Alfa BBT

I’m using a WD NetCenter for my home storage needs since about 3.5 years. This unit is not only very slow but it also has a very basic feature-set. It’s not possible to reorganize your data (move files around, rename shares etc) via the web interface. There’s no console access possible either.

Hence a decent NAS was on my wishlist for some time already. The needs/nice-to-haves I had in mind were:

• 2 or 4 disk model:  I want to use RAID (on top of regular backups) to better protect my data, so 2 hard disks is a minimum. A 4 disk unit might be more future proof.
• Capacity: The NetCenter unit has only 500Gb, but data is growing steadily as the Misses likes to play around with Adobe Photoshop and Premiere. I’ll start with recuperating 2x 1Tb disk I have sitting in another machine. I can upgrade to 2x 2Tb later if needed.
• Network: gigabit
• Budget: not unlimited ;-)
• Full-featured management tools
• Some form of Download manager
• Better performance
• Energy saving features e.g. hibernation, WOL etc…
• ISCI

When Synology published the official press release on the DS710+ last week it was time to treat myself on a late, it’s February after all, new years present. It went quite fast actually:

1. 11/02 – Press release
2. 15/02 – Noticed the device in a trusted web shop as “out of stock”. Signed up to be notified by e-mail notification when the device is in stock.
3. 16/02 – “In stock” e-mail notification. Ordered about half an hour before the deadline for next day delivery.
4. 17/02 – Package arrived about 14(!) hours later

Last but not least, the unboxing pics;

I did look into QNAP too as they have a similar unit, Ts-259 Pro-Turbo, but went for Synology because the communtity seems lager in our region and the features match a tiny bit better with my needs. For those interested; both manufacturers have demo environment of their management tools online:

• http://demo.synology.com:5000 (Account=”admin”, Password=”synology”)
• http://www.qnap.com/liveDemo.asp (Account=”qnap”, Password=”qnap”)

Update 2010-03-06: If I wetted your appetite with the pics above, proceed to Overclock3d.net for some detailed shots of the internals of Synology’s DS710+