This year Synology has made significant upgrades to their standard business product range with the release of high-end orientated products, such as the DS2411+ and DS1511+. Both products feature dual Gigabit LAN controllers for Link Aggregation support, boosting read performance to over 190MB/s.

Synology has also made hot-swappable SATA bays standard on both models, as well as the ability to significantly expand storage using the DX510 and DX1211 expansion units. The DS2411+ can be coupled with a pair of DX1211 expansion units, allowing for a total of 24 hard drives, or 72TB. The storage capabilities of the DS1511+ on the other hand can be expanded using a pair of DX510 units, allowing it to scale up to 15 hard drives for a maximum capacity of 45TB’s.

Both products are of excellent quality and at $815 US for the DS1511+ and $2000 for the DS2411+, there is no denying that users are paying top dollar for that quality. Then factor in the cost for the expansion units, DX1211 at $1400 per unit or $500 for the DX510, and you start to appreciate how costly such a setup can be.

The problem is not every business is going to require a 12-bay NAS device right away and even the 5-bay DS1511+ can be considered overkill for many, at least initially. The alternative to these large bay devices has been the DS710+, a dual bay device that can be expanded to support 7 drives using the DX510. At $500 the DS710+ is considerably cheaper than the DS1511+, and it’s a good way for businesses to start out as it can support up to 6TB of storage with the potential to expand up to 21T’s with the DX510.

However the DS710+ is an ageing product, as it was announced back in February of 2010 along with the DS1010+, which has now been replaced by the DS1511+. In terms of technical specifications the DS710+ is still quite sound, though it does lack one critical feature that is now becoming a standard feature of the business class NAS devices. That feature is of course Link Aggregation, and without it the DS710+ is limited to a maximum read and write throughput of 113 - 102MB/s.

Therefore Synology are now upgrading their 2-bay business class NAS to support Link Aggregation, along with their current design and a slightly faster processor. The new model, known as the DS712+, boasts a read speed of 180MB/s with a write throughput of 105MB/s thanks to its dual Gigabit LAN controllers, which provide Link Aggregation. Additionally, the Intel Atom D425 processor provides a little more oomph, while the new hardware design features an updated lock mechanism and larger fan. With that said, let’s take a look at the new DS712+ and its optional DX510 expansion unit in greater detail...

As the DS712+ is a 2-bay device it does leave a slightly bigger foot print when compared to the lower-end Synology 2-bay devices, measuring 232mm long, 103.5mm wide, and 157mm tall. When empty the DS712+ is quite heavy for a 2-bay device, tipping the scales at 1.69kg, and it will become even heavier once a pair of hard drives are installed.

The front of the case features a pair of 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 integrated a small key hole into the bottom of each drive cage that allows the user to lock individual drives. For those concerned about security this design should be more 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 DS712+ is a breeze and we really appreciate just how quick and easy it is to swap drives out of this device.

Directly opposite the hot-swappable drive bays are four more activity LEDs which indicate status, LAN1, LAN2 and copy. There is also a bright blue LED alongside the power button which indicates that the unit is active.

Spinning around to the back of the DS712+ reveals a large 92mm fan, dual Gigabit LAN ports, dual USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA port for connecting the DX510 and a 4-pin power connector. Synology are shipping the DS712+ with an EDAC EA10721A power brick featuring an output rating of 72 watts. This is considerably more than is required, given the DS712+ has a full operating rating of just 27.5 watts.

As mentioned previously, the eSATA port is used to connect the DS712+ to the DX510 expansion enclosure if the user chooses to do so. The dual Gigabit LAN ports are used to achieve the claimed 105MB/s write and 181MB/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 DS712+.

Something we really appreciate about the DS712+ which has been absent from the higher-end DS1511+ and DS2411+ units is front panel connectivity. The DS712+ features a single front mounted USB 2.0 port for quick copying from external media. While it is nice to see this feature make a comeback on the DS712+, we feel USB 2.0 technology should now be replaced by USB 3.0 for faster transfer rates.

As the DX510 is a 5-bay device, it leaves a slightly bigger foot print when compared to the more common 4-bay devices, measuring 233mm long, 248mm wide, and 157mm tall. Empty the DX510 is quite heavy weighing 4.10kg, and of course it will become even heavier once five hard drives are installed.

Like the DS1511+ the front of the DX510 features five hot-swappable drive bays, each with their own green activity light at the top. Again in order to unlock the bays the user is simply required to press down on them, while they feature a small latch to lock or unlock individual bays.

Inside the DX510 is a small blue PCB which features a Silicon Image Sil3726 port multiplier chip. This 1-to-5 SATA port multiplier chip is designed to provide a high-performance link between a single SATA host port and five SATA ports.

The SiI3726 supports host and device link rates of 1.5Gb/s and 3Gb/s with auto-negotiation, and when connected to a FIS based switching controller it provides data aggregation to fully utilize the 3Gb/s host link. It supports SEMB protocol for enclosure management and programmable PHY drive strength.

Powering the internal hardware, including the five hard drives, is an inbuilt Seasonic SS-250SU active PFC power supply which is rated for an output of 250 watts. This will certainly provide more than enough headroom for five 3.5” hard drives. The unit fully loaded is rated to use just 59 watts under load and 18 watts at idle.

Rather than soldering the memory chips directly to the PCB, as was the case with earlier Synology NAS devices, the DS712+ features a single SO-DIMM slot. This slot comes preloaded with 1GB of DDR2-800 memory. This means in order for the user to expand the memory capacity they will have to do away with the 1GB stick. The good news however is that 4GB modules cost next to nothing at the moment.

Also featured on the PCB are two Intel 82574L network controllers and a Silicon Image Sil3531 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 DS712+ 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.

Synology has used the ICH9R Southbridge to supply the internal SATA support to the dual bays, while the Silicon Image Sil3531 controller has been employed to connect the DS712+ to the DX510 expansion unit.

The Intel 82574L controllers provide the DS712+ 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 DS712+ provides users with just three, while a fourth is used to connect an internal micro drive. This tiny micro drive 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 DS712+ operating system install.

It is also worth mentioning that Synology has gone with a 100% solid capacitor design, making the DS712+ a more durable product.

There is one more obvious ingredient that must be added and that is the hard drives. The DS712+ 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.

For the purpose of this review, we installed a pair of Western Digital Blue 500GB hard drives. To really get your money's worth, we'd recommend opting for 2TB or even 3TB drives, giving a total capacity of 4 or 6TB.

The Disk Station Assistant software is provided on a CD, though the latest version as of writing (3.2-1920) can also be downloaded from Synology's website. This latest version gives the user the option to create the Synology Hybrid RAID volume at the first-time DSM installation on your new DiskStation.

The Disk Station Assistant software detects the DS712+ and lets you install the latest firmware. In this case it's the Disk Station Manager 3.2-1753.

Creating a volume on Synology Disk Station products is often an extremely lengthy process, and it's been one of the few gripes we've had with their products. The DSM 3.2 has resolved this issue by affording you 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 are Synology Hybrid RAID, Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6 and RAID 10. The DS712+ was configured to use RAID0 for testing, which gave us a 1TB storage capacity.

Once the volume is created, you're free to configure the DS712+ as you 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 DS712+.

One of the suite's coolest applications is called Download Station 2, which allows you to turn the DS712+ into a 24/7 download center for BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP, eMule, NZB news server, RapidShare and MegaUpload. Even shutting down your computer won't affect transfers, as files are downloaded directly to the DS712+.

The eMule download service is integrated into the Download Station 2 web interface and you can simply connect to any eMule server on the list and start searching right away. You can also set the upload/download rates and the maximum connections in the eMule settings. For batch downloads, you can assign multiple 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 that makes it simple to locate and download torrents. Additionally the RSS Feed feature makes it easy for heavy torrent users to keep track of the latest releases.

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 capacities 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 DS712+ is a master at backing up data and has many such options. The local backup allows data to be copied from the DS712+ to an external hard drive using one of the USB 2.0 ports. This enables quick and easy backups of any data located on the device.

You can also perform 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 -- and you probably won't. We particularly liked Photo Station 4, Download Station 2 and Web Station.

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

For a 2-bay NAS the DS712+ does use quite a lot of power. When compared to the DS211 and LG NAS N2A2 the DS712+ certainly appears very power hungry, as it consumes roughly the same amount of power as a fully loaded QNAP TS-412. Still, with a maximum consumption of 28 watts the DS712+ is not exactly a power monster, certainly not when compared to the Core 2 Duo test system.

However when combing the DS712+ and the DX510 the total consumption figure does come close to that of the Core 2 Duo test system, with a load consumption of 86 watts. When you consider that the QNAP TS-659 Pro II houses just one less hard drive, the consumption figures for this dual device setup is quite high.

With our inability to utilize the Link Aggregation feature of the DS712+ we were limited to around 95MB/s in our single 6GB file download test. Even so the DS712+ was still faster than our Core 2 Duo test system, as it delivered similar performance to the older DS211.

The game download test saw the DS712+ deliver very strong performance with a throughput of 55.3MB/s, making it slightly faster than the DS411+ and much faster than our Core 2 Duo test system. By adding the DX510 expansion unit the performance was slightly increased again, as we were adding more drives to the RAID0 configuration.

The program download test again saw the DS712+ provide impressive results as it roughly matched the DS1511+ with a throughput of 23MB/s.

Again, as we were unable to use the Link Aggregation feature the DS712+ was limited to just under 100MB/s, as it maxed out a single Gigabit Ethernet connection. Still this is only a problem when transferring large files, as smaller files cause a bottleneck due to the limited CPU power.

The game upload test saw the DS712+ deliver a throughput of 70MB/s, making it slightly slower than the QNAP TS-659 Pro II and quite a bit slower than the DS1511+.

The program upload test reduced performance further, limiting the DS712+ to 36MB/s where it matched the performance of the QNAP TS-659 Pro II. Although the DS712+ was much slower than the DS1511+ here, it still maintained an impressive lead over other devices such as the DS411+, DS211 and our custom Core 2 Duo test system.

The 6GB on-disk file copy test saw the DS712+ deliver a throughput of 48.2MB/s when equipped with the DX510, while the dual drive configuration sustained 44.5MB/s. Although this did mean that the DS712+ was slower than the DS411+, the margin was minimal.

The DS712+ performed much better in our game copy test, as it provided 31.6MB/s, making it faster than the DS1511+ and DS411+. More over, with the DX510 expansion unit the DS712+ was able to overtake the QNAP TS-659 Pro II.

The program copy test saw the fastest devices hit a brick wall at around 15MB/s, and this is where the DS712+ ended up. Here it delivered the same performance as the DS1511+ and our Core 2 Duo test system.

The CrystalDiskMark sequential read and write performance of the DS712+ was impressive, as it matched the DS1511+ and DS411+ units. The QNAP TS-659 Pro II is at an advantage here as it was tested with Link Aggregation enabled. Again we were not able to test the DS712+ with this feature enabled as the desktop motherboard we use failed.

The random 512K read performance is interesting as the DS712+ provided our strongest performance yet, with a throughput of 60.1MB/s making it faster than even the DS1511+. Interestingly, when adding the DX510 expansion unit the DS712+ was slightly slower in this test.

The random 4K-QD32 test saw the DS712+ deliver average performance, as the write throughput was limited to 10MB/s. When coupled with the DX510 the DS712+ provided considerably more impressive read performance, as it reached 4.5MB/s, making it a fraction faster than the DS1511+.

When compared to the other NAS devices the DS712+ showed strong performance when working with small 1K, 2K, 8K and 32K sample data. The performance did unexpectedly drop off for the 128K test, though only by a small margin. Still, overall the DS712+ demonstrated very strong read performance.

Again the DS712+ was able to hang with the more expensive DS1511+, DS411+ and QNAP TS-659 Pro II units, particularly when handling smaller files.

The HD Video Playback test saw the DS712+ deliver a throughput of 95MB/s, placing it alongside the DS211 and DS411+ in terms of performance.

The DS712+ also performed well in the HD Playback & Record test, matching the DS1511+ with a thought of 101MB/s.

The DS712+ delivered strong performance in the Content Creation test, with a throughput of 12MB/s, allowing it to match the QNAP TS-659 Pro II, DS1511+ and DS411+.

The DS712+ combined with the DX510 managed 48.9MB/s when running the Office Productivity test, making it the fastest device tested. Even without the DX510 the DS712+ managed 48.1MB/s.

Finally the Photo Album test, and here the DS712+ again delivered the strongest performance, as it was a fraction faster than the DS1511+ as well as the DS411+ and QNAP TS-659 Pro II.

The advantage of this solution is that for a fraction of the price the DS712+ delivers performance similar to devices such as the DS1511+. The DS712+ takes the existing DS710+ and makes it better in virtually every way.

However the key advantage is Link Aggregation, and while we have been able to demonstrate the advantages of this technology in the past, we were unable to do so with the DS712+. Of course that is no fault of the DS712+, rather the hardware required to use this feature was unavailable at the time and we were unable to acquire a new motherboard that supported teaming before today’s launch.

While Link Aggregation is an excellent feature that can boost read and write performance to 105 - 180MB/s, this extra headroom is not always going to be available. In fact it is only likely that the DS712+ and other Atom driven NAS devices will exceed the Gigabit Ethernet 1.0Gbps limitation when a single client is uploading/downloading large 1GB+ files.

The fact is the Atom processors coupled with their small memory buffers do not have the horse power required to sustain such high data speeds when working with multiple small files, as demonstrated by our game and program file transfer tests.

That said, overall we were impressed with the performance of the single-core Intel Atom D425 processor, as it was able to keep pace with the dual-core Atom D525 used by the DS1511+ in most tests. Additionally, adding the DX510 to expand the RAID0 configuration also helped to improve performance further.

Therefore, in terms of hardware, the DS712+ is well equipped and like all Synology products it is backed by a very impressive software package as well. The third revision of the DiskStation manager has impressed us previously when testing on other products, such as the DS2411+ and DS1511+. The latest 3.2 revision is of course just as impressive, while it brings a few more features to the table, such as Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR).

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Although we are not entirely clear on pricing, it is believed that the DS712+ will come in at a similar price to that of the DS710+, the product it is replacing. This means the DS712+ should cost around $500 US, which is roughly the same asking price as the DX510. This means the 7-bay combo will cost roughly $1000, which makes sense given the 5-bay DS1511+ costs $800.

Overall we are impressed with the build quality, design, performance and features of the Synology DS712+. Meanwhile the DX510 expansion unit is an excellent way to increase storage without sacrificing performance. Combined, the two offer a highly flexible solution to growing businesses or professionals that cannot afford to cough up $800+ right off the bat for the larger devices.