Synology Diskstation DS3611xs Review

1. Introduction2. Synology Diskstation DS3611xs3. The DiskManager Operating System4. Testing Methodology and Performance5. Acoustics, Temperatures and Power Drain6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Kitguru has reviewed many of the Synology range over the last year and today we are looking at something very special indeed. The new Diskstation DS3611xs, which is an ‘ultra high' performance NAS server which can scale up to 100TB, for larger businesses.

Synology claim that the Diskstation DS3611xs can deliver 1000 MB/s throughput and with the DX1211 12 bay expansion bay, storage capacities are never going to be a problem. When the DS3611xs starts to run out of room, the DX1211 can be connected via the Infiniband cable which carries 12GB/s SATA signals, maximising data transfer speeds.

This is a no compromise design which has 4 Gigabit ports on the rear of the chassis. Dual 10GbE are supported with the add on PCI Express x8 Gen2 Network Interface Card, for even more demanding situations. The network ports also have failover support and when combined with hot swappable drives can ensure that the system will maintain continual service uptime.

The system uses ECC Ram to detect and correct any errors that can occur during transmission. While it ships with 2GB of memory it can be upgraded to 8GB, ideal for larger scale operations.

At £2,000 this is certainly not going to be an impulse buy and only a very small percentage of the home audience would even contemplate it.

The DS3611xs is shipped in a massive box, which follows the traditional, and rather plain packaging style of Synology.

The unit is shipped with a manual, software CD, power plug, drive mounting screws and four Cat 6 cables.

We have reviewed the DS1511+ before, which is a big unit, but even that pales in comparison to the DS3611xs. It is really heavy, even without drives installed, weighing 10.53 kg.

We are pleased to see, that since this is aimed at the business audience, Synology are using metal drive bays. The lower surface is coated so it won't directly touch against sensitive drive electronics. A nice touch.

There are 12 drive connectors in the DS3611xs with a total storage capacity support of 36TB (12x3TB).

The chassis is substantial, being constructed from metal. Underneath there are six rubber protected feet, for maximum stability.

The back of the DS3611xs has ample cooling, supplied from two 120mm fans. Above these is a housing for the power supply, which we will look at when we get to the insides shortly.

At the right there is a reset button, 4 USB 2.0 ports and 4 LAN ports.

The side panels are bolted into place by two screws at the rear of the chassis. There are three removable sections, both side panels and a top panel.

The DS3611xs ships with a 3.1ghz dual core Intel processor and 2GB of ECC ram.

The SATA based daughtercard slots into the main motherboard. The two 120mm fans are high performance YSTECH models producing over 50cfm of air each, thermally controlled from the motherboard.

Synology are using a 500w Seasonic 80 Plus Bronze Certified power supply which feeds power into both the motherboard and the SATA daughtercard.

As it has been some time since we have reviewed a Synology product we thought we would take a refresh look at the latest V3.1 Diskmanager operating system. It is important to ensure that the newest software package is downloaded directly from the Synology website over here.

The software is also included on a CD which is bundled with the product.

The Synology Assistant is a networking tool which can find all the Synology drives installed on a network. The DS3611xs needs to be configured once. We are using multiple connections so there is more than one IP address initially, as shown above. For the review we are using all four connections.

Using the software disc (or locating the file downloaded from the Synology support site) the .pat file can be located and installed to the NAS.

The installation procedure only takes a few minutes as it writes the operating platform to the NAS.

The default log in is always ‘admin' with no password. This can be configured later. After the login, you are presented with a step by step guide on how to set up a drive configuration. The software supports all major browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome. All screenshots are taken from Firefox on Windows 7 64 bit.

Depending on how many drives are installed, the software allows for Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6 and RAID 10 configurations. Raid 5, Raid 5+ Spare and Raid 6 can be expanded on the fly, by adding new drives to the system.

Above, we have two drives installed in a RAID 0 configuration, with support for 12 drives, multiple configurations can be tuned from here. Top right is an alert menu which flags anything that the software deems as an important notification. On the left is a popup menu for the plethora of settings available.

The basic control panel gives access to much of the functionality of the NAS. There is also a handy resource monitor which can be set to run all the time. The software is multitasking capable so multiple windows and tasks can be run simultaneously. We noticed that this system was extremely responsive, thanks to the 3.1ghz Dual core Intel processor installed.

Folders and users can be set up within specific panels. 4096 users can be configured and 512 groups can also be set up with 512 shared folders. This unit can handle 1024 concurrent connections, which is double the count of the excellent DS1511+. Ideal for a demanding business environment. Shared folders can be accessed across the network after the configuration is set up. A point worth noting is that every Synology device on a network defaults to the identify of ‘diskstation’ meaning that the network will only recognise one of the NAS units. A simple renaming is needed if you are using more than one Diskstation across the same network. Synology should really use the identity of the PAT file to give each NAS system a unique identifier, automatically.

The Diskmanager software has an extensive help system to guide newbies around the interface and there are also options to adjust the colour scheme to something slightly different.

Above, we have hooked in four LAN connections and we can configure Link Aggregation.

The DiskManager software offers many applications for media and networking support. Photo station supports BMP, JPG (jpe, jpeg), GIF, RAW (arw, srf, sr2, dcr, k25, kdc, cr2, crw, nef, mrw, ptx, pef, raf,
3fr, erf, mef, mos, orf, rw2, dng, x3f image formats and 3G2, 3GP, ASF, AVI, DAT, DivX, FLV, M4V, MOV, MP4, MPEG, MPG, QT, WMV, XviD, RM, RMVB, VOB, RV30, RV40, AC3, AMR, WMA3 video formats.

The DNLA/UPnP Media Server can support both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 with AAC, FLAC, M4A, MP3, Ogg, Vorbis, PCM, WAV, WMA, WMA VBR, WMA PRO, WMA Lossless audio formats. 3GP, 3G2, ASF, AVI, DAT, DivX, DVR-MS, ISO, M2T, M2TS, M4V, MKV, MP4, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MTS, MOV, QT, SWF, TP, TRP, TS, VOB, WMV, XviD, RV30, RV40, AC3, AMR and WMA3 video formats. It also can handle BMP, JPG (jpe, jpeg), GIF, ICO, PNG, PSD, TIF (tiff), UFO, RAW (arw, srf, sr2, dcr, k25, kdc, cr2, crw, nef, mrw, ptx, pef, raf, 3fr, erf, mef, mos, orf, rw2, dng, x3f ) image formats.

iTunes Server is also supported with MP3, M4A, M4P, WAV, AIF audio formats, M4V, MOV and MP4 video formats and M3U, WPL Playlist Format. Two printers can be hooked into the system supporting LPR, CIFS, AppleTalk and Multi Functional Print Server.

If all this isn't enough it also offers the following iPhone and Android applications.: DS Photo+, DS Audio, DS Cam, DS File (iPhone only) and DS finder (iPhone only).

Survelliance station is a useful feature, especially for a business. Users can hook an IP camera into the unit with support for up to 40 cameras (licenses required).

The software really is indepth and we have touched on many of the major features, but a new user would be advised to carefully read through the literature, as there are many features to cater to a wide audience.

Today we are using a slightly different network configuration than we have done previously – this means that these results today are not comparable to our other NAS reviews. The reason for this is simple – the DS3611xs has an insane amount of bandwidth in the right network. We are basing our network around two linked Belkin 1Gbit switches with 4x Gbit LAN connections to the DS3611xs.

We are using three separate RAID 0 configurations across 6x1TB (3x2TB 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.

We managed to achieve a simultaneous total of 507 MB/s, which is an incredible result. We know in this case that the DS3611xs has more potential on tap but our network and drive configuration is limiting the overall bandwidth. We are confident that Synology's claims of 1000+ MB/sec are accurate, but we simply can't utilise this hardware to its full potential.

We managed to achieve a total of 490MB/s when writing to the six paired drives, which is again a staggering network result.

We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

Noise was measured from half a meter away with two 6TB drives installed.

The system is generally, just audible. when loaded with sustained activity across all drives, the fans spin up to compensate for rising temperatures, peaking at around 35 dBa, clearly audible, but perfectly acceptable within a business environment.

The power drain was around 78 watts when loaded, and this drops to around 47 watts when idle. Populating the unit with more drives will obviously raise the overall power demand.

Time to test the cooling system. Our room ambient temperatures are 23c which is a reasonable temperature for most people to work and relax within.

Thanks to the clever use of two high quality 120mm fans, the DS3611xs receives a constantly high air flow from front to back. Temperatures idle around the 28c/29c mark, rising to 33/34c under extended load.

The Synology Diskstation DS3611xs is a deadly serious corporate NAS system for a large scale business. We have struggled to test it to its specified bandwidth limitations because we would need to upgrade our network and populate the system with 12 hard drives. Still, even with 6 1TB hard drives paired up into Raid 0 configurations and several dedicated 1Gbit switches populating all four LAN ports, we can see the potential, in the right circumstances. Ideally we would have loved to test this unit within a dual 10GbE configuration using an add-on PCI Express x8 Gen2 Network Interface Card.

Until now, Synology have been selling their products for the home market, and they have done so very successfully with a wide range of products targeted at every price point. The DS1511+ is a class leading performance NAS system for the hardcore enthusiast user, and the DS3611xs is equally as impressive for the corporate business market.

While £2,000 might seem like a huge amount of cash, for the targeted business oriented audience we feel this product is actually somewhat of a bargain. Internally, no corners have been cut – Synology have ditched the low cost ATOM processor, and have opted for a 3.1 ghz dual core cpu, with 2GB of ECC ram which is upgradable to 8GB if the need arises. The daughtercard and motherboard take power from an 80 Plus Bronze Certified Seasonic 500W power supply which is sure to last the distance.

Synology have addressed comments we made in the past. Gone are the plastic drive bays, and they have finally added a lockable key system for added security. All necessary requirements for the business audience.

Dabs are currently stocking the product.

Pros:

• built like a tank
• all metal design with key locking system
• performance is aimed at the fastest networks
• multitasking software package is lightning quick on the dual core 3.1ghz CPU
• Good price point
• can expand on the storage with the optional DX1211 12 bay expansion

Cons:

• None.

Kitguru says: If you own a business with a demand for fast networking, then this should be on your shortlist.

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