Synology USB Station 2 Review

1. Introduction2. Synology USB Station 23. The Diskmanager 3.0 Operating System4. Testing Methodology and Performance5. Acoustics and Power Drain6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

We are testing the Synology USB Station 2 within our gigabit network which is pretty much as good as you will get for a home or small office environment. It is a mixed network with several 1GBit switches for ultimate performance.

Reference Test PC:
Processor: Intel Core i7 920 @ 4ghz
Storage: Kingston 128GB SSD V+ Series
Motherboard: Asus Rampage II Gene
Graphics: Geforce GTX285 2GB
Memory: Corsair Dominator 1600mhz @2000mhz
Network: 2x Belkin 16 Port Gigabit Switches
Operating System: Windows 7 64 Bit Ultimate

Firstly we perform a native network test to ascertain pure data throughput. Jumbo Frames have been set to 9k.

Raw data throughput is not bad considering the drive is attached via a USB 2.0 interface. Next we will try some real world testing with data transfers across the network, to and from the Synology USB Station 2.

12 megabytes per second write speed isn't too bad considering the budget market place.

Above is a screenshot of a copying process. The system holds steady between 10 and 13MB/s with 40percent of the memory utilised and the CPU time hovering around 40 percent.

Reading from the unit generates an average of around 22.4 MB/s which is solid and easily capable of streaming a 1080p MKV file.

Reading from the unit we manage to maintain between 19MB/s and 24 MB/s depending on the file location and overhead. The processor hits around 60 percent to handle this transfer speed.

Next we created a folder of files, 500mb/s in size with a variety of data , from small database documents to larger jpgs and bmps. We expect to pay a slight penalty as we are using Jumbo frames set to 9k, however performance should still be good.

Mixed file performance doesn't cause much of a hit for the USB Station 2 with only minor drops in performance levels.

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