Synology Diskstation DS210+ NAS Review

1. Introduction2. Synology Diskstation DS210+3. The Diskstation Manager 3.0 Operating System4. Testing Methodology and Performance5. Acoustics, Temperatures and Power Drain6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

The Synology NAS series this year has proven to be very impressive with capable, fast, versatile systems available at every price point. We recently reviewed the high end DS1010+ and DX510 expansion unit and felt it was one of the best configurations available for the business audience.

Today we are going to look at one of their NAS units aimed at the more mainstream audience, the DS210+. This product is available for around £300 in the UK in a basic, no drive configuration. You can also buy the DS210+ with drives preinstalled, or you can easily fit your own to save some money.

The DS210+ is the replacement for the popular DS209+ with a £100 price reduction – it is such a competitive market that this seemed like a wise move. This is a dual drive NAS system which supports up to 4TB (2x2TB) – we will look at the Raid support and performance levels within this review.

• 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) Hardware Encryption Engine
• Power-saving with only 30W in Operation
• Wake on LAN/WAN
• Scheduled Power On/Off
• Includes Feature-Rich Synology DiskStation Manager 2.3 (DSM 2.3)

The Synology DS210+ arrives in a strong box with the name of the company clearly highlighted. All Synology boxes are identical in design, just in various sizes. This is around half the size of the DS1010+ we recently reviewed. Windows and Macintosh cross platform support is also clearly documented.

Inside, the DS210+ is well protected between two strong pieces of cardboard and a foam cover to protect against scuffing. The packaging, as always is exceptionally good and will stand up to considerable courier abuse.

Inside, there is a Cat 6 cable, a power plug with seperate adapter, mounting screws and a manual and software disc. All the items you will need to complete your installation.

After the product is unboxed we are immediately familar with the Synology design ethic. The front of the DS210+ has a plastic fascia with a metal chassis underneath. On the front we have an eSATA port, USB port, a few status LEDs, power button and quick transfer button. At the rear is a power connector, Gigabit Ethernet port and several USB ports. There is also single 70mm fan in the center to aid hard drive cooling. The ports on the rear can be used to share extra storage or even a printer across the network.

The Synology DS210+ NAS looks great from all angles and we particularly like the Synology branding on both side panels.

To help with stability and vibration dampening Synology have installed rubber feet at the bottom of the enclosure.

Opening the chassis is easy, you simply tug backwards on the side panel and it slides open.

Inside, the two hard drives are installed by sliding them into a rack mounted tray system. The design is clean with all sensitive components sealed behind a metal cover. As this is KitGuru, we obviously need to take this apart.

The DS210+ uses a 1.06ghz Freescale mpc8533e PPC processor and there is 512MB of ram installed out of the box. Although you can upgrade this if you wanted, you will invalidate the warranty. Interestingly the DS210+ also offers 256 bit AES hardware encryption offloading from the CPU.

Installing the drives is a straightforward process and we noticed that they are seperated by a tray system to allow for direct airflow between them – they are held in place by 2 screws on each side. We are using two 1TB Samsung drives today, however the DS210+ can handle up to 2x2TB if you need more space.

JBOD, Raid 0 and Raid 1 are the available modes on offer and the DS210+ also offers RAID migration from basic to 1, as well as support for iSCSI targets.

Synology recently released their latest operating system package which is a multitasking suite allowing the user to switch between applications and tasks, even if they are working in the background. This is all handled via a browser interface. We have looked at this before, but we felt it was worth a revisit for the DS210+ platform.

It is important to ensure that you get the newest software package from the Synology download center over here.

The first procedure is to install the Synology Assistant software package which is available on the supplied CD, or on the Synology website in the downloads section.

The firmware is then installed by locating the file on your desktop. This takes about 5 minutes in total.

Once the software is loaded you are greeted by a welcoming screen. If the hard drives are installed then you need to format them to set up shared folders.

The Synology software is intuitive and fast to respond. In a step by step procedure it instructs you how to set up your hard drive(s) and which Raid configuration you wish to use. For performance testing we selected Raid 0.

Thanks to the multitasking operating system you are able to navigate through the various panels and settings, while the drives are being configured. Synology include a wide variety of settings to cater for almost all demands.

As with all Synology products, there is also full support for Jumbo frames, up to 9k, which can dramatically enhance the transfer speed of larger files, if the rest of your network is compatible.

There is full support for iTunes and a Media server configuration. You can also add up to 16 IP cameras and use it as a surveillance station with full motion detection and automatic recording. The software supports Macintosh, Windows and Linux as well as local and AD authentication and user storage quotes. Replicator 3 handles scheduled backup and once a full copy has completed it secures new files and modifications to those files, on the fly.

A firewall allows you to specify rules to traffic on either network port and to selected IP addresses. You can define services with port numbers, allow or deny traffic and apply the specific rule to a port.

As well as being a multitasking operating system, DSM V3 is a very responsive package which never seems to slow down, even when you are performing several commands at the same time. This is right now probably the finest NAS operating system on the market.

We are testing the Synology Diskstation DS210+ 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. The drives are arranged in a Raid 0 configuration and we have Jumbo Frames set to 9k.

Raw data throughput was extremely impressive, scoring just slightly less than the DS710 we tested a few months ago.

Our local PC has a fast Kingston SSD as the main drive and we are using it to ensure no bottlenecks occur on this side of the testing. Our PC is hooked up to the network and we transfer a 10GB MKV file from the PC to the NAS systems. All three NAS systems are using dual drive Raid 0 configurations with mechanical drives.

In Raid 0 we managed to get 63mb/s from the DS210+ and around 57MB/s in Raid 1. Great results for a lower priced model.

Read performance is fantastic, scoring around 106MB/s. Synology rate the product as achieving 108Mb/s but we couldn't quite reach those figures no matter the settings we used.

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.

The Synology DS210+ is a great all round performer, delivering around 47 mb/s with our mixed write test and around 71mb/s with the mixed read test. Write performance is slightly lower than the QNAP 639 Pro and 459 Pro but the read performance is around 6-7mb/s higher.

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.

This system is extremely quiet, even when writing files over a 30 minute period of time. If the room is extremely quiet you can hear the fan whirring if you are in close proximity, but otherwise we would class this as inaudible under real world conditions.

We measured power from the socket with 2 x 1TB Samsung HD103SI hard drives installed.

At idle, the system only uses 22 Watts of power and under load it rises to around 30 watts with both drives installed.

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.

The drives remained between 3 and 7 degrees above ambient at all times, averaging 28c across a period of 2 hours. The cooling system is perfectly fine for a dual drive configuration.

While the Synology DS1010+ we reviewed a few weeks ago is aimed at the medium to high end business sector we feel the DS210+ is going to find its way into many enthusiast homes over the coming months and deservedly so. While it sounds like I am the chairman of the Synology fan club, it really has been difficult to fault their products in recent months, especially with the new multitasking operating system they have released. We have reported issues with several Buffalo NAS products in our labs but the Synology NAS systems are a total pleasure to use and have no painstakingly annoying faults to mention.

The performance of the DS210+ is certainly not lacking, and while write performance is significantly lower than the DS710+ or DS1010+, it is still more than capable of delivering excellent transfer speeds across a correctly configured network.

Internally, the design is very neat, with a simple rack system mounted directly above protected motherboard components. The centrally located fan is perfectly positioned to generate horizontal airflow, across, and between the drives.

Aesthetically, the DS210+ is going to fit into any household as it looks great, doesn't take up much room and won't generate a cacophony of noise in the background. If you run out of storage you are able to connect both USB and eSATA external drives to the controller board which is going to prove a viable future proofing option for many enthusiast users.

The operating system really deserves to be highlighted because it will prove painless for even the most inexperienced of end user. If you can operate a browser then you will be able to easily set up your NAS system without raising your blood pressure. For £300 this really is a solid buy, especially if you demand high performance levels.

KitGuru says: Another winner from Synology.

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