Synology DS415+ Review: DSM on Intel Rangeley

Miscellaneous Aspects and Final Words

It is expected that most users would configure the Synology DS415+ in RAID-5 for optimal balance of redundancy and capacity. Hence, we performed all our expansion / rebuild testing as well as power consumption evaluation with the unit configured in RAID-5. The disks used for benchmarking (Western Digital WD4000FYYZ) were also used in this section. The table below presents the average power consumption of the unit as well as time taken for various RAID-related activities.

The graphs below show the power consumption and rebuild duration when repairing a RAID-5 volume for the various 4-bay NAS units that have been evaluated before.

The competition for the DS415+ comes from the QNAP TS-451 and the Seagate NAS Pro 4-bay. While the QNAP unit has the same clock speeds, the TDP of the SoC is only 10 W (compared to 15 W for the Atom C2538 in the DS415+) because it is dual-core (compared to the four cores in the Atom C2538). As expected, during rebuild, the DS415+ consumes slightly more power. The Atom C2338 in the NAS Pro is clocked much lower (1.74 GHz), so it consumes a full 6 W lesser than the DS415+.

Due to its slower clock, the rebuild duration for the NAS Pro is more than that of the DS415+. That said, it does look like Synology can optimize RAID rebuild durations further, since it is handily bested by the QNAP TS-451. In terms of energy consumption for rebuild, the TS-451 is the winner (~1.8 MJ, compared ~2.0 MJ for the Seagate NAS Pro and ~2.13 MJ for the DS415+). At this point, the only downside of an Intel x86 NAS platform for prosumers and SOHO users seems to be the cost.

Concluding Remarks

The SMB / SOHO / prosumer COTS NAS market is interestingly poised. With the previous generation Atom platforms, NAS vendors had to differentiate themselves with the software. However, with their 22nm silicon, Intel has provided them with multiple options. We have already looked at QNAP using Bay Trail-D with extra focus on the multimedia transcoding and virtualization aspects. Asustor has opted to go the Haswell route, with a Core i3 CPU for the 70-series. With the DS415+, Synology has placed its bets on the Intel Rangeley platform.

The new Rangeley platform has made up for the drawbacks of the previous generation x86 platforms at this price point. Equipped with the Atom C2538, the DS415+ excels in three areas: multi-client performance, encryption capabilities and power efficiency. Synology's DSM is quite mature and it has no problems in bringing out the potential of Intel's Rangeley for the NAS market. Multi-client performance in terms of average response times is better because of the highly integrated I/O compared to other solutions (both ARM-based and some of the other x86-based solutions) which use bridge chips and have bottlenecks in connecting to the CPU. The appearance of AES-NI in the Atom-class SoCs has finally delivered power efficient encryption capabilities. Obviously, the 22 nm fabrication process as well as tight I/O integration greatly help in reducing the power consumption of the platform compared to other solutions in the market.

From a product line perspective, Synology has introduced only one Rangeley-based NAS so far (unlike Seagate which rolled out its full Rangeley lineup with 2,4 and 6 bays in one go). Prosumers / SMBs may need to hold out for a bit if they require more than four bays in a Synology NAS equipped with a Rangeley SoC.

At $600 for a diskless unit, the pricing is not unreasonable (given the premiums usually associated with Synology units). The Atom C2538 is one of the more powerful Rangeley SoCs and it helps the DS415+ pack quite a punch. Pretty much the only downside from a home consumer perspective is the absence of a hardware transcoding engine for media-centric applications. Though many multimedia apps can be installed on the DS415+, media enthusiasts are advised to go for the Synology DS415play or QNAP TS-x51 if power-efficient media serving is a primary use-case. The focus of the DS415+ is solely on the SMB / SOHO market. With the final version of DSM 5.1 around the corner, Synology seems well-placed to serve the needs of the NAS market.