on models that support it — not a bond.
One more honesty note for this exact build: these cards are virtual. The real ceiling is the host machine's physical network port and the switch behind it, shared with everything else on that host. And DSM is Synology's software for Synology hardware — a VM build like this is a lab setup, fine for learning and testing, not a licenced production NAS.
Adding the cards in VMware, assigning the MAC addresses and setting the static IPs in DSM — the complete build, shown live in the video.
▶️ Watch Full VideoNo. One copy travels as one connection, and both separate-port and bonded setups keep that connection on a single link, so one user still tops out near one port's speed — about 110 MB/s on gigabit. The gain is for several users at the same time, a separate WAN and LAN split, or failover. A single faster port (2.5 or 10 GbE) is the fix for one user.
Not for the setup in the video. Separate interfaces, Adaptive Load Balancing and Active/Standby all work with an ordinary switch. Only the IEEE 802.3ad and Balance XOR bond modes need a managed switch with link aggregation configured on its side.
Because the Synology is a virtual machine. VMware can hand a virtual adapter a new automatic MAC address when settings change, which makes DSM see a new card and shuffle the ports. A fixed manual MAC keeps LAN 1 as LAN 1 forever.