Manufacturer: Synology Price: $ 640 US Author: Steve Date: 04/27/2011

[ Introduction ]

Today we are checking out the Synology DiskStation DS411+, which is powered by an Intel Atom D510 processor and features a 1GB memory buffer. While these hardware specifications should make the DS411+ quite snappy, we are also keen to check out the latest revision of the Synology Disk Manager 3.1 software... While popular among storage-hungry PC enthusiasts, network-attached storage has proven to be particularly useful in office environments, where sharing large amounts of data between several desktop PCs can become quite problematic. Having followed its development for some time, the move to NAS just made sense in my own workplace and today provides a central point to share and store data on a daily basis. With the availability of 3 terabyte hard drives, a majority of users will be satisfied with a 1 or 2-bay NAS solution. However, as data accumulates over time there are those who might require even more than that - people in the graphic design, photography or video editing business, for example. Performance and feature set are two things you'll definitely want to keep in mind. From our experience in testing a range of devices we can assure you there can be huge differences from one offering to another. Typically these devices require less CPU and I/O power than your average computer as they are specifically designed for the task of file sharing. Some will provide you with transfer speeds of around 20-30MB/s, while the more serious models will deliver considerably better performance. Still, even the most recent high-end products often tend to struggle to max out a Gigabit Ethernet connection. This is a justified concern when you consider that a budget DIY build based on a Core 2 Duo system running Windows is able to provide better throughput speeds. In fact back when I tested the Synology DiskStation DS409+, which was a rather snappy NAS device, it was still slower than our low-end Core 2 Duo E7400 desktop system when it came to file transfer performance. Furthermore, while the desktop test system was loaded with a single hard drive shared using the OS tools, the DS409+ was loaded with four hard drives in a RAID0 configuration. Our quest for an even faster NAS device has led us to a new Synology business class 4-bay NAS device known as the DiskStation DS411+. Whereas the older DS409+ was powered by a 1.06GHz processor and featured a 512MB memory buffer, the DS411+ has been considerably upgraded. The DS411+ is driven by a dual-core 1.67GHz processor with a much larger 1GB memory buffer, while as the name suggests, it is still a 4-bay NAS.

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< Synology DS411+ Hardware DiskStation Manager 3.1 Installation Test System & Power Consumption Benchmarks: File Download Performance Benchmarks: File Upload Performance Benchmarks: File Copy Performance Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Benchmarks: Atto Disk Benchmark Benchmarks: Intel NAS Performance Toolkit Conclusion Next Page ->

Shawn

Posted on: 04/27/2011 04:56 PM I find this completely useless without raid 5 or 6 performance numbers. spending this amount of money for RAID 0 (oxymoron) makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, especially since it looks to be retailing at around $600 with no disks!

Booster

Posted on: 04/27/2011 09:24 PM Great looking product, certainly one of the better examples that I have seen. Thanks for the in depth review.

ProX

Posted on: 04/27/2011 09:40 PM @ Shawn - I really do no see what you problem is or how a lack of RAID5/6 testing makes the review completely useless. For measuring maximum performance RAID0 is the best option. While most will use RAID5 as it allows you to get away with a single drive dropping out, for benchmarking RAID0 makes more sense. That said RAID5 is only slightly slower. The fact that the device can do it and the review makes mention of that should be enough. What would have been nice is if you were able to include the TS-459 Pro II Turbo NAS for comparison, in RAID0 of course :P

happycamper

Posted on: 04/28/2011 02:02 AM Man I am so happy you guys took it apart. I have been trying to work out what chipset or controller they used for the RAID. A few other reviews said it was the NM10 Express but never uncovered what the RAID controller might be since this chipset does not support RAID. Any mystery solved its the ICH9R which is great!

zeno	Posted on: 04/28/2011 09:58 AM Nice review thanks. The DSM 3.1 software is very good, I purchased the DS211 for use at home and cannot believe all the stuff it can do. Though when you think about it they are just small computers but without the need for Windows they are very snappy at what they do.

CrazyBean

Posted on: 04/28/2011 10:40 AM Synology make the best looking NAS servers which feature the best software and the best hardware with one exception, the power supply! They really need to ship these with better quality units, especially given the price. Quite a few users such as myself have run into reliability problems with the power brick that is currently being used. The reviewer did point out that the supplied power brick is a cheapie.