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The Synology Diskstation DS411 Slim is a rather unusual NAS device and one that we feel will appeal to home users who have several spare 2.5 inch drives in storage. Many enthusiast users will have recently upgraded laptop systems with solid state drives, so the older redundant drives can be easily used for networked storage.
The desire of ownership is boosted by the incredibly low power overhead, demanding a minuscule 9 watts when inactive for a period of time. Even under load, the consumption only rises to a maximum of 15 watts which is sure to be a selling point to those people who wish to improve their carbon footprint.
On a performance level, the DS411 Slim might be expected to struggle, however this is not the case with speeds up to 95 MB/s documented across our well configured gigabit network. RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+ Spare, RAID 6, and RAID 10 are all supported out of the box. RAID 5 can even be expanded by adding a hard drive on the fly.
One of the strongest selling points of any Synology NAS system is the true multitasking DiskManager Operating System, which responds faster than any other software suite in the networking sector, even with the modest onboard Intel hardware. The interface is truly useful to an experienced user, yet it is uncluttered enough to make sense to a networking newbie. Synology always earn bonus points for their software implementation.
UK Pricing for the DS411 Slim is extremely competitive, with some stores such as MISCO offering the unit without drives for £250 inc vat.
Pros:
- cost effective
- impressive performance – up to 95MB/s in our tests
- silent
- NAS operating system is the best on the market
- very attractive design
- small physical footprint
- tiny power demands
Cons:
- specifically designed for 2.5 inch drives
KitGuru says: If you have spare 2.5 inch drives at home gathering dust, this is an ideal way to put them to good use.
