Network Attached Storage

Building a network attached storage (NAS) system does not bring the geek cred it did even a few years ago. All but computer-avoiding grandmothers can pretty easily set up a NAS for personal or small to midsize business use through free software such as FreeNAS or OpenFiler.

There’s still a difference between being able to set up a NAS and wanting to set up and administer a NAS, however, and that’s where the new Synology DS-412+ NAS enters the conversation.

“For someone content to be his own system administrator, the prospect of adding a frankenNAS to the closet in the den isn't necessarily that daunting,” wrote Lee Hutchinson for Ars Technica. “A huge segment of regular people, though, can't or don't want to deal with home-built servers.”

In those cases, the Synology DS-412+ makes for a mighty compelling NAS.

First, the basics: The DS-412+ is a cube-shaped four-bay, front-loading NAS that runs Synology’s DiskStation Manager (DSM (News - Alert)) 4.0 operating system, a full-featured, Windows-style OS that makes administration a breeze and offers both upgradeability and modules that can extend the OS. It sports a 2.1GHz Intel (News - Alert) Atom D2700 processor and one GB of RAM, and it comes with both a USB 3 and an eSATA port that can be used with external drives (as additional disks or as a NAS backup, not as part of a RAID array). It has two internal fans and, according to Endaget, read/write speeds of 202.63 MB/s and 179.15 MB/s, respectively.

The DS-412+ comes with a two-year warranty from the date of purchase and telephone tech support.

The only drawback is that the unit is not cheap.

“The only thing I truly have to complain about with this NAS is the price. You'll pay at least $650 for it before taxes and shipping, depending on the merchant you buy from—and that's without any disks in it,” Hutchinson wrote. “A NAS device like the Synology trades time for additional cost, and it arrives ready to go.”

Aside from its hot-swappable front-load drive bays, what makes the DS-412+ a dream is its DMS operating system. The system comes both with a boatload of features and add-ons in the form of packages. These include iSCSI, support for Active Directory, a VPN server, and virtualization, according to CNet.

“I actually tried most of these settings out and they were all well-designed and easy to use,” wrote the CNet reviewer. All the settings “offer a great level of depth and integration.”

Some of the more interesting apps available on the NAS include the Download Station, which enables the server to download files from the Internet by itself; Cloud Station, which syncs files across devices a la Dropbox (News - Alert) but has no space limitation; Surveillance Station, which lets the NAS serve as a video recorder and management station for a surveillance system; and Photo Station, a Web-based photo management system.

“The DS-412+ is both a joy to use and a joy to hack on,” Hutchinson summed up.

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