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The RackStation RS2211+ arrives in a huge, heavy, plain brown box with the name of the product visible on a sticker at the front.
The RS2211+ is extremely well protected between thick cardboard and foam surrounds. There is a supplementary box also supplied with the product.
This box contains literature on the product, a region specific power cable, hard drive mounting screws and the software required for installation. We do advise customers to download the latest version of the DSM software from the Synology support section of their website.
The front of the RS2211+ has 10 drive bays, 3 rows of three in a vertical configuration, and a single unit under the main control panel at the right.
The front of the unit contains a power button, beep off button and LED indicators for networking activity and troubleshooting.
At the rear, there is a power connector and switch, a cooling fan for the power supply, 4 USB ports and two GB Lan ports. There is also a RESET button, and an expansion port connector for the optional RX1211 drive bay (a total of 22 drives).
We are pleased that Synology have adopted the high quality metal drive bays. They are designed to withstand serious long term abuse. The inside of the drive bays has a black felt protective cover to ensure that the electronics of the hard drives never come into direct contact with the metal support beams underneath.
The RS2211+ is built like a tank – a total metal construction. As such it is a hefty piece of equipment to lug around, weighing 12.2kg without the drives installed. The engineering standards of the drive bay are exact (to the millimeter), and each drive slots into place perfectly.
We used 10 Samsung 500GB drives for the install, and it only took 10 minutes to complete the mounting of all drives. They lock into place with the levers.
Opening the RS2211+ is easy, simply remove a couple of screws at the rear, and pull back on the top panel. Inside we are greeted with a 1.8ghz Dual core Intel processor, and 1GB of DDR2 memory. If 1GB isn't enough, then it is expandable up to 3GB.
Synology certainly aren't cutting any corners, the whole unit is powered by a substantial Seasonic 500W power supply, which is 80 Plus Bronze Certified.
In the middle of the chassis is a row of four YSTECH fans which help push a substantial amount of air across the motherboard and ten hard drives at the front.
The power supply directly feeds the front daughtercard via a plethora of molex connectors.
The motherboard has three specially designed SATA cables which connect to each row of drives on the daughtercard at the front of the RS2211+.
