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Those of you who have been following our recent NAS reviews will have noticed that Synology recently released the latest version of their operating system which is fully multitasking, allowing the user to switch between applications and tasks. We think its a fantastic operating system and is worth another look in this review.
When the system is first powered up the Synology Assistant shows any compatible devices on the network. Most Synology devices require the firmware/software to be installed before they are used.
The newest firmware files can be downloaded from the Synology website, but in this case as the product was not released at time of review we used the file on the software disc supplied. The procedure takes about 10 minutes in total.
Diskmanager 3.0 is a low overhead, multitasking operating system which is extremely responsive to use. The interface will appeal to anyone who has used Windows or Linux.
As the software is multitasking capable we can perform many tasks simultaneously.
The first course of action is to set up a drive configuration.
Basic, JBOD, Raid 0 and Raid 1 are supported and RAID Migration is possible from Basic to Raid 1. Raid 1 can be expanded with larger hard drives. We are using two 1TB Samsung drives for this review (none are supplied from Synology).
Setting up shared folders for the network is a straightforward process. 2048 users and 256 user groups are supported with a maximum of 256 shared folders. 128 accounts can connect at the same time over SAMBA, FTP or AFP.
There is full support for Jumbo frames up to 9k, which obviously needs support from the rest of the network, including any switches incorporated. Macintosh networking is also supported, giving true cross platform compatibility.
The operating system has a monitoring system similar to the Windows panels, showing CPU overhead as well as memory demands and network activity. Any partitions can be analysed and hard drive temperatures can be monitored. The interface is fully featured and covers most bases. While we noticed that this system wasn’t as fast as some of the higher end models we have reviewed before, it is still capable of multitasking through various panels, even when mid way through a Raid configuration.
Diskstation 3.0 includes many media and automated options, such as
Download Station functions as a 24×7 BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP, eMule, and NZB download center without a PC. The eMule download engine allows search-n-download capability with a web-browser without installing additional desktop applications.
Audio Station supports music, Internet radio stations, and iPod playback with the optional speakers. An optional direction-free Synology Remote allows you to freely enjoy your music. Streaming mode allows your music to be shared with multiple users over the Intranet or Internet.
DLNA/UPnP Compliant Media Server allows you to stream multimedia files with an UPnP Digital Media Adapter (DMA) to a stereo system or a TV-set. Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox360 are also supported.
iTunes Server is an easy way to share music with other iTunes clients over the network. Password protection prevents unauthorized sharing.
Photo Station simplifies photo, video, and blog sharing over the Internet. The flexibility of photo theme customization, blog layout arrangement, visitor’s privilege setting, RSS feed, and the dazzling 3-dimentional photo browsing with Cooliris make Photo Station your state-of-the-art lifestyle sharing center on the Internet.
Web Station with built-in PHP+MySQL allows you to publish your own websites or install numerous popular open source programs.
Frequently used programs can be pinned to the taskbar for easy access later. There are many nice touches throughout which we are sure will be enhanced further as time progresses.
What a NAS system for the price ! wow this is going to sell well. those performance figures are high end systems of last year.
holy crap, if this is their new standard range for 2011, I wonder what the performance range will be like !
preordered this on dabs. thanks for the review. just want I need.
Wow these kind of performance figures are normally with products in the 500 price bracket. thats amazing. wonder if they will make a quad version at this speed for a bit more.
I love this company, they are breaking the rules. This will piss off other comapnies like QNAP and buffalo. you just dont get performance like this at the price they are offering. wicked. 10/10
Glad I waited, pre ordered this also.
Fascinating how they sell this for so low a price. the controllers at those speeds are generally expensive.
Really good, shame our local stores dont stock em, I like to see them in the flesh first.
Damn I just bought a buffalo nas and it sucks 🙁 wonder if I can take it back. its so damn slow.
wow, im stunned how good the performance of this is. I need a better network for it however. id be lucky to hit 20mb/s
My boss ordered 4 of these for the offices. very impressive product. I see the chipset is improved significantly. Fantastic pricing.
Please use ‘b’ for bits, and ‘B’ for bytes. Or better spell them out. That would make your charts and narratives much easier to follow. Thanks.
This seems like a good upgrade from their previous product, and prices are staying stable for the same grade of product. Could do with an esata port but thats really a quibble. How well do they cope with 4k format disks tho? they come in either 2tb 2.5tb or 3tb. Man one of these fitted out with a 2.5tb disk and a 4tb disk (thats me sweet for next 2.75years of projected Tv recordings) LOL
Synology have told me that they don’t yet support drives bigger than 2tb. But it is something that will be supported in the future.
No time frame on it yet, sorry.
Great review and very grateful that you tested the sound levels that the unit makes. It was one of my concerns with this product but the results of your dba testing have now sold me the unit. As I said great review and keep up the good work 🙂