Back at the start of 2010 network attached storage maker Synology released their latest flagship NAS device, the DiskStation DS1010+. Incredibly this 5-bay NAS was claimed to offer performance that was 250% greater than the award-winning DS509+. Although the DS1010+ natively supported five hard drives, it was able to merge with the DX510 expansion enclosure to support a total of ten drives.

Furthermore, using RAID-1, 5, or 6 volume-types, disks can be migrated to larger-sized disks, without loss of data. Whether adding additional disks, or migrating to larger size disks, the DS1010+ with its companion DX510 provide a total storage capacity of 20 TB. This made the DS1010+ and DX510 combo the ultimate NAS solution for large capacity needs.

However for those requiring even more capacity and performance, Synology updated the DS1010+ with its successor the DS1511+ late last year. The DS1511+ is very similar to the original as both share the same physical design and dimensions. Much of the internal hardware remains the same as well, though the Atom processor has been upgraded to a slightly faster model.

The key advantage to the new Synology DiskStation DS1511+ is its ability to connect with not one but rather two DX510 expansion enclosures, for a total of 15 hard drives. This means when using 3TB hard drives this configuration will yield up to 45TB, and well that’s a heck of a lot of storage.

Given that this is a high-end business class product, the DiskStation DS1511+ costs a cool $870 US in diskless form. The DX510 expansion enclosures for those that require even greater storage flexibility can be had for about $500 US each without drives.

Then if you were to fill them with 3TB hard drives that bill would come to about $2250 US. Add in the cost of the Synology products and you have a total bill of $4120 US, which is surprisingly good for such a vast amount of high-speed storage.

For businesses the DS1511+ can help reduce IT costs as it replaces other network hardware generally found in the office, such as old PC servers, given that it provides data storage, printer server and file sharing features.

Another great advantage of the DS1511+ and devices like it is the low power consumption, the DS1511+ consumes just 68 watts of power under normal operating conditions and supports Wake-on-Lan and hibernate disks when not in use to further reduce energy consumption.

As the DS1511+ is a 5-bay device it does leave a slightly bigger foot print when compared to the more common 4-bay devices, measuring 233mm long, 248mm wide, and 157mm tall. When empty the DS1511+ is quite heavy, tipping the scales at 4.25kg, and it will become even heavier once five hard drives are installed.

The front of the case features five hot-swappable drive bays, each with their own green activity light at the top. Synology has designed these bays in a way that they not only look great but are also very practical.

Rather than include a big ugly lock on each bay as QNAP does with many of their high-end units, Synology has simply included a small switch at the bottom which allows the user to lock and unlock each bay. For those concerned about security this is not much less secure than the lock design used by QNAP, as that simply uses a generic key.

Once unlocked the bays are very easy to release as the user is simply required to press down on them. Sliding the drives in and out of the DS1511+ is a breeze and we really appreciate just how quick and easy it is to swap drives out of this device.

Above the hot-swappable drive bays are four more activity LEDs which indicate status, LAN1, LAN2 and alert.

Spinning around to the back of the DS1511+ reveals a pair of 80mm fans, dual Gigabit LAN ports, four USB 2.0 ports, dual eSATA ports and a VGA port. There is also a 3-pin power plug which connects to a standard PC power plug, which means the power supply is located internally.

By installing the power supply internally users do not have to worry about power bricks which could become a nuisance for those pairing the DS1511+ with two DX510 expansion enclosures. This also makes the relatively compact dimensions of the DS1511+ even more impressive considering the internal power supply.

The eSATA ports are used to connect the DS1511+ to the DX510 expansion enclosures if the user chooses to do so. The dual Gigabit LAN ports are used to achieve the claimed 165MB/s write and 197MB/s read performance. They do this by using Link Aggregation technology which allows grouping several physical Ethernet links to create one logical Ethernet link for the purpose of providing fault-tolerance and high-speed links between switches, routers, servers and in this case the Synology DS1511+.

Something to be aware of is the lack of front mounted connectivity and this is becoming common practice for high-end Synology products. Those wanting to quickly plug in an external hard drive will have to gain access to the rear of the DS1511+, which could be a hassle. Perhaps a traditional front-mounted I/O panel would have been a more practical choice.

Rather than soldering the memory chips directly to the PCB, as was the case with earlier Synology NAS devices, the DS1511+ features a pair of SO-DIMM slots. One of these slots comes preloaded with 1GB of DDR2-800 memory. This means the user can expand the memory capacity by populating the second SO-DIMM slot if they so choose.

Also featured on the PCB are two Intel 82574L network controllers and a Silicon Image Sil3132 controller, along with the Intel ICH9 south bridge chip.

The ICH9 came out in May 2007, when it made its début with the P35 (Bearlake) chipset, and it was the first Intel desktop chipset to remove PATA support entirely. There are numerous versions of the ICH9 and the Synology DS1511+ uses the 82801IR I/O controller, otherwise known as the ICH9R. This high-end version of the chip boards AHCI and RAID support.

The 31x31mm chip uses just 4.3 watts and supports a whole host of features such as SATA 3Gb/s and USB 2.0. In fact the four internal bays, which offer a number of volume types, such as basic, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 5+Spare, 6 and 10, get this support from the ICH9R thanks to its use of the Intel Matrix Storage Technology.

Although the ICH9R does support six SATA ports, the sixth SATA port, which is used to provide eSATA support, is connected to the Silicon Image Sil3132 controller, which provides a pair of SATA 3Gb/s ports using the PCIe 1x bus.

The Intel 82574L controllers provide the DS1511+ with dual gigabit LAN support using the PCI Express 1.1 x1 (2.5GT/s) interface. These tiny 9x9mm controllers are built using the 90nm design process and have a maximum thermal design power of just 0.727 watts.

It is interesting to note that although the ICH9R south bridge chip does support a total of twelve USB 2.0 ports, the DS1511+ provides users with just four, while a fifth is used to connect an internal micro drive. Sitting over the Silicon Image controller is a small PCB which is connected to the mainboard using the USB interface.

This tiny PCB features a USBest UT165-L46 controller which is often featured in thumb drives. The controller is connected to a single Samsung K9F1G08U0C-PCB0 memory chip. This chip features a 128MB capacity and is designed to house the DS1511+ operating system install.

It is also worth mentioning that Synology has gone with a 100% solid capacitor design, making the DS1511+ a more durable product.

There is one more obvious ingredient that must be added and that is the hard drives. The DS1511+ compatibility list is quite broad, supporting a wide range of Hitachi, Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate and Western Digital hard drives. Furthermore 3TB drives from Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital are supported using the latest firmware.

One of the coolest applications within the suite is called Download Station 2, which allows you to turn the DS1511+ into a 24/7 download center for BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP, eMule, NZB news server, RapidShare and MegaUpload files. Even shutting down your computer won't affect transfers, as files are downloaded directly to the DS1511+.

The eMule download service is integrated into the Download Station 2 web interface. The user can simply connect to any eMule server on the list and start searching right away. The user can also set the upload/download rates and the maximum connections in the eMule settings. For batch downloads, the user can create multiple download tasks by entering more than one ed2k links at once, or simply upload a text file containing multiple links.

Download Station 2 also provides a torrent search function. By narrowing down the search categories, all the user has to do is to find the torrent they want and Download Station 2 will go and hunt for it. Additionally the RSS Feed feature makes it easy for heavy torrent users to keep track of the latest updates.

Another cool application is Photo Station 4, which comes with advanced photo wall and image flow browsing options. In addition, the flexibility of photo theme customization, visitors' privilege settings to view or upload photos, virtual albums of recently uploaded images, RSS feeds, and a 3D photo browsing of Cooliris, make this the ultimate photo sharing center on the Internet. Also, the newly-added Google Maps integration allows you to geotag your photos and trace your path.

The new Storage Manager offers iSCSI support and has been certified by VMware, Citrix and Hyper-V, allowing it to tackle the major virtualization servers. Another great Storage Manager feature is called Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) which optimizes volume size when combining hard disks of varying sizes into an array.

When set as the ‘Standard’ volume type in the Storage Manager, SHR provides 1 to 2 hard disks fault-tolerance of data protection. It can be expanded to an optimal volume space when larger or additional hard disks are inserted into the array.

As you might expect, the DS1511+ is a master at backing up data and can do so in a number of ways. The local backup allows data to be copied from the DS1511+ to an external hard drive using one of the USB 2.0 ports. This allows for quick and easy backups of any data located on the device.

There's also the option to carry out a network backup, which allows you to back up files and data from one Disk Station to another (or other rsync-compatible servers) over a network. With the Encrypted Network Backup option, users can encrypt data when a backup task is being processed, so sensitive data will not be exposed to uninvited guests.

Besides the mandatory backup functions, the extra software features can certainly come in handy even if you don't plan to use all of them. We particularly liked the Photo Station 4, Download Station 2 and Web Station functions.

For the purpose of this review we installed four Western Digital Blue 500GB hard drives. However to really get your money’s worth, most users will opt for at least 2TB or even 3TB drives, giving a total capacity of up to 15TB’s.

The Disk Station Assistant software is provided on a CD, though the latest version as of this writing (3.1-1593) can also be downloaded from the Synology website, though keep in mind it does weigh in at 83MB.

The Disk Station Assistant software detects the DS1511+ and allows the user to install the latest firmware. In this case it is the Disk Station Manager 3.1-1742 (Build Date: 2011/06/08) software which is a 157MB download.

This is the fourth release for the DSM 3.1 and the tenth version of the DSM 3.0 software. The initial DSM 3.1 release brought with it countless improvements over previous DSM 3.0 versions, while this second update offers a few enhancements and a couple of fixes.

Once the latest firmware is installed, the user is redirected to the DS1511+ login page for accessing the Disk Station Manager 3.1 software.

Previously we have found creating a volume on Synology Disk Station products is an extremely lengthy process and has been one of the few gripes we have had with their products. The DSM 3.1 has resolved this issue by affording the user the ability to skip checking for bad sectors when formatting. Doing so will have the volume created in just minutes, rather than hours.

In order to create a volume you will need to choose which hard drives you want to use and the volume type. The options include Synology Hybrid RAID, Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6 and RAID 10. The DS1511+ was configured to use RAID0 and RAID5 when testing, which gave us a 2TB storage capacity.

Once the volume has been created, the user is free to configure the DS1511+ as they see fit. The next logical step would be to setup user accounts and privileges. Shared folders can then be assigned and features such as the Download Station 2 can be initiated. Users are also free to connect a UPS or a printer to the DS1511+.

Hardware - Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 (2.60GHz) - x2 2GB DDR2-1066 G.Skill (CAS 7-7-7-18) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - ASUS Radeon HD 4550 (256MB) - ASUS P5Q Pro (Intel P45) - OCZ GameXStream (700 watt) Software - Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (64-bit) - ATI Catalyst 10.3

- Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII) - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

- Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII) - Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

The Synology DS1511+ consumed surprisingly more power than the DS411+ given that it only houses one more hard drive. That said, the faster processor could also attribute for the rise in consumption. Still at 51 watts the DS1511+ used considerably less power than our Core 2 Duo test system which was configured with just two hard drives.

The Synology DS1511+ is able to max out a single Gigabit Ethernet connection when running our single large file download test, as it roughly matched the performance of the DS411+. The RAID0 and RAID5 performance was much the same. However when using Link Aggregation the performance was boosted considerably and the DS1511+ was able to achieve a throughput of 188.7MB/s.

The game download test uses a mixture of small and large, compressed and non-compressed files. As you can see this severely limits the bandwidth when compared to the single large file test. The Synology DS1511+ was able to download at around 60MB/s, making it 7MB/s faster than the DS411+ and about 17MB/s faster than the test system.

The program copy test is comprised of many small non-compressed files (6104 files totaling 2.75GB). Again you can see that this severely limits the performance, as the Synology DS1511+ was only able to produce a bandwidth of 24MB/s. Still, when compared to the 17.5MB/s of the Core 2 Duo test system this is a reasonable performance boost.

The single file upload performance of the Synology DS1511+ was similar to that of the download performance. Here the DS1511+ maxed out the Gigabit Ethernet connection just as the DS411+ did. Using Link Aggregation we were able to increase the throughput to 171.4MB/s, making the DS1511+ considerably faster than anything previously tested.

Again we find that our game test does limit the performance, though the Synology DS1511+ was still considerably faster than anything previously tested. With a throughput of 80MB/s in RAID5 and 84MB/s when using RAID0, the DS1511+ crushed the DS411+ and our Core 2 Duo test system.

The program upload test was also much faster when using the Synology DS1511+ when compared to the DS411+ and our Core 2 Duo test system.

The on-disk copy test still favors our Core 2 Duo test system, even for the single file test. Here the Synology DS1511+ provided between 40 – 55MB/s depending on the configuration, while the Core 2 Duo test system managed 63MB/s. Link Aggregation was not of much benefit for this test, as the DS1511+ was unable to max out a single connection.

The game copy test provided similar performance trends. Here the Synology DS1511+ was limited to around 31MB/s, while the Core 2 Duo test system was slightly faster reaching 36MB/s.

Finally the program copy test allowed the Synology DS1511+ to just overtake our Core 2 Duo test system, making it much faster than all previously tested NAS devices.

When measuring sequential write performance with CrystalDiskMark the Synology DS1511+ maxed out the Gigabit Ethernet connection reaching 108.2MB/s, matching the performance of the DS411+. With Link Aggregation enabled the DS1511+ write performance reached 189.5MB/s, while the read performance remained much the same at 77.4MB/s.

The random 512K results are similar to those previously seen when running the sequential test. The Synology DS1511+ is again able to max out the Gigabyte Ethernet reaching 103.4MB/s, while Link Aggregation extended the bandwidth to 186.5MB/s.

The Synology DS1511+ performed very well in the 4K-QD32 test, providing the best performance of any NAS device tested to date. With a write throughput of roughly 40MB/s the DS1511+ was much faster than the DS411+.

The Atto Disk Benchmark read performance showed the Synology DS1511+ provided similar 1K, 2K and 8K performance when configured using either RAID0 and RAID5. Link Aggregation was also of no benefit here, in fact it wasn’t until the sample data reached 32K and 128K that LAG was able to have an impact.

The write performance of the Synology DS1511+ when using RAID0 was identical to that of the DS411+, while the RAID5 configuration was slightly slower. Again Link Aggregation provided additional performance for the 32K and 128K tests, maxing out at just over 140MB/s.

The HD Video Playback test saw the Synology DS1511+ produce a bandwidth of 98.4MB/s, making it slightly slower than our Core 2 Duo desktop test system. Interestingly enabling Link Aggregation improved performance by another 12MB/s, making the DS1511+ faster than the test system.

The HD Playback and Record test saw the Synology DS1511+ achieve a throughput of 101.6MB/s, while Link Aggregation was able to boost performance to 128.7MB/s. When using RAID5 the DS1511+ was slower, maxing out at just 89MB/s.

The Content Creation test saw the Synology DS1511+ max out at 12MB/s, matching the DS411+. The Link Aggregation configuration was slightly faster providing 1.2MB/s more bandwidth.

The Synology DS1511+ performed very well in the Office Productivity test. The RAID0 configuration reached 44.9MB/s, while RAID5 allowed for 43.5MB/s matching the DS411+.

Finally the Photo Album test saw the Synology DS1511+ reach 11.1MB/s, making it roughly as fast as the DS411+.

Admittedly products like the Disk Station DS1511+ are more of a luxury than a necessity for home users. For business use however, the DS1511+ can be a highly valuable tool that is well worth the asking price, and this is of course a business class product.

The DS1511+ by itself costs $840 plus the addition of the five hard drives. Thankfully nowadays hard drives are a dime a dozen, with quality 2TB drives such as the WD Black selling for just $150 each, with 3TB drives going for as little as $180. All up you would be looking at spending a little over $1700 to build a 15TB server, which is actually very good value. That's a ton of storage, but anyone buying a 5-bay NAS device is obviously after just that.

Anyone who requires less than 10TB of storage is better off checking out 4-bay or even 2-bay devices. Again the DS411+ provides similar performance and we really liked this product, for $700 US it’s an excellent alternative for those after a little less storage.

We found the DS1511+ to be an invaluable tool for storing and accessing data. Its 1.8GHz dual-core processor was powerful enough that several users could access the device at once, streaming music, movies, and pictures. The DS1511+ handles this kind of demand very well, just as any high powered desktop computer would.

Those wanting to use the DS1511+ in their living room alongside a HTPC should not worry about the noise generated by this NAS server, as it's very quiet. The DS1511+ can be tucked away out of sight, thanks to its small footprint and the fact that the unit is self-managed, and anything that needs to be altered can be done so remotely.

In terms of performance the DS1511+ is another step in the right direction, slowly getting closer to the performance of today’s desktop computers. In fact there were quite a number of tests where the DS1511+ easily outpaced our affordable Core 2 Duo desktop system. With Link Aggregation enabled large file copy performance went through the roof, blowing away anything previously tested.

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However while Link Aggregation will speed up the transfer of a single large file, it does little to aid performance when moving multiple small files, as the CPU is still the primary bottleneck here. Therefore we found for the vast majority of our real-world testing Link Aggregation had little impact on performance. Overall the performance of the DS1511+ was excellent and it’s about as good as you are going to get out of an Intel Atom driven device.

The latest revision of the DiskStation Manager software is most impressive and although it really tops off the DS1511+ nicely, the fact that Synology is offering this update to products that have been in the market for years is just the kind of thing we love seeing from manufacturers.