The Synology DS110+ is a One Bay NAS Box aimed at the small to medium business market. It comes supplied with no hard drive (you fit your own capacity), has an eSATA and 3 x USB ports to add additional storage to the device plus it is fitted with a gigabit Ethernet port for high speed data transfer.
Unboxing the device
All synology NAS devices are well packaged with a carrying handle for easy transportation once it arrives or you buy it from the store. Inside you will find the device itself, a power cable, a power supply unit, RJ45 Network cable, a packet of screws to hold the harddrive in, a packet of screws to secure the unit and finally a manual plus CD to install the device.
Putting the device togther
The unit come unscrewed and its a simple case of sliding the top across and you end of with two pieces, one is the top and the other has the electronics stored inside. It is obvious were the drive goes:
With the drive placed in the holder and pushed into place, its is secured and you can refit the top, again there is screws supplied in the box which fit on the back. Once everything is ready – you now need to plug this into the power and into a network point, either on a router or a switch – the faster the network, the better it will perform.
Setting up the device for first time use.
Before you start, it is best to head off to the synology web site and download the latest firmware, make sure you remember to select the correct device from the drop down as it defaults to the DS1010+. Once you have the file saved, extract this to a place you know and now insert the CD that came with the device. This is one product that you actually need the CD that comes in the box as this prepares the harddrive to hold not only the firmware but also formats the drive. Once the process has finished (it will take a while) you can now go into a web page and manage the device from there.
The Basics
You need to create some users so that you can access the shares later, it can tap into Windows Server Active directory if you are a company or simply match the users on the NAS box with your windows login. You need to prepare the drive, I found with this device though it had already set up the drive for me on the first part of the install. You then need to create some shares and give people (users) permission – you can have as many or a few as you require at this stage.
Technical Info
It has a 1.06Ghz CPU with a 64bit DDR533 Memory Bus which supports floating point.
It comes with 512MB Ram, 3 USB Ports, 1 eSATA Port and supports a max of 12 IP Webcams.
Performance
Windows Upload/Download(1) (5GB File)
| Model | DS110j | DS109 | DS110+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Upload | 40.12 | 53.17 | 68.27 |
| Windows Download | 58.07 | 71.06 | 108.81 |
Netbench(2)
Encrypted file Upload/Download(3) (5GB File)
| Model | DS109 | DS110+ |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Upload | 10.74 | 19.77 |
| Windows Download | 18.31 | 40.76 |
iSCSI Upload/Download(4) (5GB File)
| Model | DS110j | DS109 | DS110+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Upload | 44.78 | 50.26 | 50.35 |
| Windows Download | 39.08 | 47.04 | 81.35 |
Web Server Responsiveness(5) (1,000x requests)
| Model | DS109 | DS110+ |
|---|---|---|
| Seconds | 163.43 | 85.08 |
Photo Converting(6) (54MB of Photos)
| Model | DS110j | DS109 | DS110+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seconds | 380 | 255 | 55 |
Price of this device
I did some searching around and I found the price on average of £230, I failed to find as USA Prices. You may well ask why a 1 Bay NAS box with no drives costs more then the 2 Bay DS210J (my other device) and the answer is performance, number of IP webcams out of the box supported and a eSATA Port – all pointing to a business use rather than home. The graphs above bear this out and its clear why the price is more.
The different products from Synology
Synology provide a page to compare all the products and the best way to think about this is to ask yourself were is the product going to be used, how many people will access this at one time, how much storage do you need and how much you are will to spend on a NAS Box.
Why Synology?
There is a lot of companies out there who sell a NAS device and while I was looking, I found some lacked in features (as in they had none), some limited the size of the hard drive and some were plain slow. Remember not only are you getting a NAS device which can support the largest drives but they come packed with features such as:
- Photo Station – share your pictures and videos easily.
- Download Station – leave this device to get the files without having to leave computers switched on.
- Webstation – have your own unlimited website which supports PHP and MySQL
- Audio Station – share you music via a web page, itunes and any other music player.
Plus many many more – head HERE to see everything that is on offer…
