INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   As things are right now consumers are divided into two separate categories, the ones who support that building your own server from old or new computer parts is the way to go if you want power and the ones who'd rather purchase an standalone NAS server and be done without having to go the extra mile. Personally i think that each solution has both pros and cons with NAS servers getting slightly ahead not only because they are ready to use right from the box with all the applications anyone could wish for pre-installed but also due to their small size and very low power consumption. Of course for people who also want to use the server for games it goes without saying that a normal PC/HTPC is suited for the task. Now for the past 12 months we've covered quite a few NAS server solutions by both QNAP and Thecus but today we will be covering an NAS server from Synology a name we haven't seen in a while and since we have managed to secure a brand new DiskStation DS213+ for our giveaway it only makes sense for us to show all of you what will end up in the hands of our lucky winner.

 

   Founded in 2000, Synology is dedicated to develop high-performance, reliable, versatile, and environmentally-friendly NAS servers. Our goal is to deliver agile and cost-effective solutions, solid customer service, and ultimately to ensure individuals and business the versatility of choices. Synology provides an affordable way to centralize data storage, simplify data backup, share and sync files across different platforms, and access data on-the-go. The “5S” serve as the pillars to Sinology’s core values which are realized in products, features, and the direction we head. Responsive and flexible data management is a crucial challenge for today’s users. Home users and businesses alike must find ways to harness the ever increasing data and to use it efficiently. Synology is committed to develop NAS solutions for efficient and easy data management. Taking innovation as the key drive, Synology NAS solutions encompass complete product lines of storage hardware, the software operating system, and a diverse array of services and applications. Synology makes a NAS more than a file server. We bring together the accessibility of public cloud and the security which private cloud possesses to form a hybrid cloud solution with a web-based platform. The web-based platform transforms NAS from being a pure file server to a multi-functional device suitable for different purposes. It’s the first time that anyone in the industry has done so.

 

   This review was actually planned to go live almost a week ago prior to us announcing our Synology giveaway but due to heavy workload we were simply unable to make it. So the DiskStation DS213+ is the latest dual bay SMB oriented NAS server by Synology and as the + (plus) clearly states it's the second highest dual bay model they are making, right beneath the DS713+ (which however is much more expensive and mostly ment to be used with the DX513 expansion unit). Specs-wise under the hood the DiskStation DS213+ packs an Dual Core 1067MHz CPU, 512MB DDR3 RAM, single Gigabit Ethernet LAN, two USB 3.0 Ports, one USB 2.0 Port, one eSATA port and an SD card reader. Sure the DS213+ doesn't have the most exciting list of specifications and i am the first to admit that but as you will all see later on thanks to the latest DiskStation Manager software by Synology (v4.2) it actually did extremely well in all our tests and almost on par with more expensive units.

 

  

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The DS213+ arrived inside medium sized white/green box at the front of which we see the Synology logo.

 

 

A sticker with the specifications and features of the DS213+ along with the contents of the bundle is placed at the left side of the box.

 

 

At the right side we see more of the units’ features and functions again showcased via several small pictures.

 

 

Synology informs you about where you can find the list of compatible HDDs and also how to start the setup procedure.

 

 

The DiskStation DS213+ is packed quite well inside a single cardboard piece but without any kind of Styrofoam.

 

 

Along with the DiskStation DS213+ you will also get an Ethernet cable, the AC power adapter, AC power cable, software CD, several HDD mounting screws, welcome paper and the warranty information paper.

 

  

THE DISKSTATION DS213+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much like the previous DS212+ model the DiskStation DS213+ is an all-black unit with a hard plastic exterior that measures 165mm in height, 108mm in width and 233.5mm in depth with a weight of 1.25kg.

 

 

The Synology logo is engraved on both sides of the housing.

 

 

The front fascia is actually a piece of polished hard plastic placed in front of the 2 drive bays.

 

 

The model version is imprinted on the lower left of the polished fascia piece.

 

 

The usual green/yellow status/LAN/HDD activity LEDs can be seen at the top right.

 

 

An SD card slot along with a USB port and the power/copy buttons are placed right beneath.

 

 

The rear is also black and packs quite a few interesting features.

 

 

Exactly like its predecessor the DS213+ features a rather large 92mm exhaust fan (compared to the 70/80mm fans found in most units).

 

 

Beneath the exhaust fan we see the reset switch, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet port, eSATA port and the DC in.

 

 

A Kensington lock is also placed at the rear.

 

 

Moving back at the front of the unit we see that the large hard plastic polished piece is not actually attached onto the chassis so you just need to pull it out in order to see the drive bays.

 

 

The drive trays are not made out of metal/aluminum but Synology has used durable plastic instead.

 

 

Slicing open the unit is not extremely hard but i don't recommend it to anyone unless absolutely necessary since the casing is made out of hard plastic after all.

 

 

On the single PCB we see the Freescale P1022 dual core CPU (under the large aluminum heatsink), the Realtek RTL8211E 10/100/1000 gigabit Ethernet transceiver and four 128MB DDR3 SDRAM chips by Samsung (not 4x1GB as some people may think).

  

  

DISKSTATION MANAGER INSTALLATION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing you should do is head over to the official Synology product support to download the latest available firmware/program versions (DSM 4.2).

 

 

Via the bundled Synology Assistant program you can see what IP the NAS is using to start the setup procedure.

 

 

Once you press install you will need to browse and locate the downloaded DSM file in your hard drive to proceed with the installation. This procedure will erase everything on the drive so make sure it's empty before pressing next.

 

  

DISKSTATION MANAGER PART 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After you finish the installation procedure you will see the welcome screen on your browser in which naturally you will use the user name and password you chose during installation.

 

 

As usual the main screen looks a lot like Linux/Windows and i strongly recommend following the setup wizard the very first time you access it.

 

 

The wizard will help you to manually setup a volume and create a shared partition as seen above. This procedure will take a while since the software checks the entire drive for errors but once over you will be able to check the temperature and S.M.A.R.T details of the drive.

 

 

 

 

Overall the new GUI looks a lot better and richer than the last time i had the chance to test a Synology NAS (DSM 3.2) so kudos to Synology for this. As always the control panel will most likely be your first stop since it allows the user to control/adjust pretty much everything related with the unit from things such as File Sharing (FTP server setup, user account creation, shared folders setup), Network Services (enable/disable web server, setup DDNS, adjust firewall settings), System Settings (adjust the login screen, hardware configuration, configure attached devices, perform updates) and finally the various Application Settings.

 

 

Through the Package Center you can scroll through a large number of available software packages you can download and use in your Synology NAS (a lot like the QPKG section found in QNAP units).

 

 

For this test we used a total of 7 software packages all of which are also accessible by default from the Start menu.

 

  

DISKSTATION MANAGER PART 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Synology offers a somewhat basic Anti-Virus software which is accessible from their Package Center and start menu (if you have installed it already). It may not have many features and it does take almost 50% of the units resources when used (side bar) but it's quite fast.

 

 

The Audio Station has been redesigned since the last time we used it and as the name clearly states from here you can playback audio files stored in the NAS and also listen to a large number of Internet Radio stations based on Shoutcast and RadioIO.

 

 

The Download Station can be used for direct FTP/HTTP and P2P BitTorrent/eMule file downloads.

 

 

The now 6th version of the Surveillance Station is also a lot different and more feature rich since Synology has registered a huge number of compatible IP cameras and given it many settings for the end user. However unfortunately once again (and exactly like QNAP) by default you only have a single IP camera license so you will have to buy more in order to use more IP cameras.

 

 

Moving away from applications for a minute i would like to point to the brand new revamped resource monitor which is a lot like the one found in Windows 8 (looks great and offers a wealth of information regarding the current state of the system).

 

 

Cloud Station 2 now supports almost an unlimited number of shared folders for file sharing with a size cap of up to 10GB for each file. As expected it comes ready with several administrative tools and encryption security for easy SMB deployment.

 

 

The Video Station tab is actually brand new and whenever you click on a media file it will try to download information on it (for example we ripped our Skyfall Blu-ray to test with the DS213+ and it had no problem detecting it). The entire layout is very clean and easy to use but unfortunately every time we fast forwarded the movie (or went backwards) it took quite a bit of time to do so (perhaps the CPU can't handle very heavy media files with ease).

 

 

DS ANDROID/IOS APPS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Synology has quite a few applications for Android/iOS users available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store all of which are extremely easy to install and use. However do keep in mind that you have to install the corresponding applications through the Package Center prior to using them.

Starting with the DS audio app you can use it to listen to audio files stored in the NAS by using your Wi-Fi smartphone or tablet.

 

 

The DS cam application allows you to have a live feed of the camera or cameras connected to your NAS in your smartphone/tablet.

 

 

The DS video app goes as far as to give your information on the movie files you have in the NAS but we were unable to use it with Skyfall or with any of the MKV movie files we had in our possession.

 

 

Also easy to use and understand is the DS file application which obviously allows the end user to access files stored in the NAS.

 

 

The DS photo application can be used to access pictures stored in the NAS but as you can see from the above screen since we hadn't installed the appropriate package in the NAS it wouldn't start (resolved later on but forgot to grab a snapshot of it).

 

 

  

TESTING METHODOLOGY – TEST RESULTS

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Since some of the NAS servers/devices we have tested in the past are no longer in our possession (naturally) we will keep performing the exact same testing methodology we did in the past for as long as possible in order to provide accurate comparison results. So as always we will be using a single Seagate Constellation ES.2 3TB SATA III hard disk drive with the unit at hand (just like with all of the NAS servers) and perform several upload/download tests with a single 10.9GB file. Tests are repeated a total of 4 times after which we record the average numbers (from the 4 peak ones) into our charts. Finally the network device used is the same Netgear DGN3500 Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem/Router we always use when performing tests on NAS servers.

 

FILE TRANSFER TEST

A single 10.9GB file was uploaded and downloaded to and from all the NAS units in this test. Much like in our previous reviews data transfer speeds are quite close between high end models and pretty much the same can be said about the DS213+ since it averaged 94MB/s in read and 77MB/s in write.

TEMPERATURES

Thanks to the 92mm exhaust fan the Constellation ES.2 3TB never went over 31 degrees Celsius.

POWER CONSUMPTION

During testing we were unable to cross the 23W mark which is great for a NAS unit however we were also not able to go beneath 16W in idle (without enabling hibernation of course).

NOISE LEVELS

Since last time we tested an DiskStation by Synology we weren’t checking noise levels I was surprised to see just how more quiet the DS213+ is compared to the competition (although both the specifications and thermal requirements of each unit do play a huge part in the required RPM). 

 

  

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   It's been slightly over a year since i last had any contact with a Synology solution and so going from DSM 3.2 to DSM 4.2 was a big surprise for me since Synology has performed countless improvements and has also added many more features. Certainly the entire GUI although improved will not be a stranger to people who have used an Synology NAS server in the past and that's very good since obviously Synology thinks of that each and every time they improve it. This is largely also why although the DiskStation DS213+ may not have the most stellar hardware specifications still it did manage to come really close to the performance of other more hardware-rich (and expensive) solutions present in our charts with much less electrical demands and lower noise levels. The feature-rich software packages along with the DS android/iOS compatible apps are without doubt the backbone of the DS213+ and offer everything we could have ever hoped to see with a NAS server. However we do hope that Synology will keep improving the Video Station and more specifically its ability to handle heavy bitrate MKV files (so if you fast forward it will not need 10-20s for that to happen. Honestly i have nothing really bad to say about the DS213+ although it would be nice if it had a 2nd gigabit LAN connection and an HDMI output for the more demanding users.

 

   We may be currently giving away one Synology DiskStation DS213+ but that aside i am pretty certain that many of you will be quite happy to hear that this impressive NAS server currently retails for a very tempting price tag of USD399 inside the USA (Purchase Directly From Amazon.com) and 345Euros inside the EU (Purchase Directly from Amazon.co.uk). Granted the DiskStation DS213+ was not designed with people who want an NAS server to double as a media server and so if an HDMI output is a must for you (along with XBMC) then the DS213+ is obviously not suited for your needs. However for people who care not about that HDMI output or a second gigabit LAN then i really doubt there's anything better in the market currently (both in terms of performance and functionality) at around that price point and that's why the DiskStation DS213+ gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Very Good Performance
- Dual Core CPU (Freescale P1022)
- Gigabit Ethernet Port
- 2 USB 3.0 Ports
- eSATA Port
- Synology Hybrid RAID, Single, JBOD, RAID0/1 Support
- DiskStation Manager
- IP Camera Support
- DS Android/iOS Apps
- Power Consumption
- Noise Levels
- Price (For Some) 

 

 

CONS

- No HDMI Output
- Single Gigabit LAN
- Slight Video Playback Issues (With Heavy Bitrate Files)