Synology's DiskStation DS214 was the dear winner in our last NAS Labs test, but the best things in life are never free, and the downside of this two-bay NAS was its sligntly high price. However, you can still join the Synolcgy NAS party without paying over the odds, as the company's new single-bay DS115J costs a more palatable £81 inc VAT.
As it only accommodates a single hard disk, RAID isn't even on the table. Although this means you might lose some performance, or the option of data mirroring, it makes the device much simplerto set up and use. You just plug in a drive turn it on, install the DiskStation Marager software and it's ready to go. There's no chance of waking up one day to find a drive dropped from the array, and there's none of the increased risk of mechanical failure of RAID 0 either.
Its build is in keeping with most of Synology's consumer NAS products. There's an elevated piece of plastic that covers half the front, with LEDs on the side. This section slips off to reveal a single set cf SATA power and data connectors on a metal tray, with rails along the side to attach a hard disk. A 60rr m fan is fitted at the back too, and there’s enough space to easily remove and clean it, although it can get noisy when it's running at full pelt.
Unlike the DS214, there are no removable noise-cancel.ing mounts. The hard disk is screwed directly lo the chassis, which can make it noisy when sitting on some surfaces during periods of long access. Another downgrade is the use of USB 2 ports, rather than USB 3 ports on the DS214. These ports can be used to attach a Bluetooth or wireless dongle, or an external drive for backup but, irritatingly, the power connector can prevent larger dongles from fitting into the ports.
After a ten-minute installation and setup period, you're presented with a simplified Linux desktop in a browser. Although the DS115J's single-core 800MHz Armada 370 SoC is one of the weakest ARM SoCs in Synology's range, it runs smoothly on the D5115J, with no noticeable lag.
As usual, the software offers a mind-boggling number of features. You can run a web server FTP, torrent client. DLNA and iTunes servers. There’s iSCSI support, a firewall, and remote access via Synology’s QuickConnect service or traditional dynamic DNS systems Plus, thpre's also the same Packages software store on the DS115J that you get on other Synology products.
According to the company, no software features have been disabled or removed from th s low-priced unit. There are some restrictions, however. The download manager limits you to 20 simultaneous transfers, and you can only have a maximum of 512 users. If you choose this model as a recorder for IP cameras, you're limited to just 20f ps at 1080p too. However, for £81, this is still a remarkable feature set.
We set up theDS115J with a 6TB WD Red hard diskand, as before, we tested it with Intel’s NAS Performance Test, and transferred two 5CB folders to and from the DJ115J, one full of a few large files, and ar other with of smaller files. Its large file writing speed came in at 45.75MB/sec, sitting around the middle of the scores from the units in our Labs test, and a fraction ahead of both QNAP’s NAS units. However, the Intel NASPT HD video result of 90.4MB/sec was only beaten by the Synology DS214 and WD MyCloud EX2. Also, with small file writes, the DS115J managing an amazing result of 51.31 МВ/sec, which is only slightly slower than the DS214. That said, its halo slipped slightly in the Intel NASPT Photo Album test, with a result of 8.5 MB/sec.
Conclusion
The DS115J is an extremely well-built and affordable NAS that's packed with software features, and all for a price that's only slightly higher than that of a good-quality external USB disk caddy. Of course, its no use if vou need RAID, or if you want a single box for managing downloads, but for everyone else, the DS115J is a fantastic deal. ORESTIS BASTOUNIS
VERDICT
The DS115J is a great-value, well-designed NAS that offers reasonable speed and a good range of features.