joanne plummer | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Wed, 08 Oct 2014 21:36:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png joanne plummer | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Synology 2015 event coverage https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/nas/leo-waldock/synology-2015-event-coverage/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/nas/leo-waldock/synology-2015-event-coverage/#respond Mon, 22 Sep 2014 08:32:03 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=212840 Mike Chen, Managing Director of Synology UK, kicked off the annual Synology event with a bit of history. Synology was founded in 2000 and created its first NAS in 2004, which means that Synology 2015 (yes, held in September 2014) heralds the tenth anniversary of the first Synology NAS. In other news, Synology's UK office …

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Mike Chen, Managing Director of Synology UK, kicked off the annual Synology event with a bit of history. Synology was founded in 2000 and created its first NAS in 2004, which means that Synology 2015 (yes, held in September 2014) heralds the tenth anniversary of the first Synology NAS.

0 Mike Chen

1 Synology UK
In other news, Synology's UK office has now been open for five years and as the UK staff continues to expand you can rest assured that queries and support calls will be handled here in the UK.

Mike Chen also said that the headline failure rate for Synology is two percent however when the NAS are inspected after return they find half the units are not actually faulty.
2 Synologyy hearts KitGuru

Do please accept my apologies for the quality of the photos however Synology deemed KitGuru to be VIP guests. This meant we were placed right at the front of the seating and had to look up at the screen at an uncomfortable angle.

Billy Knowles, Sales Manager of the Nordic region took over from Mike Chen to talk turkey about new consumer products.

4 DS115j
The budget DS115j was launched recently but for some reason only merited ten seconds of the presentation.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DS115j

This is a crying shame as this single disc NAS is amazingly cheap by the standards of Synology products. The price mentioned was £78 however this is surely plus VAT as you can find DS115j on sale at £78.99 at Dabs.

Mike Chen assured KitGuru the low price is a combination of economies of scale and a determination to sell a mass market NAS.

5 DS video
6 Video Station7 DS audio
The main focus for Billy Knowles was ‘a new DSM' which sounded odd when you consider that DSM 5 was introduced as recently as March 2014 so it is surely way too soon to even think about DSM 6.

The explanation is that the new DSM is a point release, DSM 5.1. When is it coming?
“… very soon” says Joanne Plummer, Marketing Manager UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

To accompany DSM 5.1 there are updates to some significant pieces of Synology software.

Video Station gains a smart filter, Audio Station has improved search and Photo Station has improved tagging, In addition Photo Station gains a sharing function that bears a passing resemblance to Dropbox where you can email a link to share photos with friends and family.

In a long overdue move Synology is now working to ensure that Android and iOS apps such as DS video and DS audio will have the same features and functionality.

8 Stefan Ferrari
Stefan Ferrari, UK Sales Manager for Synology, took over at the lectern.

9 DS415+
His first announcement was that the new DS415+ would replace the aged DS412+ at the price of £450 despite an improvement in the specification where the RAM is doubled to 2GB and the CPU moves to a quad core design.
10 Atom

The choice of quad core Intel Avoton Atom is interesting, partly because four cores are better than two, but also because the Atom includes a Hardware Encryption Engine that reduces the CPU workload. The none-too-subtle message is that lesser NAS powered by a Celeron aren't up to the same standard as DS415+.

11 Cloud Sync
DSM 5.0 was introduced with Cloud Sync and a choice of three cloud providers – Google Drive, Dropbox and Baidu Cloud. DSM 5.1 adds three new providers – Microsoft OneDrive, hubiC and box.com.

12 Security Advisor13 Security Advisor screen
We were a distance into Ferrari's presentation before the subject of security raised its head. This was quite a surprise when you consider that SynoLocker was a nasty piece of malware that specifically targeted the data stored on Synology NAS.

Synology's position is that the problem was actually fixed six months before it became critical so the root issue is to ensure that Synology customers update their software in a timely manner.

This is where Synology Security Advisor comes in, looking like pretty much every anti-malware package you have ever seen.

Synology has created their own custom web plug-in to replace Java called Synology Surveillance Plug-in. My notes say this new plug-in has been created for speed, security and efficiency so it seems reasonable to group it next to Security Advisor.

The new Security Advisor app includes a mandatory two step verification for admins which sounds interesting but we cannot really comment until we have tried it out in the real world.

14 Proxy Server
Professional users of NAS will be interested to learn that Synology has introduced a Proxy Server where downloaded files are cached. This means other people on the network can download the same files much more quickly as the files will come directly from the NAS, rather than the Internet.
15 IPv6
Synology is ready for IPv6, even though the UK is currently stuck using IPv4.

16 SSD Cache 117 SSD Cache 2
18 SSD Cache Advisor
Professional users looking for extra NAS performance may well choose to replace a storage drive bay or two with SSD for cache duties.

The caching process has been revised so you can use a single SSD as a read-only cache and Synology has brought out a piece of software called SSD cache advisor. As the name suggest this is a guide for SSD capacity based on application usage

One final goodie that caught the KitGuru eye was mention of the way that Link Aggregation can be used. We know about gaining extra performance through the use of multiple network ports but DSM5.1 also gives the option of dedicating a network port to a specific task or application.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

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Synology launches two brand new NAS products https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/nas/jules/synology-launches-two-brand-new-nas-products/ Mon, 21 Oct 2013 23:56:17 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=158605 There is a definite step-up feel in the air around Synology's UK offices in Milton Keynes this October. Hot on the heals of the DS214, we now have the DS414 and DS114 about to land. KitGuru fingers a pair of 4TB drives and wonders on the best place to stick em. According to Joanne Plummer, …

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There is a definite step-up feel in the air around Synology's UK offices in Milton Keynes this October. Hot on the heals of the DS214, we now have the DS414 and DS114 about to land. KitGuru fingers a pair of 4TB drives and wonders on the best place to stick em.

According to Joanne Plummer, marketing guru for Synology, the DiskStation DS414 is a “great advancement that includes a rich offering of technology into the Synology Value Series” with the specific aim of  “Supporting task-intensive small and medium sized businesses”.

OK – so that's one newly launched product ready to target the unsuspecting market, but what about the second?

Joanne pointed us in the direction of Mike Wang, Synology Product Manager, to help get the low down. He said, “The DS114 is a compact but versatile unit that promises personal users get the most with the least investment”.

It occurs to us that everything Synology offers seems to be geared around ‘baby steps' upgrades.

Mike agreed, saying “A little extra investment gets you a better, more advanced Synology product, bringing you the best overall NAS experience. Through this expansion, we help our customers to transform their IT infrastructures from a ‘cost centre' to an ‘asset' for innovation and success”.

That's the positioning over and done with, so what about the technical specifications?

DS414

  • Dual core 1.33GHz CPU with floating point unit
  • 1GB main memory
  • Dual LAN
  • Two SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports
  • Latest tool-free HDD tray design
  • 4 Hard Drives up to 4TB each
  • Complete with Hot Swap capability

According to Mike, with link aggregation enabled, the DS414 achieves over 135MB/sec write speed in a RAID 5 configuration with Windows – and over 207MB/sec read speed.

Synology-414-KitGuru

DS114

  • 1.2GHz CPU
  • 512MB main memory
  • Gigabit LAN
  • Two SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports
  • Single HDD up to 4TB
  • Budget model – no Hot Swapy capability

Synology DS114 is, essentially, a compact, all-purpose NAS aiming at small business and home users with a read speed over 108MB/sec and a write speed of more than 71MB/sec.

Synology-114-KitGuru

Both products run Synology's famous DiskStation Manager software and, we're told, will be competitively priced. We're expecting an online price listing any time now.

KitGuru says: while having a single drive for backup is fine for regular users, here at KitGuru we're more interested in the beefed-up 414. Made especially tempting with the new 5TB drives on the near horizon.

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join over 135,000 fellow enthusiasts over on our Facebook page.

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Synology introduces high performance DiskStation DS214 https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/nas/harrison/synology-introduces-high-performance-diskstation-ds214/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/networking/nas/harrison/synology-introduces-high-performance-diskstation-ds214/#respond Tue, 15 Oct 2013 09:36:50 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=157718 Arguably the go-to brand for NAS among the KitGuru faithful, this company never seems to stop innovating and developing its already popular product line-up. Today, we're hearing word of a brand new, high-performance product at a sensible price. KitGuru stands by with a pair of drives. You know. For back up. If you ask someone …

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Arguably the go-to brand for NAS among the KitGuru faithful, this company never seems to stop innovating and developing its already popular product line-up. Today, we're hearing word of a brand new, high-performance product at a sensible price. KitGuru stands by with a pair of drives. You know. For back up.

If you ask someone from Synology what the company is all about, they'll probably tell you that their prime focus is on finding reliable and affordable ways for home users and small/medium sized businesses to back up their data – safely and efficiently – across multiple platforms and make that data available on-the-go.

In most cases, they have succeeded – but how will the DiskStation DS214 fair in a tough market against the likes of Thecus and QNap?

According to Chad Chang, Synology's product manager, “The DS214 is built to deliver optimal multi-tasking experience at best price/performance ratio. Powered by a dual core 1.066 GHz CPU and 512 MB DDR3 memory, the DS214 outperforms its predecessor and delivers an average read and write speed of 111 MB/sec and 105 MB/sec respectively under RAID 1 configuration in a Windows environment”.

Areas where Chad is expecting a big boost in performance, centres on the improvement of floating point maths.

“Huh?” we hear you cry.  No, we weren't sure either, but Chad explained, “The built-in Floating-Point Unit further enhances the overall capability of the main CPU, which makes the DS214 particularly good when it comes to speeding up thumbnail processing and enhancing photo viewing at different resolutions”.

But Chad did not stop there, also telling us about other speed improvements, “With an encryption engine, it also offloads the encryption calculation task away from the main CPU, helping improve file transfer speeds and the DS214 is equipped with two USB 3.0 ports that offer 10 times faster file transfer rates than USB 2.0 for more efficient data transfer to external hard drives.  Designed with both safety and convenience in mind, DS214 contains the brand new tool-less hard drive trays, allowing users to integrate 3.5 inch hard drives without a screwdriver. Front mount hot-swappable hard drives are available on the DS214 to simplify hard drive replacement and maintenance”.

The device will run DiskStation Manager 4.3 and is expected to be way under the £220 mark when it hits stores.

To summarise  Chad's technical info, the Synology DiskStation DS214 offers:-

  • Dual Core CPU with Floating-Point Unit
  • Excellent Reading/Writing Performance over 100MB/s
  • 512MB RAM for Increased Multi-Tasking Power
  • Features SuperSpeed USB3.0
  • Hot-swappable & Tool-Less Hard Drive Tray Design
Standard chunky-monkey build in business-like black
Standard chunky-monkey build in business-like black
Just enough buttons, ports and coloured lights to keep a geek happy
Just enough buttons, ports and coloured lights to keep a geek happy

.

You can find full details over here.
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KitGuru says: No matter how hard you try, when it comes to buying anything like a NAS box, you do find yourself wondering what Synology has available at the same kind of price.

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join over 130,000 fellow KitGuru lovers over on Facebook.

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