Manufacturer: Synology Price: $ 700 US Author: Steven Walton Date: 10/07/2014

[ Introduction ]

Today we are checking out Synology’s latest 4-bay NAS server, the DS415+. Designed for small to medium businesses the DS415+ is said to deliver Xeon like performance in an affordable package. Synology has achieved this by implementing Intel’s ‘Rangeley’, a server grade SoC capable of supporting up to eight cores... More than 2 years has passed since we reviewed the Synology DS412+ and yet it can still be purchased for $600 online today. This is due to the fact that the DSx13 and DSx14 series failed to replace the dual-core Intel Atom D2700 (2.13GHz) powered 4-bay NAS. Both the DS413 and DS414 were aimed at home users, leaving the DS412+ to satisfy the role of a 4-bay business NAS for a very long time. Finally the DS412+ is being substituted by the much more powerful DS415+, which features twice as many cores and twice as much memory. Recently we have seen a number of new NAS devices based on Intel’s Silvermont microarchitecture. The architecture is split into four SoC families which includes Merrifield/Moorefield, Bay Trail, Avoton and Rangeley. Just last week we reviewed the new QNAP TS-653 Pro which featured a Silvermont processor, the ‘Bay Trail-D’ Celeron J1900. This was another quad-core processor that operated at a maximum frequency of 2.41GHz and featured a 2MB L2 cache. The Celeron J1900 provided the TS-653 Pro with a number of nifty features such as hardware transcoding, though this is a feature targeted towards home users. That said, the QNAP TS-653 Pro was also a business orientated NAS and as such boasted a number of useful features. The ability to run Virtual Machines was a big one, and with the availability of an 8GB model the possibilities were almost endless. The DS415+ seems to focus on hardware-accelerated encryption (AES-NI) as its major feature. Synology has also included dual Gigabit Ethernet support with failover and Link Aggregation. The DS415+ is also ready for VMware, Citrix and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< Features & Design Hardware Test System & Power Consumption Benchmarks: File Download Performance Benchmarks: File Upload Performance Benchmarks: File Copy Performance Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0 Benchmarks: Atto Disk Benchmark Conclusion Next Page ->

Echo1

Posted on: 10/09/2014 08:03 PM Looks like I might have to upgrade my DS412+ now. I agree with the no USB 3.0 on the front comment. That is very annoying!

Skar Posts: 2 Joined: 2014-10-10

Posted on: 10/10/2014 09:58 AM Hello, It is worth remembering that above the Synology 4 disk version in the + range, you have 5, 8 and 12 disks devices. So when commenting on memory it is worth remembering that apart from the number of disk bays, processor and memory are additional parts of the package which can used to separate the products apart. So I would imagine these will carry additional memory, non soldered. Also, I think it is time to move beyond just disk IO statistics. These boxes are so much more than just shoveling disk data back and forth. The big advantage of the higher end NAS providers are their additional packages, and for those it is worth focusing on what performance the new rangley chips are bringing to the table. So what kind of performance from a CPU/Memory are we getting, so an unpack/compression, what is the difference if run on this box compared to the previous box and others. I personally want to know how much more powerful the CPU's are compared to their previous generations and what that means in real world tasks. I appreciate that other NASes may not provide the range of additional functionality, but these are key product differences. Thanks

Steven Walton Posts: 104 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 10/10/2014 11:26 AM I am not sure what you are asking us to do here. What other tests would you like us to run? The real-world tests that we did conduct clearly show that the DS415+ is a big step up in performance when compared to previous models!

Skar Posts: 2 Joined: 2014-10-10

Posted on: 10/10/2014 12:20 PM Posted by Steven Walton on 10/10/2014 12:26 PM I am not sure what you are asking us to do here. What other tests would you like us to run? The real-world tests that we did conduct clearly show that the DS415+ is a big step up in performance when compared to previous models! Things that are cpu dependant, not disk based. So transcoding, so lets say you are running plex server, one of it's features is the ability to transcode a file to be another device, such as a tablet. So that when the tablet is next connected those newer files are sent to the tablet. How much of a step up is the CPU, over the previous versions. Can it handle a single 1080P transcode, multiple 1080P transcodes. What can it actually do? I could look at CPU benchmark (Which last time I looked didn't have a benchmark for this particular CPU), but that doesn't always translate into real world application.

birdy

Posted on: 10/10/2014 07:19 PM Great results out of this. Can't wait till we have a cheap NAS that can max out the gaming and program tests!!!

Peter

Posted on: 10/19/2014 01:02 PM What I miss in this review is the mention and tests of using encrypted shares. That is the main reason I upgraded both my DS411+ and DS414 to 2 DS415+'s. Performance when downloading from encrypted shares is now about equal to non-encrypted shares. And uploading is around 80MB/s. That's almost 4 times faster then the previous models. For anyone having a lot of data encrypted on the Synology devices, upgrading to a DS415+ will by no-brainer.

NAS Noob

Posted on: 10/20/2014 09:07 PM Looking at the ram its still possible to upgrade it to or a 4gb or possibly even 8gb stick still minus the fact that it won't be dual channel or am I wrong?

ProX	Posted on: 10/21/2014 03:19 AM NAS Noob you can upgrade the memory but you have to dump the 2GB module in favor of a larger 4GB or 8GB module. The review says you will loose your warranty doing this though.

pietz Posts: 1 Joined: 2014-10-21

Posted on: 10/21/2014 08:45 PM what a brilliant review! but im still standing here deciding if i should go with the TS-453 Pro or the DS415+. do you maybe have any additional thoughts on that? both cost the same now in germany since qnap lowered their prices by quite a bit. id mainly use the NAS for storing files but also work with film footage while editing. Im also a huge fan of Plex and although most movies dont need to transcode, it would be futureproof to have a nas capable of 1080p transcoding. other than that id use stuff that pretty much both offer. i like the look of the synology interface a lot more, but the VM capabilities of the qnap seem very nice to have. especially because im just starting of with computer science & programing and as a hackintosh user ill probably run into many cases where a vm linux or windows machine comes in handy. what do you think?

Shelby

Posted on: 10/30/2014 04:24 PM Tests that I'd like you to run: 1) Plex video streaming. (From the comments above, it looks like I'm not the only one.) Install Plex Media Server on it, and see how it performs streaming 1080p video to a media player (or multiple media players!). The biggest challenge is transcoding; people want to know if the CPU is powerful enough to handle 1080p video transcoding in real time. To test this, you'd need to have a 1080p video and a Plex client that can't play the video directly. See if the Plex client can play the video without stuttering, and as a bonus, report what the CPU usage is while it's transcoding. A good way to force it to transcode is to have subtitles and tell it to "burn in" subtitles. Plex Media Server will take the 1080p video, overlay the subtitles, and then encode that into new 1080p video in real-time to stream to the client. This only works if the CPU is powerful enough. (If it can handle one 1080p stream, try it with two and see what happens!) 2) Does the system work if you stick an ECC SODIMM in it? Rangeley supports ECC RAM, so (I think) all the hardware needed to support ECC RAM is there already. Someone in the comments on AnandTech said that the 415+ doesn't support ECC RAM, but I'd love to hear back from someone who's actually tried sticking in an ECC SODIMM themselves.

Darla

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Alex	Posted on: 02/07/2015 10:06 AM I currently have the DS412+ and I'm wondering what are the major differences between the DS412+ and the DS415+. Looking at the pictures I wonder if one could do a board swap since they look so similar??