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A publication of Malloc Technology
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| Review: Synology Diskstation DS211 NAS |
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| Written by Will Smith - Posted on Friday, 03 December 2010 01:03 | |
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Page 1 of 7
Introduction When it comes to backing up data, no one is more aware of the importance of data backup than me. In the past, I've had catastrophic experience in data loss and system failure, and believe me ... it's not very nice. And it is true what the experts say ... 70-80% of businesses fail after a major data loss. So how do you prepare for such a scenario? Well, it all depends on how important your data really is ... for example, if your business is web-based or has mission-critical data, then you need a backup system that you can rely on. You want to be able to backup, restore and access files at anytime without restrictions, plus it has to be easy to use and cost effective. Quite a lot to ask for ... Now, backup solutions come in various forms ... most notably is the common USB flash drive. They're simple to use and extremely affordable, but many people tend to lose them ... so it's not ideal for important major backups. Next we have the online backup solutions, which have been growing in popularity. These are usually software based, subsciption-charged services, which allows you to access a secure storage space in a remote server. Downside is monthly subcscription charges and limited storage space, usually 10-50Gb. Next, we have an in-house backup and storage solution in the form of a NAS (Network Attached Storage). These devices are basically a stripped down computer system with several hard drives attached, and it's used purely for data backup and storage. Some NAS offer media/video/music streaming, while others offer full web services such as FTP, Web server, remote file sharing and much much more. NAS devices tend to be the choice for many SOHO users, because they tend to be easy to setup and is more cost effective than other solutions. Most NAS devices come bare, with no hard drives installed ... so the user get the choice to add whatever size/capacity they want. The other advantage is the NAS's ability to "hot-swap" hard drives, which is great for easy maintenance.
In this review, we'll be taking a look at the Synology Diskstation DS211 NAS. It's an affordable, full-featured 2-bay NAS server designed for business workgroups. It offers a flexible backup solution while offering cross platform file sharing, rich office applications, data backup and security, all of which will increase user's overall productivity. The unit is powered by a 1.6Ghz processor with 256Mb of ram, and features 3 x USB 2.0 ports, 1Gbit ethernet port, and has the option to support wireless connectivity. It supports both 3.5" and 2.5" SATA I/II hard drives with a maximum internal capacity of 4TB (2x 2TB hard drives). For enhanced security, the DS211 provides RAID 1 Protection as well as AES 256-bit Share-level encryption.
Looking at the specifications, the Synology Diskstation DS211 looks pretty impressive. It's one of the smallest NAS we've seen that offers a full feature set. It will be interesting to see how easy it really is to setup this NAS, we'll also be testing the DS211's performance in terms of data transfer speeds. For our tests, we'll be using 2 x 60Gb OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs as our hard drives, and for testing the DS211 unit over a gigabit network, we'll be using a Netgear GS605 gigabit switch/router, along with a gigabit ethernet ready system. Enough talk ... let's take a closer look at the specifications of the Synology Diskstation DS21.
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