Last month Synology completed their x12 series single bay NAS lineup with the release of the DS112+, which as I write this is yet to go on sale. The recent arrival of this powerful single bay NAS lured us in to check out the latest range of Synology single bay units.

Typically our NAS reviews focus on models capable of supporting countless terabytes of data, and as enticing as the large capacity models are, they are often priced out of range for most. Yet not everyone needs to back up several terabytes of data and for those users’ devices such as the recently reviewed DS412+ are most certainly overkill.

The Synology DiskStation products offer a hassle free means of sharing data between multiple users, storing and backing up data as well as running a range of useful applications. This makes the single bay DiskStation DS112+, DS112 and DS112j highly useful tools for small office and home office users.

Synology are targeting small office and home users with the DS112j which is priced at just $150, and the DS112 at $200. The new DS112+ is design for small to medium offices as it is equipped with more powerful hardware making it more expensive at $250. Let’s check these NAS products out in greater detail...

The DS112j is equipped with a Marvell Kirkwood mv6281 1.0GHz (Marvell ARMADA 300) processor, 128MB DDR2 memory, one Gigabit LAN port and two USB 2.0 ports. It is compliant with 4TB hard disks to accommodate up to 4TB of storage.

As Synology’s most energy-efficient DiskStation ever, the DS112j consumes only 12.1 watts in operation. Furthermore, once the hard drive enters hibernation mode power consumption is reduced to just 4.4 watts.

The DS112j weighs just 0.72kg and measures 166mm tall, 71mm wide and 224mm long. With its single 60mm exhaust fan the unit generates a whisper quiet 17.1dBA. The DS112j features the exact same design as the DS212j that we looked at last year, with the only exception being that it is thinner due to the single bay design.

In order to install the hard drive the entire case cover must first be removed, which means the hard drive you install into the DS112j is really meant to stay in there. This is probably not so much of an issue given that this is a single bay device, and it is a cheaper design which helps Synology keep costs down.

From the front the DS112j has a dark gray strip down the right hand side which features the power button and a number of imbedded LED lights which indicate system status, network activity and of course hard drive activity.

The DS112 followed shortly after as it was announced on March 20th along with the recently reviewed DS412+. Interestingly although the DS112 is only $50 more expensive than the DS112j at $200, it boasts considerably better hardware. This time the Marvell Kirkwood mv6282 processor has been used which is clocked at 1.6GHz giving it the potential to be up to 60% faster.

However the hardware upgrades do not stop there, as the DS112 also receives twice as much memory going from the 128MB of the DS112j to a capacity of 256MB. This should certainly improve the DS112’s performance when dealing with multiple small files. The upgraded hardware means that the DS112 consumes slightly more power, 13.2w when accessed and 5.04w when in hibernation mode.

The physical dimensions, design and weight of the DS112j and DS112 units are identical, though the DS112 is said to generate slightly more noise when operating as the 60mm fan has to work a little harder to keep the 1.6GHz processor cool. It is also worth mentioning that unlike the DS112j and DS112 which are white, the DS112+ is black.

Finally we have the brand new DS112+ which again shares the same physical design with the DS112 and DS112j, meaning it weighs the same and is the same size. The notable changes have again been made to the processor and memory, as the DS112+ comes with the Marvell Kirkwood mv6282 clocked at 2.0GHz and 512MB of faster DDR3 memory.

Despite the significant upgrade in hardware the DS112+ consumes just 14.6 watts when accessed and 6.34 watts in hibernation mode. The unit is said to generate the same 18.4dBA as the DS112 and it uses the same 60mm fan. Finally all three models are backed with a 2 year warranty.

The Synology DS112+ delivered roughly the same performance as the DS212+ in our single large file download test, making it faster than both the QNAP TS-219P II and TS-119P II products. The DS211 also outpaced the QNAP competition as it was just 4% slower than the DS212+. The DS112j on the other hand delivered virtually the same performance as the DS212j making it 11% slower than the DS212+ and 7% slower than the DS112.

When using our game data for the download test we found that the DS112+ was exceptionally fast, delivering 11% more performance than the DS112 which was still very fast, surprisingly it was faster than the DS212+ and DS712+. The DS112j also performed well as it was just 3% slower than the DS112, allowing it to match the QNAP TS-119P II and TS219P II.

The DS112+ again looked good, this time in the program download test where it sustained a throughput of 25.9MB/s, making it 5% faster than the DS112 and 14% faster than the DS112j. Both the DS112+ and DS211 outpaced the competition.

The DS112+ and DS112 delivered almost identical performance in the single large file upload test with a bandwidth of around 70MB/s. This made them faster than the QNAP TS-119P II and TS-219P II by a small margin. However both were much slower than the more expensive Synology DS411+ and DS712+ devices in this test, as they are configured with multiple drives using RAID0. The DS112j delivered the same performance as the DS212j, making it slower than the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 and Thecus N3200XXX.

The DS112+ did well in the game upload test beating the DS411+ by a 10% margin, while losing to the DS712+ by an 8% margin. The DS112 was slightly faster than the DS411+ and 13% faster than the QNAP TS-119P II. The DS112j was surprisingly 16% faster than the DS212j, making it slightly slower than the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2 and faster than the Thecus N3200XXX.

The DS112+ and DS112 manage to regain the lead in the program upload test, beating the DS712+ by convincing margins. Even the DS112j performed well here with a bandwidth of 30.5MB/s, allowing it to match the old DS411+.

When copying the single large file on-disk the DS112+ and DS112 both delivered the same performance, making them both roughly as fast as the DS212+ here. The DS112j was much slower mimicking the performance of the DS212j, making it slower than the Thecus N3200XXX.

Here we see that the game copy performance of the DS112+ and DS112 is much better when compared to devices such as the QNAP TS-119P II and DS411+. With a throughput of roughly 30MB/s they are only slightly slower than the DS712+, while the DS112j shows improvement over the DS212j.

Finally the program copy test and here the DS112+ and DS112 take the lead, though they did beat the DS712+ by less than 1MB/s. The DS112j also performed well, matching the QNAP TS-119P II with 13MB/s.

Using CrystalDiskMark to measure the sequential read/write performance the Synology DS112+ and DS112 delivered roughly the same performance with a read speed of almost 60MB/s and a write speed of just over 90MB/s, not bad out of a single hard drive. The DS112j provided similar read performance, while it was much slower when measuring write performance reaching just 65MB/s.

The random 512K performance saw the DS112+ get away from the DS112 by a small margin, while the DS112j was again noticeably slower when looking at write performance.

Finally when measuring random 4K-QD32 performance the DS112+ was much faster than the DS112, which was much faster than the DS112j.

The DS112+ maxed out at 110.1MB/s in the Atto Disk Benchmark read test, while the DS112 was slightly slower reaching 94.6MB/s. The DS112j reached 84.8MB/s which is roughly the same limit faced by the DS212j.

The DS112+ was again fast, this time when measuring write performance, as it achieved a throughput of 110.5MB/s whereas the DS112 was limited to 95MB/s and the DS112j just 62MB/s.

Starting with the entry-level Synology DiskStation DS112j which can be had for as little as $150 in diskless form, we were impressed with the performance of this device. Despite being equipped with just a single drive we saw strong performance in our download tests, delivering similar performance to the more expensive DS112 and QNAP TS-119P II.

It wasn’t until we measured the upload or write performance that we discovered the weakness of the DS112j’s slower processor and smaller memory capacity. Although the DS112j was able to hang with the DS112 and TS-119P II in the download tests, it was up to 36% slower when uploading large files. Still, with a throughput of 45MB/s the DS112j isn’t exactly slow and should satisfy most home users, making it the ideal budget NAS.

For those willing to spend a little over 30% more the DS112 is even more enticing at $200 as it doesn’t suffer the same performance loss when uploading. In fact the DS112 was very similar to the more expensive DS112+ in our tests and it provided more performance than the slightly more expensive QNAP TS-119P II as well.

Then there is the flagship single bay Synology NAS, the DS112+, which didn’t disappoint offering solid performance in all tests. That said, we expect this model to go on sale for around $250, making it 25% more expensive than the similarly equipped DS112. In terms of value that’s not great news for the DS112+, as it was only at most around 10% faster than the DS112.

Considering the fact that all three devices make full use of the Synology DiskStation Manager 4.0 software, they are all on even terms in the features department, at least as far as software is concerned. That said, there is a hardware feature missing from the cheapest model as the DS112j omits USB 3.0 support which can be found on the other two models.

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All things considered we believe the Synology DiskStation DS112 is the best buy here as it mimics the feature set and performance of the more expensive DS112+, yet costs considerably less. The DS112j is an excellent solution for those wanting a cheap single bay NAS as it is still quite gutsy and of course provides users with access to the feature rich DSM 4.0 software.

The new DS112+ is an impressive product on its own and even when compared to the competition we tend to favor it over the likes of the QNAP TS-119P II, TS-112 and Thecus N2200EVO. However, Synology’s own DS112 makes the DS112+ somewhat of a useless product in our opinion, as the two are just so similar in terms of performance and features. Therefore we are going to award the DS112 and DS112j with our value award.