Synology DS414j 4-Bay NAS Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

As an entry-level ‘j’ series NAS, one of the most important factors that had to be taken into consideration when Synology designed and built the DS414j was its price to the end-user. With the target audience set as the entry-level home user, or those who are on a strict budget overall (once hard drives are taken into account), a final selling price of around $390 in the US and £260 in the UK making this system remarkably well priced. Once you factor in that this system is the first ‘j’ series product to offer a dual-core processor, USB3.0 and cloud access, the pricing is very competitive to say the least.

Overview

Across the many manufacturers of NAS products, the entry-level class products are, in general for those who are on a tight budget or looking to get their feet into the world of network storage. Naturally this does mean that we will never see break-neck speeds on offer, nor will we see every hardware and software feature appearing on the systems crib sheet, but this is the whole point of this family of products. As we know, Synology up to this point have only featured a single core processor in their ‘j’ series systems and whilst is has been capable of delivering so respectable performance figures, there is only so far that a single core design can be pushed and as the price of dual-core processors continues to fall, it only makes sense to start incorporating these features in at the bottom end of the scale. What this means for the user is the ability to run multiple functions at once; such as a download manager or media server, whilst not losing the performance edge that would be experienced with a single core chip.

On top of the dual-core CPU, the radical change in the systems design is not only a pleasant surprise, it is pretty nice to look at. With the bulk of NAS enclosures adopting a front loading design, which to be honest is not always the most elegant, the plain yet stylish front end of the DS414j breaks the design mould. Although this does mean that there is far more space for ventilation, it would be nice to see a USB or memory card slot added to the front panel in a similar way to what we have seen from Synology’s products in the past. It may only seem a minor thing to nit-pick about but it is a factor that can potentially make or break the decision to buy.

On the performance side of things the read and write speeds to the system across the spectrum of RAID levels for its position in the market is actually not that bad, granted we don’t break the 100MB/s barrier when reading from the system, but for the purpose of streaming media content out to the network and / or backing up your computer this is more than enough. Pair the performance with an operating system that feels more fluid and intuitive and when we factor the cost of ownership once again we get a package that is more than suitable for the home or small office environment.

Pros:

• Dual-core processor
• USB3.0
• Small footprint
• Strong price point
• Cloud accessible
• Stylish design

Cons:

• Average USB3.0 and RAID performance
• Would be nice to see a USB port on the front panel
• Not tool-free

“Breaking the traditional design mould that Synology have chosen for their systems up to this stage and by upgrading the hardware to offer some more power is a timely reminder that the design focus that Synology uses is one step ahead of the market and additionally their users. All of these little additions on their own are not that significant, but when you look at them all together and compare them to a previous generation system and it soon becomes clear just how much value this system beholds.”

Thanks to Synology UK for providing us with this review sample.