Price : Too low to display
Synology DiskStation DS411slim is designed to provide users with a compact yet feature laden solution for easy file sharing and backup. Snap-in 2.5-Inch hard drives design brings low power consumption, quiet operation, reliability and easy disk replacement in a compact size. The operating system, Synology DiskStation Manager 3.0, delivers rich features for multimedia enjoyments, Internet sharing, worry-free data protection and energy-saving options.
This review is from : Synology America Corp DiskStation 4-Bay USB 2.0 Network Attached Storage DS411slim Black
Solves the noise problem . After ogling this for weeks I cracked down and pulled the trigger. It arrived a couple of days ago. So far I have been running the following (in parallel):
* migration of my backups and media library (from Readynas NV+), about 460 GB
* watched a movie
* played music on the Squeezebox Touch
* a remote backup of another Synology Diskstation over the Internet, 45GB
* hourly time machine backups (continuing on the sparsebundle from the NV+
* download of 4GB BitTorrent.
Even with the disks that busy, the fan sometimes turns completely off. The CPU temperature is consistently at 64 degrees Celsius and the 2 disks are at 42 degrees. My take on the temperature discussion is that these are the temperatures that both hard drives and CPU are designed for and running at these temperatures allows for a super quiet NAS.
This has less than half of the footprint and less than a quarter of the volume of the NV+. It looks quite futuristic, too. Works perfectly with currently 2 Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue SATA 5200 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive WD10TPVT. Much faster response than the NV+ when e.g. opening a folder, accessing the admin interface or picking and starting a song on the squeezebox.
I have only good things to say about it.
UPDATE (4/8/12)
Likely not related to the DS411slim, but nevertheless important for those who migrate from another NAS: Make sure you verify that the data is there after you copied it. I noticed skipping on a certain song that went away when I recopied the song from its original location. Upon comparing my old NAS with the DS411slim, many instances of corrupted data were discovered. I am using beyond compare, and compared a whole night long until I figured out that I did it wrong and didn't discover any inconsistencies. Now that I'm doing it right, many corrupted files have been discovered, and I fortunately could recopy them before reformatting and selling my old NAS. Look up file comparison in Wikipedia for a list of tools you can use. Probably there are safer mechanisms than I used to migrate the data in the first place, but this is definitely something to watch out for.
UPDATE (5/31/12)
Still looking good. Noticed that a 1 volume set-up using all available disk space cannot be changed later without reformatting. If you add a drive, it will extend the existing volume, it won't allow you to add a new volume on the additional space. For older Apple OS' Time Machine works better under iSCSI and iSCSI is faster on its own partition:
[...] /How_to_use_the_iSCSI_Target_Service_on_the_Synology_DiskStation#How_to_create_an_iSCSI_Target_on_the_Synology_DiskStation
Solves the noise problem . After ogling this for weeks I cracked down and pulled the trigger. It arrived a couple of days ago. So far I have been running the following (in parallel):
* migration of my backups and media library (from Readynas NV+), about 460 GB
* watched a movie
* played music on the Squeezebox Touch
* a remote backup of another Synology Diskstation over the Internet, 45GB
* hourly time machine backups (continuing on the sparsebundle from the NV+
* download of 4GB BitTorrent.
Even with the disks that busy, the fan sometimes turns completely off. The CPU temperature is consistently at 64 degrees Celsius and the 2 disks are at 42 degrees. My take on the temperature discussion is that these are the temperatures that both hard drives and CPU are designed for and running at these temperatures allows for a super quiet NAS.
This has less than half of the footprint and less than a quarter of the volume of the NV+. It looks quite futuristic, too. Works perfectly with currently 2 Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue SATA 5200 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive WD10TPVT. Much faster response than the NV+ when e.g. opening a folder, accessing the admin interface or picking and starting a song on the squeezebox.
I have only good things to say about it.
UPDATE (4/8/12)
Likely not related to the DS411slim, but nevertheless important for those who migrate from another NAS: Make sure you verify that the data is there after you copied it. I noticed skipping on a certain song that went away when I recopied the song from its original location. Upon comparing my old NAS with the DS411slim, many instances of corrupted data were discovered. I am using beyond compare, and compared a whole night long until I figured out that I did it wrong and didn't discover any inconsistencies. Now that I'm doing it right, many corrupted files have been discovered, and I fortunately could recopy them before reformatting and selling my old NAS. Look up file comparison in Wikipedia for a list of tools you can use. Probably there are safer mechanisms than I used to migrate the data in the first place, but this is definitely something to watch out for.
UPDATE (5/31/12)
Still looking good. Noticed that a 1 volume set-up using all available disk space cannot be changed later without reformatting. If you add a drive, it will extend the existing volume, it won't allow you to add a new volume on the additional space. For older Apple OS' Time Machine works better under iSCSI and iSCSI is faster on its own partition:
[...] /How_to_use_the_iSCSI_Target_Service_on_the_Synology_DiskStation#How_to_create_an_iSCSI_Target_on_the_Synology_DiskStation
Synology America Corp DiskStation 4-Bay USB 2.0 Network Attached Storage DS411slim Black Reviews
Finally the NAS I've been looking for! . As far as I'm aware this is the first 4 bay 2.5" NAS on the market. It came out over a year ago but hasn't received very much attention, which blows my mind, because it truly is a wonderful device. It combines an incredibly small form factor, a gigabit ethernet port, and a wealth of advanced options like a webserver, bittorrent client, FTP server, IP camera system, intelligent RAID configurations and Synology's renowned Disk Manager software. When you consider how many features are packed into this tiny box, its low price, and its lower noise and power consumption compared to much larger and more expensive NAS enclosures, the 411slim is a no brainer.
Currently I have 4 Western Digital 1TB Scorpio Blue drives in this enclosure in a RAID5 array. At the time of this review, 1TB is the largest 2.5" drive available, so yes, you're limited to half the storage capacity of a normal 4 bay 3.5" NAS. However, don't let this scare you away. 1.5TB and 2TB 2.5" drives are right around the corner, and as long as those drives don't exceed 12.5mm thickness, you should be able to scale upwards to 8TB and subsequently get some real bang for your buck with this machine.
Speed is on the slow side - don't expect it to rival a ReadyNAS with aggregated ethernet. But considering the way I use this NAS - as a repository for all my video, music and photos, with direct playback via USB to my Popcorn Hour network media player - speed is secondary. I love having something that is out of sight and out of mind (and out of hearing range). I can always do massive file transfers overnight while I'm sleeping. If speed is paramount to you, look into traditional 3.5" NAS solutions. But if you plan to use this as a backup drive or as media storage, without constant R/W or high-def playback to other networked machines, then this is the perfect NAS.
I can't say enough about the 411slim - it is a remarkable piece of computer engineering, and while it won't rival the performance of a traditional NAS, its other features more than make up for it and set it apart from the rest of the NAS pack.
Finally the NAS I've been looking for! . As far as I'm aware this is the first 4 bay 2.5" NAS on the market. It came out over a year ago but hasn't received very much attention, which blows my mind, because it truly is a wonderful device. It combines an incredibly small form factor, a gigabit ethernet port, and a wealth of advanced options like a webserver, bittorrent client, FTP server, IP camera system, intelligent RAID configurations and Synology's renowned Disk Manager software. When you consider how many features are packed into this tiny box, its low price, and its lower noise and power consumption compared to much larger and more expensive NAS enclosures, the 411slim is a no brainer.
Currently I have 4 Western Digital 1TB Scorpio Blue drives in this enclosure in a RAID5 array. At the time of this review, 1TB is the largest 2.5" drive available, so yes, you're limited to half the storage capacity of a normal 4 bay 3.5" NAS. However, don't let this scare you away. 1.5TB and 2TB 2.5" drives are right around the corner, and as long as those drives don't exceed 12.5mm thickness, you should be able to scale upwards to 8TB and subsequently get some real bang for your buck with this machine.
Speed is on the slow side - don't expect it to rival a ReadyNAS with aggregated ethernet. But considering the way I use this NAS - as a repository for all my video, music and photos, with direct playback via USB to my Popcorn Hour network media player - speed is secondary. I love having something that is out of sight and out of mind (and out of hearing range). I can always do massive file transfers overnight while I'm sleeping. If speed is paramount to you, look into traditional 3.5" NAS solutions. But if you plan to use this as a backup drive or as media storage, without constant R/W or high-def playback to other networked machines, then this is the perfect NAS.
I can't say enough about the 411slim - it is a remarkable piece of computer engineering, and while it won't rival the performance of a traditional NAS, its other features more than make up for it and set it apart from the rest of the NAS pack.
Synology America Corp DiskStation 4-Bay USB 2.0 Network Attached Storage DS411slim Black Opinions
Amazing . This is the most advanced little NAS i've ever seen. The style, quality and physical layout of the NAS to the user interface and simple tools used to get it working. It supports all raids from 1,0,10,5,6 and even some others i've never heard of.
I am still thrown back at the size, it fits in the palm of your hand and has 4 hard drives in it. It's silent except when its working hard even then its a whisper.
The other thing that amazed me is the user interface, no more remote desktop non sense no more windows Server head aches no complicated command line. You login via a web browser gui, just like a home router if you've ever used go to assist express or something similar it reminds me of that.
I have a high resolution 30 inch monitor, and the gui looked amazing. It's fast, very intuitive and easy to use.
I put in 4 500GB western digital drives in raid 6, that amounts to around 922GB of usable storage. Raid 6 can lose 2/4 hard drives and still recover the data.
The free updates of the software is an awesome deal. they come often too, 3.1 was just released and I upgraded to it painlessly without having to register on the site. The unit also can do upgrades on its own within its software automatically.
the initial setup was painless, it comes with no software preinstalled as in os, so you install the hard drives in the racks, hooked it up to your network, power it on and use the initial setup app, this finds the nas on the network, which was given an ip via dhcp and allows you to right click on it in a list and tell it to install. It gives you a status on where it is with configuring drives, formatting and installing the software. then you login using a webgui, default username is admin with a blank password.
Here you configure the hard drives in a raid configuration based on how many hard drives you have. setup usernames accounts etc. Everything gui based similiar to windows but much more streamlined, simple and easy.
Great nas, and considering a Windows media server costs just as much this device is a no brainer. Synology will be touted every where I see a place for it. Synology will get bought by a bigger competitor, no doubt about it. Amazing stuff.
Amazing . This is the most advanced little NAS i've ever seen. The style, quality and physical layout of the NAS to the user interface and simple tools used to get it working. It supports all raids from 1,0,10,5,6 and even some others i've never heard of.
I am still thrown back at the size, it fits in the palm of your hand and has 4 hard drives in it. It's silent except when its working hard even then its a whisper.
The other thing that amazed me is the user interface, no more remote desktop non sense no more windows Server head aches no complicated command line. You login via a web browser gui, just like a home router if you've ever used go to assist express or something similar it reminds me of that.
I have a high resolution 30 inch monitor, and the gui looked amazing. It's fast, very intuitive and easy to use.
I put in 4 500GB western digital drives in raid 6, that amounts to around 922GB of usable storage. Raid 6 can lose 2/4 hard drives and still recover the data.
The free updates of the software is an awesome deal. they come often too, 3.1 was just released and I upgraded to it painlessly without having to register on the site. The unit also can do upgrades on its own within its software automatically.
the initial setup was painless, it comes with no software preinstalled as in os, so you install the hard drives in the racks, hooked it up to your network, power it on and use the initial setup app, this finds the nas on the network, which was given an ip via dhcp and allows you to right click on it in a list and tell it to install. It gives you a status on where it is with configuring drives, formatting and installing the software. then you login using a webgui, default username is admin with a blank password.
Here you configure the hard drives in a raid configuration based on how many hard drives you have. setup usernames accounts etc. Everything gui based similiar to windows but much more streamlined, simple and easy.
Great nas, and considering a Windows media server costs just as much this device is a no brainer. Synology will be touted every where I see a place for it. Synology will get bought by a bigger competitor, no doubt about it. Amazing stuff.
Great Product . I have been using this device with 4 1tb 12mm lap top drives(WD's) in hybrid RAID config. for 6mths. Absolutely no issues. DSM software is intuitive. Powerful little box. Amazing how much you can do with this thing that is nearly silent and takes up less room than my stapler on my desk. My only complaint would be the price of the Drives is over a 100 bucks a piece for 1TB's. Even so, you gain so much space that I feel it was worth it as I don't need more functionality than this NAS offers for my home office.
Great product; would deff buy again and am thoroughly impressed with Synology.
Great product; would deff buy again and am thoroughly impressed with Synology.
Pleased So Far . I chose this NAS because of the features, size, quiet operation, and low power draw, and it's met my expectations on all these counts. It's remarkably small and unobtrusive on a desk, and barely audible even when the disks are active. I was concerned about adding another electricity vampire that would sit around adding to my electric bill all day, but this seemed to have the smallest current draw of any NAS on the market, and even can be programmed to automatically turn itself off and on so it's powered off during hours that I'm unlikely to be using it.
Having the same software as the business class versions from Synology, it has lots of features and options that I'll be unlikely to use, but it's nice to know that I've got the flexibility that I might need later. It could be daunting for the less technical user, but it's always a tradeoff between features and complexity.
The features that I've used are just basic file sharing between Mac and PC systems, and acting as a Time Machine backup unit. I'll get around to using it for my pictures and music one of these days. What I've used so far has worked well with no glitches. The web interface is pretty well thought out and straightforward.
Plan to experiment with setting it up and partitioning it the way you want before you commit a bunch of data to it. Time Machine and some other backup systems like to fill up whatever space they're given, so you'll want to carve out separate partitions from other data, so your backups don't squeeze out everything else. You'll also find that wireless or even 100Mbs Ethernet is no substitute for gigabit Ethernet when running large data transfers like full backups. Also remember that if you really really want your data to be safe, you should still plan to back up your NAS to something else like a USB drive once in a while. RAID 5 is good, but not perfect, and won't survive a fire or other calamity.
Having the same software as the business class versions from Synology, it has lots of features and options that I'll be unlikely to use, but it's nice to know that I've got the flexibility that I might need later. It could be daunting for the less technical user, but it's always a tradeoff between features and complexity.
The features that I've used are just basic file sharing between Mac and PC systems, and acting as a Time Machine backup unit. I'll get around to using it for my pictures and music one of these days. What I've used so far has worked well with no glitches. The web interface is pretty well thought out and straightforward.
Plan to experiment with setting it up and partitioning it the way you want before you commit a bunch of data to it. Time Machine and some other backup systems like to fill up whatever space they're given, so you'll want to carve out separate partitions from other data, so your backups don't squeeze out everything else. You'll also find that wireless or even 100Mbs Ethernet is no substitute for gigabit Ethernet when running large data transfers like full backups. Also remember that if you really really want your data to be safe, you should still plan to back up your NAS to something else like a USB drive once in a while. RAID 5 is good, but not perfect, and won't survive a fire or other calamity.
Great NAS Product! . I have done a lot of research on home NAS servers before I bought the DS411 Slim. It does exactly what it states on the Synology website. It has a very good intuitive interface and simple navagation. I bought it with 4 1TB WD Scorpio Blue hard drives and it works like a charm. It also is virtually silent which is also great if you leave it on all the time. I highly recommend this product especially if you need to back up all of your precious memories on your other computers like photos which are irreplaceable.
Very nice . I like the cloud backup to Amazon S3, I get an email from the NAS after each backup. Can also backup the NAS to external eSATA drive. Console login available via SSH, but you get a non-root shell prompt and su doesn't work. Can't manage the unit from the console, have to go thru the web interface called DSM. Secure WebDav is the easy way to network it (vs Windows file service or NFS). Have not been able to get sshfs to work yet. Fan makes some "pumping" noises as it speeds up and down, but the 1G WD drives make more noise (scraping). Setup and software upgrades are painless. I also have SqueezeCenter running on the NAS to host my music collection to my SqueezeBox touch Logitech Squeezebox Touch - it was a no-brainer to install and set up. The shared folder can be encrypted - useful if the NAS is stolen. I wish other directories could be encrypted too. Fast enough to stream HD movies over secure WebDav. Basic MP3 tab editor and zip compression built into file browser. Ethernet jumbo frames up to 9k bytes supported. HD SMART checks, wish they could also be automated.
Cons Review
High Idle Temps Make This No Go . "...the fan does not spin while the unit hibernates and the CPU, which does NOT throttle down, sits scant millimeters away from drive four."
My initial testing of this unit was very favorable. Read speeds over 90MB/s, using basic 5400 RPM drives, on AFP with a 2011 MacBook Pro through an HP ProCurve 1GB switch. Writes speeds, using RAID 5, drop to half of this, which is still acceptable for a typical environment (i.e. home or small office share).
The size has to be seen first hand to appreciate how compact the unit is. The styling is nice, and the management software Synology's DiskStation Manager is pleasant to look at as well as easy to use (despite some options being scattered about).
However, PC transfer speeds (W7 on i7 with SSD over HP ProCurve 1GB, using FastCopy, and optimized network settings) seem to be much slower. I had trouble topping 50MB/s, while an i5 MacBook Pro can manage 70-90 MB/s on the same setup. Also, the CPU is banging away at 80% during single writes. I have doubts this would scale well.
Still, it's the idling unit temperatures that have been causing users issues (check Synology forums). Synology replies with temperature specs that are incredible. "76C is normal because 105C is the max, and the unit shuts down at 95C" (paraphrasing). In other words 167F is ok, because Synology doesn't consider it an issue until 203F!
To be clear, this is when the unit is Hibernating. Once everything is up and running, the unit cools down considerably. This is so even when all four drives are pushed to the max. The reason is the fan does not spin while the unit hibernates and the CPU, which does NOT throttle down, sits scant millimeters away from drive four. Synology considers the act of slowly baking your drives to be acceptable in their design.
If you do buy it, consider using no more than three drives. Also, check into the fan speed hacks, but do so with this warning. This is a direct quote from support:
"There are users on the forum who have submitted ways to edit the fan tables, but this voids our offer of support and you will need to proceed at your own discretion."
My initial testing of this unit was very favorable. Read speeds over 90MB/s, using basic 5400 RPM drives, on AFP with a 2011 MacBook Pro through an HP ProCurve 1GB switch. Writes speeds, using RAID 5, drop to half of this, which is still acceptable for a typical environment (i.e. home or small office share).
The size has to be seen first hand to appreciate how compact the unit is. The styling is nice, and the management software Synology's DiskStation Manager is pleasant to look at as well as easy to use (despite some options being scattered about).
However, PC transfer speeds (W7 on i7 with SSD over HP ProCurve 1GB, using FastCopy, and optimized network settings) seem to be much slower. I had trouble topping 50MB/s, while an i5 MacBook Pro can manage 70-90 MB/s on the same setup. Also, the CPU is banging away at 80% during single writes. I have doubts this would scale well.
Still, it's the idling unit temperatures that have been causing users issues (check Synology forums). Synology replies with temperature specs that are incredible. "76C is normal because 105C is the max, and the unit shuts down at 95C" (paraphrasing). In other words 167F is ok, because Synology doesn't consider it an issue until 203F!
To be clear, this is when the unit is Hibernating. Once everything is up and running, the unit cools down considerably. This is so even when all four drives are pushed to the max. The reason is the fan does not spin while the unit hibernates and the CPU, which does NOT throttle down, sits scant millimeters away from drive four. Synology considers the act of slowly baking your drives to be acceptable in their design.
If you do buy it, consider using no more than three drives. Also, check into the fan speed hacks, but do so with this warning. This is a direct quote from support:
"There are users on the forum who have submitted ways to edit the fan tables, but this voids our offer of support and you will need to proceed at your own discretion."
Proceed with Caution: RAID + Laptop Drives = Disaster . I'm going to keep it brief, but I am an owner of the previous iteration of this device, the DS409slim, having purchased it shortly after it was released. The DS411slim has a slightly beefier processor and maybe more RAM, but it's essentially the same device with the same problem that plagued the DS409slim --- its drive slots are not wide enough to accommodate the RAID-rated enterprise-class 2.5" drives you should be using with this thing. Most (if not all) laptop HDDs have features that make them completely unsuitable for running in a RAID configuration, especially with Linux, with their firmware set to factory settings. You will learn this the hard way as I did (please see my DS409slim review for the full story).
My advice to current owners of the DS411slim is to keep a number of cold spares on hand, and pro-actively monitor your drives' SMART info carefully (especially load cycle count). I had two drives fail on me concurrently in under year. Another owner has reported the same in a review at another egg-based online retailer.
I love Synology products (the DSM is great), just not this one particularly. Unless you feel a strong need to be the paranoid sysadmin of your own ticking time-bomb NAS, maybe avoid this one and go for one you can put proper enterprise grade RAID drives in (and sleep well at night).
My advice to current owners of the DS411slim is to keep a number of cold spares on hand, and pro-actively monitor your drives' SMART info carefully (especially load cycle count). I had two drives fail on me concurrently in under year. Another owner has reported the same in a review at another egg-based online retailer.
I love Synology products (the DSM is great), just not this one particularly. Unless you feel a strong need to be the paranoid sysadmin of your own ticking time-bomb NAS, maybe avoid this one and go for one you can put proper enterprise grade RAID drives in (and sleep well at night).
Will not fit Enterprise Drives . Tried to install 4x Segate Constellation 2 500GB drives in this guy. Seemed like the dream combination. Slots 1-3 fit the large height drives (15mm) just fine. However the 4th slot is obstructed by some large capacitors and will not accept a Constellation 2 drive. This is a very poor design in my opinion. I am now forced to use consumer drives (9.5mm) or send it back. What were these guys thinking????
Feature Synology America Corp DiskStation 4-Bay USB 2.0 Network Attached Storage DS411slim Black
- Flexible RAID Data Protection
- Cross Platform File Sharing & Backup
- DLNA Certified Media Server
- Cool and Quiet
- Power-Saving (9W~16W)
Related Post
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Product Details
EAN : 0846504000739UPC : 846504000739
MPN : 4711174720736
Brand : Synology
Color : Black
Weight : 4 pounds
Height : 7 inches
Length : 10 inches
Width : 9 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
ItemPartNumber : DS411SLIM
Manufacturer : Synology America
Model : DS411slim
Platform : Windows 2003 Server
Publisher : Synology America
SKU : DS411SLIM
Studio : Synology America
Where To Buy
You can buy Synology America Corp DiskStation 4-Bay USB 2.0 Network Attached Storage DS411slim Black on Amazon . Click here to Read More
