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 it’s 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.
Sounds very interesting, I’d been looking at the 413 but couldn’t justify the £400+ for it so if this one really will sell for under £350, then we’re onto a winner.
Shame there was no direct comparison to the 413 in the article, such as speed differences. Considering the cheaper price, what do you actually gain or lose with the newer model? It’s now a 1.33GHz dual core ARM compared to 1.067GHz in the 413. You gain a 2nd LAN port (not very useful) but lose the eSATA port (could have been useful).
Why wasn’t the Synology Hybrid RAID included in the tests? This is a very useful set up and from what I read, it will allow you to take out a single drive and replace with a larger drive which totally invailidates your “con – Drive upgrades require system to be totally reconfigured”
Also, the article seriously needs proof reading!…
“Below the status LEDs AS a front mounted USB2.0 port”
“this will void your warranty as there are NOW user serviceable parts”
“upper side of the PCB is a LIME of SMB LEDs”
“little to see apart from a pair IF identical looking chips”
“we can see THE LIKE the RAID controller”
“placing on a shelf without the SORRY about it putting too much pressure”
“is the support for RAID 50. For those who are not full familiar with how the RAID systems work when mixed together, RAID 50 is basically two 3 drive RAID 5 arrays” – so two x 3-drive arrays… that’s 6 disks in total… clever seeing how this box can only fit 4 drives in it! Plus you obviously don’t benchmark RAID 50 in the article because the 414 doesn’t support it.
I don’t get why there is a eSata port on the board without opening on the plastic shield though.
It seems the USB and SATA is on a seperate IO board which is actually labelled DS412. so they’re just re-using that interface board from the DS412+ and don’t interface with it on the mainboard. It’s most likely cheaper for Synology to make the board with the SATA connector and use it for multiple products than it is to produce a different board for the DS414.
What does the lack of “on chip transcoding” mean? How will the affect a home user that may want to stream videos from a NAS box to a smart TV?
I’m curious if the 414 can handle some of the stuff that the 412+ does right now in time. It seems as if this series is the “new” direction of this level of NAS. It’s the top dog for the SOHO brand, whereas the 412+ seems to be middle of the pack for their SMB. I recently ordered one for both NAS storage (media files, syslog, etc) and for a VMware host using NFS. It shows up today and I’ll be interested if I can make the 414 do what I want or if I’ll need to upgrade to the 412+
@jgbedford:disqus I think the lack of “on chip transcoding” means that you can xcode via a native CPU instruction set if I understand correctly. So you’ll need to enable some sort of third party xcoder to handle it for you – probably something from the marketplace. The marvell chip might be capable of doing this if properly written into the nas OS, but since this is a first-rev on this SOC I just wonder if it’s “not there yet”. I’m hoping that Synology continues to expand this one like they have the other models for several years now.
@Jason The lack of “on chip transcoding” means, that the Marvell CPU designed for the Synology DS414 doesn’t support hardware transcoding – if you want to stream a HD video to a mobile device, that video is being transcoded to the mobile resolution.
Transcoding done on chip is usually a lot faster and needs less energy. As a NAS producer, if you can do this in hardware, you do. Doing this kind of calculation in software is possible, but less effective and performant.
I hope this explanation helps a little.
Check out my review on the DS414 – http://blog.alexburn.co.uk/tech-reviews/synology-ds414-full-review/