Introduction
One of the biggest names in the network-attached storage (NAS) business right now is SYNOLOGY and for good reason.SYNOLOGY offers one of the largest and most impressive ranges of NAS products aimed at both home users and large businesses.
Right now SYNOLOGY is offering NAS devices for less than $200 US, while some models cost over $1000 US. The new budget single bay SYNOLOGY DS112j costs $180 US, while the dual bay versions, costs from $260 US and then the four bay version is $499 US. This is a nice starting point, though in total SYNOLOGY currently offers a total of four single bay, along with five dual and quad bay devices, while there are also a few six and even eight bay devices.
There are a number of legitimate reasons why NAS devices are becoming so popular in work environments, but because of the costly setup investment, they have remained more of a luxury than a necessity for home users.
SYNOLOGY recently updated their product range and in doing so added a brand new 4-bay NAS device designed specifically for business use. Stepping up from the DS212+ DiskStation is the new DS412+ DiskStation, which carries a rich legacy,
The first thing we questioned when SYNOLOGY told me about the new DS412+ DiskStation,was what’s different when compared to the DS212+ DiskStation? As it turns out there are a lot of differences between these two products and that differences are the following.First of all the CPU Frequency: Dual Core™ 2.13 GHz, with floating point.Then the RAM Size: DDR3 1 GB.The Max Internal Capacity is 16TB now.There is also 2 LAN with Failover and Link Aggregation Support and the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports.The main attraction is the speed of 202.36 MB/sec Reading, 179.15 MB/sec Writing!!!!!
Package and accesories
The unit arrived inside a purple white box with the Synology logo and 5 icons highlighting its main features.Features and specifications at the rear of the box.
Bundled with the DS412+ chassis are the following accessories: an AC adapter, an installation CD ,two lan cables ,a welcome paper and a manual and some screws.
The Nas
The Synology DS412+ DiskStation has a nice black plastic surface.In the rear is a big Synology logo.All in all, the DS412+ is a very nice looking unit.
In the front panel we see the IO interface which includes all of the status indicators along with a few other goodies such as:Status LED,LAN Status LED,Disk 1 Status LED, Disk 2 status LED,Disk 3 Status LED,Disk 4 Status LEDSD Card Slot,USB 2.0 Port,Reset Button,Power Button.
Al those features are there to help monitor and even connect to and control the unit.
Next moving to the rear we get to the basic connectivity side of things. This is where we have one e-sata, two Gigabit LAN ports and dual USB 3.0 ports to ensure high speed transfer rates no matter the usage. Also included is two cooling fans to keep all of the important bits safe and a DC jack to power the unit, and lastly a Kensington security lock port to ensure the unit goes nowhere once it is installed.The large fan is there to keep the audible noise down. Synology DS412+ is designed with energy efficiency in mind. Not only does it provide two 92x92 mm fan and the smart airflow to keep the system running cool 24/7, its noise dampening design makes it really quiet compared to PC counterparts. The support of Wake on LAN/WAN, multiple scheduled power on/off and hard drive hibernation can further reduce power consumption and operation cost.
At the bottom of the unit there are many ventilation holes.Also we see the rubber fits for stabillity.
Installation
Here we see the front without the cover on it. The cover allows air to flow over the drives and acts as a sound diffuser as well.
The drive sleds are plastic instead of aluminum or steel because the plastic absorbs vibration and doesn't transfer it to the drive like the metal sleds. Synology also uses rubber grommets between the drive and the sled, another vibration arrestor.
The installation of the drives is really quite simple. Users need only pull off the front piece which covers the dual drive bays and we see a rather standard front face on our DS412+.
Then we simply slide out the hot swap trays we find that standard screw mounting is used to hold the drives in place on the tray.
When looking inside the product, we can find the SATA Data and Power connectors.The PCB is being covered by a metallic plate.
The two 92x92x25mm are from Y.S TECH, rotating at 1900 rpm and providing 36.3 CFM with 23 db Noise Level each of them.
Software
With thoughtfully designed interface, DSM 4.0 is a powerful operating system with a low learning curve. Users don’t need to spend a lot of time on manuals before starting to enjoy the rich features of Synology DiskStation.The Quick Search Box is always at the top of the taskbar. Enter the keyword and a list of relevant applications and help articles will start to populate as you type.Control Panel consolidates all system settings, where users can easily modify both software and hardware configurations. A common problem for using any advanced software program is that users have to browse too many levels and too deep inside any program to find the feature they want. The maze-like path is not easy to get out, and one can lose the sense of what he/she wanted to do in the first place. Synology DSM has the solution: both in Control Panel and DSM Help, the Home button on the navigation bar can bring you back instantly to the homepage.
Auto DSM Update allows your DiskStation to always be the latest version without any extra effort, keeping you and your DiskStation up-to-date.The smart fan control of DSM automatically adjusts fan speed according to the system temperature. You can choose to use 2.5" HDD mode or 3.5" HDD mode in order to achieve the greatest fan speed efficiency.The primary feature that makes Synology DiskStations "green products" is the unique power on and off functionality. You can set up multiple schedules for auto power on or off at any designated time, helping you to keep an eye on energy consumption as well as your wallet.WOL technology enables a DiskStation to be turned on remotely over the local area network or the Internet. Use the Synology Assistant or any other WOL application to perform WOL.One of the most popular Synology applications is the Download Station. You can turn off your computer while files are being downloaded and uploaded as the Synology DiskStation does these tasks autonomously. You can use the Synology DiskStation as a 24/7 download center for BitTorrentTM, FTP, HTTP, eMule, NZB news server, and multiple file hosting sites.
Live View Analytics lets you track targets during live viewing and recording. You can directly configure IP cameras of different analytics types and live view with attention focused. Track suspicious events intelligently and record them on the fly. A simulation mode ensures accurate tuning so you can adjust sensitivity, detection zone, and object size to deliver the best result for individual cameras.
Synology in DSM 4.0 is launching two of the popular Synology mobile apps on Android tablets – DS file and DS photo+. So grab any Android tablet you like and start flipping through your photos in full screen for the best experience, or browse through all in thumbnail view. For DS file, you can now browse through DiskStation files on a bigger screen and make changes instantly – it’s easy on both your mind and eyes. Synology mobile experience is now available on a variety of tablets.
To read and write from the NAS box, i use a PC built around an Asus X58D PREMIUM motherboard, 6GB of Corsair DDR3 RAM and an Intel Pentium i7 920 CPU overclocked to 4.2GHz. Also i used an Ocz Vertex 2 120 gb SSD.An single Constellation ES.2 3TB SATA III HDD was used inside the units.
Performance
To read and write from the NAS box, i use a PC built around an Asus X58D PREMIUM motherboard, 6GB of Corsair DDR3 RAM and an Intel Pentium i7 920 CPU overclocked to 4.2GHz. Also i used an Ocz Vertex 2 120 gb SSD.An single Constellation ES.2 3TB SATA III HDD was used inside the units.
There is no significant differences in read speeds and write speeds at small files.
The increase in read speeds and write speeds are the differences between the DS412+ and competitors in large files.
HDD temperatures was almost the same between the 4 devices.
The power consuption is a little better on idle at Synology Nas than Qnaps devices.
Conclusion
This NAS storage device features versatile applications for data storing, sharing, and backup needed for home and SOHO environments. It also provides MyCloudNAS service for publishing contents in the Synology ds412+ over the Internet and promises to create a personal cloud in a few easy steps. Synology’s firmware dsm 4.0 offers a lot of extra features that transform this NAS into a powerful server. The ds412+ can work as a web or video surveillance server, download files from the Web, stream multimedia files to compatible devices, etc.Home users will appreciate the nice-looking exterior and high quality of manufacture of this product. Its cooling system is efficient and quiet.In read and write transfer speeds this Nas simply is the (Alpha Dog).
The ds412+ by Synology is without doubt a wonderful piece of hardware which will certainly cover 100% of the users out there due to its very good hardware and software specifications. The 2.13GHz Marvell ARM processor along with the 1gb of DDR3 RAM make for a fine combination since not even once did we notice any speed issues while the 4 available drive bays give you a total available capacity of up to 16TB (and even more as new drives get released). The Web Interface is still my favorite since it's by far the most user friendly i have seen that however comes down to personal preference. As we speak the current retail price tag of around USD650 inside the USA and around 630 Euros inside the EU for the ds412+ by Synology may seem a bit high at first but you need to understand that for people who actually need the extra muscle and space it's actually not. On the other hand if you don't really need the extra drive bays you can always choose the ds212+ which is quite cheaper and is basically the same unit,except cpu and ram. Personally i can live with just 2 bays so the ds412+ seems just a bit overkill for me , still it works as advertised, it's very fast and gives you up to 16TB of storage so what more can any user ask for? Because of that i will awarding it with my Outstanding Award.
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Originally Posted by WindForce
