Synology DiskStation DS211j Review

Written by Antony Leather

January 23, 2011 | 10:50

Tags: #best-nas-box #disk #diskstation #file-server #media-streaming #nas #nas-box #network #recommended #sharing #station

Companies: #synology

Testing Methods

Any device connected to a Gigabit LAN will have maximum read and write speeds of 125MB/sec. However, just as the controller chip on an SSD has a huge effect on the drive's speed, the same is also true for NAS boxes. As they’ll be used for storing lots of tiny files, as well as large video files, we used two 5GB folders (one full of small files, and the other packed with large video files), in order to gauge the flexibility of each box.

Our test involves writing to each NAS box separately, and then reading from them. The small file folder was filled with 10,000 files that included photos, Word documents and short videos, while the large file folder comprised three 1.7GB videos.

We installed the same 1TB Samsung SpinPoint F3 hard drive in each NAS box, which was connected to a Netgear Gigabit Ethernet switch for all of the read and write tests. We recorded the time it took to transfer each folder in seconds, and used this result to work out the average transfer rate. You can see the speed test results in the graphs below.


To read and write from the NAS box, we use a PC built around an Asus P7H55-M motherboard, 4GB of Crucial DDR3 RAM and an Intel Pentium G6950 CPU overclocked to 4GHz. To eliminate any reading or writing bottleneck at the PC end, we also use a Corsair X128 SSD.

Once a NAS box is up and running, we then also try out all of the features, such as shared folders, iTunes servers, iSCSI and Bit-Torrent clients, in order to see how easy they are to set up and use on a regular basis. In addition, we also take noise and hard drive temperature into consideration, as well as the build quality.

Performance

Large File Test - Read Speed

Arranged by Transfer Speed

  • Synology DiskStation DS211j
  • QNAP TS-219P Turbo NAS
  • LG N2B1D
  • Synology DS210+
  • QNAP TS-210 Turbo NAS
  • Synology USB Station 2
  • ZyXEL NSA-220 Plus
  • Icy Box IB-NAS3221
  • Xtreamer eTRAYz
  • 64.1
  • 43.5
  • 38.6
  • 37.0
  • 35.4
  • 19.0
  • 16.5
  • 15.5
  • 10.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
MB/sec Higher is Better

Large File Test - Write Speed

Arranged by Transfer Speed

  • Synology DS210+
  • Synology DiskStation DS211j
  • QNAP TS-219P Turbo NAS
  • QNAP TS-210 Turbo NAS
  • LG N2B1D
  • Synology USB Station 2
  • Xtreamer eTRAYz
  • Icy Box IB-NAS3221
  • ZyXEL NSA-220 Plus
  • 51.0
  • 35.1
  • 27.0
  • 22.8
  • 18.2
  • 18.0
  • 13.3
  • 12.7
  • 9.0
0
10
20
30
40
50
MB/sec Higher is Better

Small File Test - Read Speed

Arranged by Transfer Speed

  • Synology DiskStation DS211j
  • Synology DS210+
  • QNAP TS-219P Turbo NAS
  • QNAP TS-210 Turbo NAS
  • LG N2B1D
  • Synology USB Station 2
  • Icy Box IB-NAS3221
  • ZyXEL NSA-220 Plus
  • Xtreamer eTRAYz
  • 24.2
  • 22.0
  • 21.1
  • 17.0
  • 15.5
  • 15.0
  • 9.9
  • 9.8
  • 1.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
MB/sec Higher is Better

Small File Test - Write Speed

Arranged by Transfer Speed

  • Synology DS210+
  • Synology DiskStation DS211j
  • QNAP TS-219P Turbo NAS
  • QNAP TS-210 Turbo NAS
  • Synology USB Station 2
  • LG N2B1D
  • Icy Box IB-NAS3221
  • ZyXEL NSA-220 Plus
  • Xtreamer eTRAYz
  • 27.0
  • 19.9
  • 17.6
  • 14.2
  • 12.0
  • 10.3
  • 6.4
  • 4.5
  • 1.0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
MB/sec Higher is Better

Discuss this in the forums

Posted by Technobod - Sun Jan 23 2011 11:09

Suprisingly quick compared to the much more expensive Qnap boxes. I just wonder how an old home pc with FreeNAS on it would compete...

Posted by Matticus - Sun Jan 23 2011 11:16

In power consumption and volume alone, the DS211j would be the winner for me.

Why are there no power consumption graphs? I assume the specified power consumption is quite accurate with such a closed system, but it would be nice to see at a glance.

Posted by Glider - Sun Jan 23 2011 11:20

I have a DS410, best NAS ever! ;)

Posted by wyx087 - Sun Jan 23 2011 12:31

Glider
I have a DS410, best NAS ever! ;)
and i have the Ds410j, cheaper model, still best NAS ever!

the best part about Synology NAS is that no matter which model you buy, you will always get the fantastic DSM firmware. it's so easy to use, with so many options. it does everything you'll ever need from a NAS.
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