Synology DS415+ Review: DSM on Intel Rangeley

Introduction and Testbed Setup

Synology launched the DS415+ last month. It is their first product based on the Intel Rangeley platform. One must note that Synology is not the first COTS NAS vendor to bring out a product based on the new Atom SoCs. That credit goes to Seagate for their NAS Pro lineup. However, unlike the dual core Rangeley variant used by Seagate, Synology has opted for a quad-core version that is clocked higher. This makes sense, since Synology's Disk Station Manager OS (DSM) is quite advanced compared to Seagate's NAS OS (which is in the early stages of its life cycle). There are plenty of third-party apps for DSM users. The more the horsepower at the disposal of the end user, the better it is in scenarios where they have multiple apps running.

The DS415+ is a typical 4-bay SMB NAS with dual GbE ports and a host of virtualization certifications. The major attraction is the availability of AES-NI in the Rangeley series of Atom SoCs. Enabling encryption of shared folders should result in minimal performance impact. Other than that, the Rangeley SoCs bring in an updated Atom microarchitecture along with lower power consumption. These aspects should help the DS415+ make a compelling case over the other 4-bay units from Synology based on the older Atoms. The specifications of the DS415+ are provided in the table below.

The gallery below takes us around the DS415+. The chassis is retained from the previous-generation 4-bay NAS units (such as the DS412+ and DS413).

In addition to the standard drive mount screws, quick start guide and US power plug, the main unit was also accompanied by a 100 W power adapter (12V @ 8.33A).

In the rest of the review, we will first look at the Intel Rangeley platform in detail and how the Synology DS415+ takes advantage of it. This is followed by benchmark numbers for both single and multi-client scenarios across a number of different client platforms as well as access protocols. We have a separate section devoted to the performance of the DS415+ with encrypted shared folders. Prior to all that, we will take a look at our testbed setup and testing methodology.

Testbed Setup and Testing Methodology

The Synology DS415+ can take up to four drives. Users can opt for either JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 or RAID 10 configurations. We benchmarked the unit in RAID 5 with four Western Digital WD4000FYYZ RE drives as the test disks. Our testbed configuration is outlined below.

The above testbed runs 25 Windows 7 VMs simultaneously, each with a dedicated 1 Gbps network interface. This simulates a real-life workload of up to 25 clients for the NAS being evaluated. All the VMs connect to the network switch to which the NAS is also connected (with link aggregation, as applicable). The VMs generate the NAS traffic for performance evaluation.

Thank You!

We thank the following companies for helping us out with our NAS testbed:

• Thanks to Intel for the Xeon E5-2630L CPUs and the ESA I-340 quad port network adapters
• Thanks to Asus for the Z9PE-D8 WS dual LGA 2011 workstation motherboard
• Thanks to Dynatron for the R17 coolers
• Thanks to G.Skill for the RipjawsZ 64GB DDR3 DRAM kit
• Thanks to OCZ Technology for the two 128GB Vertex 4 SSDs, twelve 64GB Vertex 4 SSDs and the OCZ Z-Drive R4 CM88
• Thanks to SilverStone for the Raven RV03 chassis and the 850W Strider Gold Evolution PSU
• Thanks to Netgear for the ProSafe GSM7352S-200 L3 48-port Gigabit Switch with 10 GbE capabilities.
• Thanks to Western Digital for the four WD RE hard drives (WD4000FYYZ) to use in the NAS under test.