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Today we are taking a look at the brand new Synology DiskStation DS215j. This new 2-bay NAS is designed for home users on a budget, but don’t let that fool you, the DS215j packs a punch. Armed with a dual-core processor with Floating-Point Unit (FPU), the DS215j provides plenty of power for multi-tasking and multi-media applications... Some of the most exciting Synology products that we have reviewed have been budget models such as the DS414j and DS213j. These models were great because they ran the same DSM software as the $1000+ models and could use many of the same features/applications.
 As is always the case with budget NAS models their only weakness is performance, though the DS414j did impress us with its Mindspeed Comcerto 2000 SoC solution. The most common SoC solution used by budget models has been the Marvell Armada 370, we saw it in the DS114, DS214se, DS414slim and DS213j. It is a cost effective SoC that operates from 800MHz up to 1.2GHz and was designed with NAS servers in mind. Recently Marvell updated the Armada 300 series with a new speedier ARM Cortex-A9 networking SoC which they call the Armada 375. The Armada 375 is equipped with a dual-core Cortex-A9 processor clocked at either 800MHz or 1GHz, and offers gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, SATA 2.0, and PCI Express connectivity. In terms of specifications it is similar to the Armada 370, which also utilizes the ARMv7 design, but with the ARM Cortex-A9 at its heart there is more power on offer. As a result the DS215j platform upgrade enables average read speeds over 111 MB/sec and writes over 87 MB/sec, a 19% improvement when compared with its predecessor. Meanwhile power consumption is claimed to be just 13.4 watts in full operation and 5.3 watts once hard drives hibernate. Keeping all that in mind let’s move on to check out the new Synology DS215j in greater detail... |
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