Synology DS1812+ 8-bay SMB / SOHO NAS Review
by Ganesh T S on June 13, 2013 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- NAS
- Storage
- Synology
- Enterprise
Introduction
A number of Intel Atom D27xx-based NAS systems have been evaluated in our labs, even though we formally reviewed only one earlier this year, the LaCie 5big NAS Pro. The Thecus N4800 has made its appearance in a some benchmarks presented in our SMB / SOHO NAS testbed article. Synology is one of the well respected vendors in the SMB / SOHO NAS space, and we have reviewed a number of units from them in the previous years. They recently refreshed their 8-bay SMB / SOHO NAS lineup with the DS1813+. Based on the same platform as the DS1812+ (Atom D2700), it added two extra network ports. However, due to the similarity in the underlying platform, the performance can be expected to be similar to last year's version (except when all four links are teamed together when compared to dual teaming), the DS1812+. The Synology DS1812+, a 8-bay desktop tower form factor offering, has been under stress in our labs since the beginning of this year.
In our experience with Synology NAS units, we have found that they typically manage to tick all the right boxes for the perfect consumer NAS (except for the pricing factor). Does the DS1812+ carry things forward, or do we have something to complain about?
The specifications of the Synology DS1812+ are provided below:
| Synology DS1812+ Specifications | |
| Processor | Intel Atom D2700 (2C/4T, 2.13 GHz) |
| RAM | 1 GB DDR3 RAM (Upgradable to 3 GB) |
| Drive Bays | 8x 3.5"/2.5" SATA / SAS 6 Gbps HDD / SSD (Hot-swappable) |
| Network Links | 2x 1 GbE |
| USB Slots | 2x USB 3.0 / 4x USB 2.0 |
| eSATA Slots | 2x |
| Expansion Slots | None |
| VGA / Display Out | None |
| Full Specifications Link | Synology DS1812+ Hardware Specs |
In the rest of the review, I will cover some unboxing and setup impressions. A detailed description of the testbed setup and testing methodology is followed by performance numbers in both single and multi-client modes. As requested by multiple readers, we will also briefly cover performance with encryption enabled. In the final section, power consumption numbers as well as RAID rebuild times will be covered along with some closing notes.
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cjs150 - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
Happy with raid 5 on a 4 bay NAS but I still watch carefully.The problem is simple. I, like most people, if buying an 8 bay NAS would buy all the disks at the same time so there is a high chance the disks are all from the same manufacture batch. So if one disk in a batch fails there is a higher chance of another failing soon after - I know because it has happened to me.
So for 8 disk NAS Raid 6 is a key feature.
That still gives me a 24TB array. Say 16-18 Gb per lossless blu-ray rip leaves room for 1200 blu rays movies (or 4000 if you are happy with some compression) and about 2000 episodes of TV epsiodes at standard definition (no compression) and maybe 3000 CDs.
That should be enough!
SirGCal - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
My point exactly!JeffFlanagan - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
Don't get all your drives from one source or vendor. Buy an assortment of drives for your array, and you'll be much less likely to have 2 drives fail at once.brennok - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
I guess I am not like most people. I used SHR2 so I could fill it with various disks as I upgraded. I only started with four 1TB Reds.SirGCal - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
But that's never enough, building my 2nd 24TB rig now actually.. :-/ But I refuse to compress my BRs. I do strip out everything but the movies, but I also do NOT pirate them. I buy them and put them on my server. No one gets them either. Being in a wheelchair, it's one of my few hobbies though so I have a LOT of movies...cjs150 - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link
Apart from the wheelchair part I do exactly as SirGCal. Using a standard Blu-ray rip (at high quality rather than original) a 2 hour movie comes in at about 15Gb file. Some are a bit larger (17Gb), some a bit smaller (13.5Gb is the smallest).That chews up a 6TB rig very quickly - particular as 6TB hard disk space is not 6TB because HD manufacturers do not quote HD space in binary but decimal units (the difference is about 7% per TB)..
I look forward to when HD come in 10TB sizes! That would be enough on my 4 bay QNAP 419+ which I consider to be an ideal consumer box - plug it in and it works
Babar Javied - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
Can someone explain to me why this would be better than making your own NAS (with FreeNAS or something similar)? Correct me if I'm wrong but you should be able to put together a nice PC for NAS purposes for under $400 without a RAID card.... $800 (give or take) with a raid card that should be better then this no?Peroxyde - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
Exactly! You'd even be agreeably surprise that ZFS is better than a RAID card. Additionnaly your own build server will have much more RAM. I was about to buy a QNAP 4 bays. But after spending sometimes to read more about NAS4Free, I realize that a "roll you own" NAS server beats the prebuilts on all performance factors: better case, silence, better CPU, RAM, etc. etc. There is a big inconvenience though, you need to learn NAS4Free (or FreeNAS. the commercial implementation).Case in point: my NAS server costs me less than $400 (I have the luxury to wait for quality parts to go one sale): Fractal Design R4, Corsair VX 550, 8GB G-SKill Snipper DDR 1600. Just waiting for a good mobo + AMD low power CPU and I am ready.
brennok - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
Not necessarily better or worse. I was looking to replace my WHS and I didn't feel like doing another build. I wanted something compact, quiet, and efficient since it stays on 24/7. The Synology came highly recommended and I didn't feel like doing test builds to figure out which OS I wanted to use.SirGCal - Friday, June 14, 2013 - link
See my reply above to a few posts. I just put it up a few minutes ago... It IS better.. And quite a bit cheaper. The Synology stuff really is NOT very good for the savvy. In-fact, ESPECIALLY with this many drives, your data is at too much risk... I tried to explain it in detail. Sorry for the rather long windedness of the post but I try to be detailed.