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During my testing I could clearly hear the Synology DS415play working, however it was resting on the test bench next to me whereas most NAS are parked on a shelf out of the way. The two cooling fans are very quiet, the four WD Red drives are near-silent and the Synology chassis is superb. It ducts cooling air to the drives while keeping noise and heat levels at a minimum.
There have been subtle changes from the DS214play to the DS415play such as the ditching of the copy button and the addition of a second USB 3.0 port, plus a number of USB 2.0 ports – however these are minor points.
It seems unlikely that many companies will want to push the video streaming element of NAS so we are talking about a consumer NAS that costs £372 and requires three or four hard drives that will cost £400 or £500. That is a total spend of £800 or £900 which strikes me as an epic amount of cash for watching videos on your tablet or phone.
In the event that you are considering a 4-bay DS414 NAS for your home then I strongly recommend you spend the extra £20 for the Atom upgrade that comes with the DS415play compared to the basic DS414, although the much cheaper DS414j is also a contender.
There is no doubt the DS415play excels at its task of serving up media files but it strikes me as a sledgehammer to crack a relatively small nut. Perhaps you need 20TB+ of storage and require a 4-bay NAS but if you can cope with a ‘mere' 12TB then a 2-bay DS214play will save you a fortune.
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Pros:
- Good performance.
- Synology DSM5 software.
- Tool-free drive bays.
- Decent array of software.
- Two USB 3.0 ports.
- Quiet operation.
Cons:
- High price.
- No digital display.
- Both USB 3.0 are at the rear.
- No HDMI.
KitGuru says: The ultimate 4-bay NAS for serving HD movies to your mobile device but you will pay a very high price for the privilege of owning the latest model from Synology.
No HDMI on a nas as a con? and using the web interface to upload and download files instead of samba? I get the feeling the reviewer doesnt fully understand using a nas as a nas.
Using your web browser to test the transfer speed seems pretty strange…
You also seem to forgotten about a little invention called TV. Who cares about transcoding video for your phone?
I want a Plex server that can transcode and send 1080p to any streaming device in the house…Roku, Android TV box, WDTV, etc.
Confirm in the plex forum with the compatability with the 415play, i read somewhere (but unsure about it) that plex doesnt yet support the hardware transcoding on this model .