Synology RackStation RS3411xs Review (10 Bay NAS)

1. Introduction2. Synology RackStation RS3411xs3. The DiskManager Operating System4. Testing Methodology and Performance5. Acoustics, Temperatures and Power Drain6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

We are using a slightly different network configuration than we have previously – this means that these results today are not comparable to our other NAS reviews (except the DS3611xs review from June this year). The reason for this is simple – the RS3411xs has an insane amount of bandwidth within the right network. We are basing our network around two linked Belkin 1Gbit switches with 4x Gbit LAN connections to the RS3411xs. Without preempting the test results, they were almost identical to the DS3611xs so there is no need for a ‘head to head' in the graphs).

We are using three separate RAID 0 configurations across 9x500gb (3 x 1.5TB Raid 0) hard drives set into a 802.3ad dynamic link aggregation configuration. This enables multiple connections to be linked in parallel to increase the link speed beyond the limits of any one single cable or port and to increase the redundancy for higher availability.

Most implementations now conform to what used to be clause 43 of IEEE 802.3-2005 Ethernet standard, usually still referred to by its working group name of “IEEE 802.3ad”. The definition of link aggregation has since moved to a standalone IEEE 802.1AX standard.

We are opening 9 connections and copying 3 big files to each of the paired Raid 0 drive configurations. To try and mirror a business environment we set up three local machines with 120GB ADATA S511 SSD drives to ensure that no local drive limiting will be a problem. Each of these drives are transferring multiple files, back and forward.

Our final bandwidth score was around 508 MB/s, matching the DS3611xs in the performance stakes. The limiting factor is our network. We are confident that Synology's claims of 1000+ MB/s are accurate (with the add on card), but we can't push the RackStation to its limits.

We managed to achieve a total of 489MB/s when writing to the nine Raid 0 configured drives, which is again a fantastic network result.

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