Synology DS213j NAS Review

1. Introduction2. Synology DS213j NAS3. Synology DS213j NAS (Super High Res Gallery)4. The DiskManager Operating System5. Testing Methodology & Performance6. Acoustics, Power Consumption and Temperatures7. Closing Thoughts8. View All Pages

Today we are looking at the latest NAS system from Synology – the DS213j. This NAS system is a budget friendly 2 bay offering for small office and home use. It is designed to consume minimal power and operate without creating a high level of fan noise. Is it an ideal purchase for a home user who wants a fast, inexpensive NAS server?

Our previous Synology reviews this year have focused on the premium Synology RackStation products, targeting the medium to high end business audience. We felt it was a good time to highlight the latest budget oriented model from the company. At only £175 inc vat from Amazon UK and offering speeds ‘up to 100MB/sec' it certainly seems to tick all the right boxes. It can support two 4TB drives, for up to 8TB total storage capacity.

Those who are confused with the Synology product naming conventions can use this as a guide:

“+” series = performance range.
standard series (no digit) = mixture of performance and storage.
“j” series = entry level consumer, concerned about capacity but not performance.

DS = DiskStation
RS = RackStation
First Digit = number of bays
Second numbers = year for the release

Therefore we now know that the DS213j is a member of the DiskStation series, is an entry level consumer model with 2 drive bays and was created for year 2013.

Synology DS213j overview:

• Floating-Point Unit Enabled CPU Favored Multimedia Processing
• Large 512MB RAM for Multitasking
• Over 100MB/sec Reading, 70MB/sec Writing
• Wake on LAN Ready
• Cool and Quiet Chassis
• DLNA Compliant Media Server
• Running on Synology DiskStation Manager

The Synology DS213j ships in a white and green box, this has changed over last years model, which was in a plain white box.

Inside, is literature on the product, a software disc, mounting screws, regional specific power cable and power adapter.

The unit is identically styled to the DS212j – shipping inside a white plastic chassis with the ‘Synology' name engraved into the side panels. It is a nicely designed product, especially considering the modest price point.

It remains stable on a variety of surfaces due to the four black feet on either corner.

The front panel has four LED's which highlight activity of the power, connection and hard drive(s). Underneath is the power switch to turn the unit on and off.

The rear of the DS213J is home to a large 92mm fan. Underneath are two USB ports, and a Gigabit lan connector. The power connector is close by. It is worth pointing out that this unit is wireless capable if you spend a little extra for the dongle.

The DS213j is easy to open, being a screwless chassis design you simply pull back on one side. It then ‘splits' into two sections. The side of the chassis is held in place with three plastic prongs.

The removable side of the chassis is hollow plastic, but it is thick enough to withstand the rigours of daily use. The two drives are mounted horizontally inside. This part of the install isn't screwless however, so you will need access to a Philips head screwdriver.

While the outer shell is plastic, the insides are all metal. The rear mounted 92mm fan is attached directly to the motherboard via a three pin header.


Synology are using a nippy 1.2ghz processor in the DS213j, with 512mb of DDR3. The DS212j from last year had 256mb of system memory so the DS213j should be a better performer, especially when dealing with additional connections and more complex requests.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.

We have looked at the Synology DiskManager Operating System many times in the past. It is one of the finest operating systems on the market for a NAS system/server, and doesn’t need a high specification list of hardware to run well either. The multitasking support means that multiple tasks can be handled simultaneously.

It is important to ensure that the newest software package is downloaded directly from the Synology website over here.

It would take a dedicated indepth review to cover all of the options in this software, but we will skim some of the options which we have detailed in the DS713+ review a short while ago.

Setting up a volume doesn’t take too long and the options available will vary depending on how many drives you have available.

Options are available for single volumes on RAID, or Multiple volumes on RAID.

With only one drive in our system we can only have a ‘BASIC’ setup.

This stage of volume creation is important. If you are using an older drive which you aren’t sure about, it is best to use the longer disk check and select ‘Yes’. Be aware this can take a serious amount of time, as the system has to remap bad sectors, if found.

The format process will vary depending on how many drives you are using and the RAID mode.

When the drive is ready, the system health will change to indicate a ‘good status’. This is a new addition in the latest revision and will help inexperienced users who may find the wealth of settings confusing.

It is important to set up a shared folder at this stage, so you can access the storage across your network from multiple computer systems.

The main settings can be accessed from the control panel options at the top left. The NAS will also flag updates and alerts top right.

The Package Center is the main area for downloading and updating the NAS, if you want to use third party software. This is a nice touch, although we found this panel rather slow to update for us. This section of the interface is expanding on a regular basis.

The main control panel window gives access to the main settings and configuration options. These are all labelled clearly and easy to navigate and find.

If you use a network of mixed devices then this panel is important, as you can configure Windows, Macintosh networking and the NFS service. FTP can be set up in a dedicated panel.

We recommend you give the server a unique name. If you have several Synology NAS systems in the same network, they default to the same Diskstation name, which means your Windows network will only see one of them.

The Control Panel has dedicated Media Indexing options. It can scan for multimedia files including videos, photos and music.

General Specifications

• Networking Protocols
• CIFS
• AFP
• NFS
• FTP
• WebDAV
• CalDAV
• iSCSI
• Telnet
• SSH
• SNMP
• VPN (PPTP, OpenVPN)

File System

• EXT4
• EXT3 (External Disk Only)
• FAT (External Disk Only)
• NTFS (External Disk Only)

Management

• Auto DSM Upgrade
• Push Notification – MSN/Skype/Mobile Devices
• Email/SMS Notification
• Customized User Quota
• Customized Administrator/User Group
• Syslog Support
• DDNS Support
• IPv6 Support
• VLAN Support
• PPPoE
• Hotspot
• Resource Monitor
• Connection Manager
• UPS Management
• Scheduled Power On/Off
• Custom Management UI HTTP/HTTPS Ports

Windows AD Domain Integration

• Domain Users login via Samba/AFP/FTP/File Station

HDD Management

• HDD Hibernation
• S.M.A.R.T.
• Dynamic Bad Sector Mapping

Security

• FTP over SSL/TLS
• IP Auto-Block
• Firewall
• Encrypted Network Backup over Rsync
• HTTPS Connection

Utilities

• Synology Assistant
• Synology Data Replicator

Supported Clients

• Windows XP onward
• Mac OS X 10.5 onward
• Ubuntu 9.04 onward

Supported Browsers

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Internet Explorer : 7, 8, 9
• Safari (MAC) : 4, 5

Language

• English, Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Español, Dansk, Norsk, Svenska, Nederlands, Русский, Polski, Magyar, Português do Brasil, Português Europeu, Türkçe, Český, 日本語, 한국어, 繁體中文, 简体中文

We are testing the Synology DS213j 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.

All tests are performed ten times to ensure that no abnormalities can creep into the final results.


We can see that performance has increased when directly compared to last years DS212j. Read performance is close to 100 MB/s and write performance is close to 70 MB/s.


Mixed file performance is also very strong, and a noticeable improvement over the 2012 DS212j model.

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 a meter away.

The system registered right at the lowest dBa reading our equipment is capable of measuring. In ‘real world' terms you would be hard pressed to hear the 92mm fan spinning at all. We didn't notice any change in fan noise levels when both drives were busy reading and writing data. The fan seems to lock to a specific speed and remain at that.

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

When the drives are idle the system consumes around 5 watts of power. This rises to around 17-19 watts under load. Other hard drives may give slightly different results, but there is no doubting that this unit is extremely efficient.

The large 92 mm fan spins very slowly but still manages to produce a reasonably strong air flow to cool both hard drives. Our room was held at 22c ambient during the testing.
The Synology DS21xj series has ruled the budget sector for several years now. The DS211j and DS212j were class leading products and both proved the NAS product to beat under £200.

Our testing has highlighted that the DS213j has pushed performance parameters further than the DS212j and the DS211j before it. We documented raw read performance close to 100MB/s and write performance close to 70 MB/s. Synology have doubled the onboard memory this year and it will undoubtedly help in demanding situations.

Thanks to the inclusion of a large 92 mm fan the noise levels are never intrusive … in fact our sound metering system was unable to pick up any fan noise (above ambient) at a distance of a single meter.

Power consumption is in keeping with previous models, consuming only 5 watts when idle and rising to around 18 watts under load. Even if this was left on 24/7 it wouldn't significantly impact an electricity bill over the course of a year.

Like the previous model, the DS213j has no performance concerns. The combination of nippy 1.2ghz processor and optimised multi threaded operating system ensure that the NAS is always responsive, accepting changes almost immediately.

You can pick up the Synology DS213j online for around the £180 inc vat mark. Amazon UK are selling it for £175.58 inc vat – just remember to budget for either one or two hard drives.

We have used many budget oriented NAS systems in recent years but none are more capable than the Synology DS21xj series.

Pros:

• very power efficient.
• well built.
• can accept two 4TB hard drives.
• great operating system.
• attractively designed.
• almost silent.

Cons:

• A tool less hard drive install would be a nice addition for this model.

Kitguru says: An excellent NAS system to suit a very wide audience. It doesn't cost the earth either.

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