Just two months ago now Synology began rolling out their latest DSx13 series of NAS servers when they unveiled the DS213+ ($430) on August 24th and then a few days later the DS213 ($320). Both are feature-rich 2-bay NAS servers that support the latest Synology DiskStation Manager software.

The more expensive DS213+ model boasts a 1067MHz dual-core Freescale processor with 512MB of memory using a 64-bit wide bus. The cheaper DS213 uses a higher clocked 2.0GHz processor, though it only features a single-core and supports just a 16-bit wide memory bus, though it is loaded with 512MB of memory.

While both these new 2-bay NAS servers are quite powerful, they are limited to just two hard drives and do not support expansion devices such as the DX213 for example. Although new 4TB internal 3.5” hard drives from Western Digital and Hitachi mean it is possible for smaller 2-bay devices to support up to 8TB’s of storage, it’s not the most cost effective solution at around $300 - $400 per drive given 3TB drives can be had for as little as $130.

This is where the DS413 and DS413j come in, as each supports up to four hard drives. Both of these new models were released in September and they are essentially 4-bay versions of the smaller DS213+ and DS213. The DS413 is armed with the same 1067MHz dual-core processor as the DS213+ while the DS413j borrows the single-core Marvell processor from the DS213, though this time it is clocked at just 1.6GHz.

With a price tag of $530 the DS413 will be competing with the QNAP TS-419PII and Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4. The DS413j on the other hand is much cheaper at $430 and at this price it faces very little competition, with the closest devices being the D-Link DNS-343 at $400 and the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ v2 4-bay. That being said, let’s check out these new 4-bay Synology NAS servers in greater detail...

Like the older DS412+ we find the quick copy feature on the front of the DS413, a feature which was missing from the previous generation high-end units such as the DS712+ and DS1512+. Unfortunately like the DS212+ the quick copy feature is not supported by USB 3.0, and rather a much slower USB 2.0 port has been used. Additionally the SD card reader, which was present on the DS212+, has been removed from the DS413.

When compared to its predecessor the DS412+, the new DS413 weighs exactly the same tipping the scales at 2.03kg. Unsurprisingly then the unit dimensions are exactly the same while they are virtually identical from all angles.

From the front the DS413 is entirely black. The strip down the right hand side features the power button, copy button, USB 2.0 port and a number of imbedded LED lights which indicate system status, network activity and of course hard drive activity.

The front panel of the DS413 is removable, as it is attached by four large rubber grommets that pop out when gently pulled. Behind the panel are four removable hot-swappable SATA cages which support 2.5” and 3.5” drives. There is a small push release latch at the top of each cage which allows them to slide out of the DS413. This is a very nice design that is both aesthetically pleasing and highly practical.

Around the back the design is again very similar to the DS412+. The same large 92mm fans which feature a custom grill that can be removed without having to gain access into the case have been included. The fans also have the same redundancy feature in case of failure. With both fans operating correctly they spin at a low, near silent RPM. However in the case of a single failure the remaining fan will spin up to cover the work load of the downed fan.

Also at the back users will find a 12v 4-pin DC input, eSATA port and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. The addition of USB 3.0 means that the DS412+ will be able to copy data from external hard drives much faster than the old DS411+ for example which is limited to USB 2.0. When compared to the DS412+ the only external difference with the DS413 is the removal of a Gigabit LAN port as the DS413 supports only a single port.

Inside the DS413 is a Freescale QorIQ P1022 dual-core processor that operates at 1.067GHz. It is worth pointing out that the last time Synology utilized a Freescale processor was over 2 years ago, when they released the DS110+ and DS210+ armed with the Freescale PowerQUICC III MPC8533E. Getting back to the present the QorIQ P1022 is based on the high-performance Power Architecture e500 cores and features a 32 KB L1 cache and supports 32/64-bit DDR2/DDR3 memory with ECC support.

Finally it is also worth mentioning that Synology has gone with a 100% solid capacitor design, making this a more durable product. The DS413 also comes with a 2 year warranty and will support the latest 4TB hard drives.

The DS413j has the same size footprint as the DS411j, DS410 and DS409 before it, making it 230mm long, 168mm wide and 184mm tall. When empty it weighs just 2.23kg, though it will become considerably heavier once four hard drives are installed.

The front of the device looks neat and simple. There's a large circular power button in the middle which lights up blue when active. Then to the left of this button are two green indicators labeled Status and LAN, while four more sit on the right labeled accordingly after each hard drive -- HDD1, HDD2, HDD3 and HDD4. These indicators flash during drive activity just as a normal hard drive light would on the front of an ATX case.

The rear of the DS413j is just as tidy featuring a single LAN port, power input and two USB 2.0 ports (note this product does not support USB 3.0). There are also two 80mm fans designed to extract warm air from inside the case generated by the four SATA hard drives. By just looking at it this appears to be one of the most featureless and simplistic four bay NAS devices we have ever come across. Thankfully, this is far from the truth as you'll soon find out.

If we could change one thing on the Synology DS413j, it'd be the lack of a front-mounted I/O panel and USB 3.0 support. Neither are deal breakers, but those wanting to quickly plug in an external hard drive might find it a hassle having to access the rear of the device first.

Internally the DS413j is virtually identical to past 4-bay Synology storage devices we've tested with a few minor improvements here and there. Most importantly, while the drives are not externally hot-swappable, they are internally, removing the need for power and data cables. The motherboard still sits at the bottom of the case and the drives are installed into a 3.5" cage on top of each other.

The DS413j is powered by the Marvell Kirkwood 88F6282 processor. This controller chip includes a 256KB L2 cache and typically operates between 1.6 and 2GHz, Synology has gone for the maximum operating frequency. As a bonus the Marvell chip doesn't require any kind of passive cooling even when operating at 2.0GHz.

The Kirkwood 88F6282 processor has been used heavily by Synology in the past as it has been used in the DS111, DS211, DS211+, DS411, DS411slim, DS112, DS112+, DS212 and DS212+. In all of these models the controller has never been paired with more than 512MB of memory and this remains true with the DS413j, which comes loaded with just 512MB of memory.

The update includes many important features, such as Synology Cloud Services for seamless syncing between devices as well as Antivirus Essential, a virus scanner.

There is also a QuickConnect option to sync data without port forwarding. Furthermore, unlike licensed cloud services, Synology's doesn't have recurring fees.

The DSM 4.1 also brings enhanced mobile support with updated apps for iOS, Android and Amazon's Kindle Fire. Synology is launching two of its popular mobile apps on Android tablets: DS file and DS photo+. DS File lets you browse through DiskStation files on a bigger screen and make changes instantly.

Those with Amazon's Kindle Fire will benefit from full mobile support using the latest Synology Kindle mobile app. This adds even more functionality to the Kindle Fire by letting it access your own cloud storage to share photos, files and music with friends anytime, anywhere.

There are also various new and improved administrative tools such as iSCSI LUN backup software, enhanced ADS/ACL support, flexible notification system, improved Apple support and scheduled SMART scans.

Of course, old favorites like Download Station and Photo Station are included too. Download Station 2 turns the DS413 or DS413j 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 NAS device.

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. Additionally, the newly-added Google Maps integration lets you geotag your photos and trace your path.

Between its sleek interface and gobs of features, we think DSM 4.1 is the best NAS software around.

For the purpose of this review, we installed four Western Digital Red 3TB hard drives. This gave us a total capacity of 12TB when using RAID0 or leaving the drives separate.

The DiskStation Assistant software comes on a CD, though the latest version can also be downloaded from Synology's website. The DSM 4.1 allows the user to create the Synology Hybrid RAID volume at the first-time installation on your new DiskStation.

Creating a volume on NAS products is often an extremely lengthy process, and it's one of the few gripes we've had with many units in the past. However recent versions of the DSM resolve this by letting you skip the check for bad sectors when formatting, creating the volume in minutes, not hours.

To create a volume you must choose the desired drives and volume type, which include Hybrid RAID, Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6 and RAID 10. We configured both the DS413 and DS413j with RAID5 for testing, giving us 10TB storage capacity.

Once the volume is created, you're free to configure the DiskStation 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. You can also connect a UPS or a printer to the DiskStation.

- Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Red 3TB (Serial ATAII)

- Western Digital RE4 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital RE4 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital RE4 500GB (Serial ATAII)

Without question one of the most important aspects of any NAS device is performance and unfortunately the QNAP TS-869L and TS-269L arrived at a time when we were changing a few crucial aspects of our NAS testing. Firstly we are moving away from testing with RAID0 as this is not how these devices will be configured in the real-world.

Testing with RAID0 has been our preferred method in the past as it shows maximum performance. That said, most readers are more interested in seeing RAID5 performance and therefore we are moving away from RAID0 to RAID5.

Along with the move to RAID5 we are now also testing with different hard drives. The new Western Digital Red hard drive series are perfect for testing NAS devices as they are designed to be used in such devices. The problem here is that under certain conditions the performance difference between the previously used RE4 and the new Red series is quite large, making it difficult to compare our new data against the old.

So with the QNAP TS-869L being tested using RAID5 with the WD Red drives it is not fair to compare its performance to say the Synology DS412+. Rather the DS412+ has been included as a rough guide. The good news is that in the coming weeks we will update our results with a number of new NAS products using RAID5 and the WD Red hard drives.

The power consumption of both the Synology DS413 and DS413j is very low, consuming just 34 and 32 watts, which is only slightly more than the Intel Atom armed QNAP TS-269L, a 2-bay NAS. When left to enter hibernation mode the DS413j consumed just 9 watts while the DS413 was even better using just 5 watts.

The Synology DS413 achieved a throughput of 98.6MB/s in our single large 6GB file download test, while the DS413j wasn’t a great deal slower managing 89.4MB/s. This meant that the DS413 was faster than both the new QNAP TS-869L and TS-269L, while the DS413j was just 8% slower than the TS-869L in this test.

The Synology DS413 again performed well, this time providing a throughput of 66.5MB/s in our game download test, while the DS413j managed 59.6MB/s making it a fraction faster than the QNAP TS-869L.

The Synology DS413 was very fast in our program download test sustaining a transfer speed of 31.3MB/s, making it considerably faster than the Atom driven QNAP TS-869L. The DS413j was also very fast achieving a throughput of 22.3MB/s, making it faster than both the QNAP TS-869L and TS-269L.

The upload single large file test saw the Synology DS413 deliver a throughput of 74.7MB/s, making it 17% slower than the QNAP TS-869L, yet 18% faster than the TS-269L. The DS413j on the other hand was limited to just 51.4MB/s, making it 19% slower than the TS-269L and 31% slower than the DS413.

The Synology DS413 and DS413j managed just 52.3MB/s and 40.1MB/s in the game upload test, making them both considerably slower than the higher-end QNAP TS-269L and TS-869L units.

The last upload test uses our program data and here we see a similar performance trend to that seen when using the game data. The higher-end QNAP TS-869L and TS-269L are much faster than the Synology DS413 and DS413j which were limited to 24.5MB/s and 22.7MB/s.

The Synology DS413 is able to slightly outperform the QNAP TS-869L in the single large file copy test with a throughput of 44.2MB/s. The DS413j was also faster than the more expensive TS-269L as it sustained a transfer speed of 32.6MB/s.

The Synology DS413 again took first place with a transfer speed of 32.1MB/s, making it slightly faster than the QNAP TS-869L. That said this time the DS413j was slightly slower than the TS-269L.

The Synology DS413 was the fastest tested NAS in our file copy program test delivering a throughput of 16.2MB/s, while the TS-869L managed just 11.7MB/s making it a fraction faster than the DS413j which sustained 11MB/s.

When measuring the sequential read/write performance with CrystalDiskMark we found that the Synology DS413 has a write throughput of 87.6MB/s and a read throughput of 65.6MB/s. This meant that while the read speed was greater than the QNAP TS-869L, the write speed was much slower. The DS413j on the other hand matched the read and write performance of the TS-269L.

The Synology D413 again shows very strong read performance, this time when running the random 512K test, that said the write performance is much lower than the QNAP TS-869L. The DS413j on the other hand was quite weak when measuring read performance, while the write throughput was quite respectable.

Finally the random 4K-QD32 test and here the Synology DS413 was very strong when measuring read performance while only average when looking at write performance. The DS413j was quite slow when measuring both read and write performance in this test.

The Atto Disk Benchmark read performance was very similar when comparing the Synology DS413 and DS413j. Every step of the way they were very close, with the DS413 only just managing to outclass the cheaper DS413j. Both the DS413 and DS413j delivered very similar performance to the QNAP TS-869L in the read test.

The Atto Disk Benchmark write test separated the Synology DS413 and DS413j, showing the DS413 as the superior performer. When compared to the QNAP TS-869L the DS413 provided very similar results and while it was slightly faster down low, the TS-869L took the lead when working with larger files.

That isn’t to say there will never be a 4-bay DSx13 product that will use the Atom D2700 processor and in fact the recently released 12-bay DS2413+ does use the 2.13GHz Intel processor, so it’s not implausible that we might see something like the DS413+ using the Atom D2700.

Still we really liked how the DS413 and DS413j made use of the latest Marvell and Freescale processors as they have a lot to offer. Both were surprisingly fast given their modest specifications and when it came to power consumption they were much more efficient than devices fitted with Atom processors.

The DS413 in particular was very impressive when measuring download (read) performance, beating the much more expensive QNAP TS-869L ($1000) and therefore we can safely assume that it is also faster than the TS-469L in this test as well. The same can be said about our download copy performance, as the DS413 consistently outclassed the TS-869L.

This is important to note as the QNAP TS-469L (4-bay) costs $750 whereas the Synology DS413 is a much more affordable $530, making it 29% cheaper. However where the TS-869L did manage to overcome the DS413 was in our upload performance tests, and here the QNAP product was significantly faster.

What we saw in our real-world file transfer tests was confirmed by the CrystalDiskMark synthetic benchmark. The random 512K test in particular confirmed what we have seen previously, showing very strong read (download) performance from the DS413 coupled with less impressive write (upload) performance.

The DS413j as also very strong when measuring download (read) performance and was in most cases able to match if not beat the QNAP TS-869L. When looking at copy performance the DS413j did fall behind the DS413 and TS-869L by quite a margin, though it was able to keep pace and even beat the TS-296L. Again it was only the upload (write) transfer tests where the DS413j really struggled.

Although the Synology DS413j is not intended to compete with high-end Atom driven products like the QNAP TS-269L, we feel it makes a very compelling argument in this particular comparison. Overall there isn’t a great deal separating the two in terms of performance and it is not unless you look at upload performance exclusively that the TS-269L looks like the obvious option.

However the DS413j costs just $430 and that is quite cheap for a well-rounded 4-bay NAS. The 2-bay TS-269L costs much more at $510, making it almost 20% more expensive while housing 50% less storage. Therefore in terms of value the DS413j is hard to beat and as we see it has no real competition right now, and for that reason it deserves our value award while the DS413 will be receiving our performance award.

Synology DS413

Synology DS413j