Testing Method
When testing a device of this sort, the system that we use to test with is not a major factor in its performance. The performance of the NAS box comes down to the network its running on and its own internal hardware. With a device of this sort having so many different applications, Intel’s NASPT software covers all the bases and also gives us a set of results that we will be able to utilise and therefore give a benchmark against other similar systems in the future.
Intel NASPT (Network Attached Storage Performance Toolkit) performs its test by transferring varying sizes and quantities of data to and from the device based on twelve different scenarios.
As part of the testing, the NAS is connected to our core network through a Netgear GS724TPS managed gigabit switch and then to our test bench to give the best real world setup test that we can. The NAS itself is packed out with Western Digital’s latest line of Enterprise class hard drive, the Se and also with the highest capacity possible, in this case 4TB each.
The system that we use to run the Intel NASPT software does require us to drop the memory right down to 2GB as any more than this leads to data caching and therefore skews the results from the NAS box.
Following on from this we test the NAS box performance under each of the RAID options that it has available, to show, depending on the end users needs, the relational differences in speed from the drive and thus one can decide which particular RAID configuration will be best for them.
One of the very good NAS out in the market!!
The look and the performance is awesome.
Last but not least, good review as always, Chris. 🙂
The processor is a Single Core ARM 1.2 GHz with FPU and not a dual core 1.6 GHz as stated. http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/What_kind_of_CPU_does_my_NAS_have
“Nestled beside the CPU are two Hynix branded H5TQ2G83CFR 2GB RAM ICs.
This gives the DS213j a potential capacity of 4GB, however there is only
512MB available to the system to use.”
There is an obvious confusion between bit and byte here.
does the DS213j let you format drives individually cos I’m gonna add 2 drives 1 at a time.
I bought one of these (DS213J( just before Christmas 2013.
I use it for file storage, and transferred my mail server to it soon after.
Whilst it does absolutely everything it says on the tin, the only problem is Synology itself.
I had religiously upgraded the firmware every time a new version came out, and everything was fine until 3 months ago, when , after a firmware upgrade it started rebooting itself. At first the reboot was every couple of hours so it wasn’t a huge deal. Then after another firmware upgrade it became worse until it was continuously rebooting.
I raised a support request with synology very early on, and checked their forums. A lot of people had experienced this, but synology took the line that it must be a hardware problem. I went through the various hoops they set me, but the one thing they would not consider was that the firmware was causing the problem.
I upgraded it again last night and instantly the problem improved although it didn’t go away.
I would not buy another one of these, and I am considering asking for my money back if they don’t stop being in denial.