Synology DS209 Network Attached Storage
Jun 29th, 2009 | By Simon
Synology DS209 Network Attached Storage
Date
: 06/30/09 – 12:57:36 AM
Author
:
Category
: Storage
Page 1 : Introduction
Manufacturer
Synology Inc.
Synology Inc. claims to be a young and energetic company dedicated to developing high performance, reliable, versatile and environmentally friendly Network Attached Storage devices; they are quickly approaching the one decade mark of existence. Founded in 2000, they have a headquarters in Taiwan but the growing company also has an office in Redmond, WA to cover all North and South America business. While they claim to be a new enthusiastic company, anyone in the network attached storage industry knows these guys mean business when it comes to NAS products.
Network Attached Storage devices have exploded in popularity and while I've been blessed with the opportunity of reviewing some of the largest on the market, the honest truth is that not everyone needs an 8 drive Turbo NAS. Stepping back to reality, a two drive NAS will certainly be far more popular to home users and small businesses. Utilizing a pair of hard drives and a little NAS can add terabytes of storage space to an existing network. We're entering an exciting time when it comes to the digital storage world. We're at the brink of moving everything to solid state drives for personal PCs and at the turning point of network devices. If you asked me a few years ago whether or not we'd be seeing hard drives with the capacity they are today or a home owner with over one terabyte of storage on a single disk or ten terabytes on a home network I would have laughed. Today, that's reality. Network Attached Storage devices and the digital world has certainly made one thing possible: accessing everything anywhere without the need to delete. Our NAS devices function as a computer optimized for storage and storage-oriented functions. This optimization has created a means to share files, increase productivity and deliver features to users on the network. Synology has accomplished this on a two-drive NAS device. bringing to us their DS209.
Page 2 : Synology DS209 Package & Content
Unlike many other companies Synology keeps to their word of being environmentally friendly with a very simple package. The brown cardboard box doesn't have fancy color graphics or logos. It is a generic Synology box and what differentiates this package from any of the other models is the sticker indicating a DS209 is inside.
A handle integrated into the body of the box allows you to carry the DS209 around without an extra plastic bag.
With nothing unique on the box let's jump to the contents. We have a power cord and an accessory box sitting in the inside. Inside the accessory box we have the power pack, network cable, installation disk and quick install guide as well as some spare screws. My sample came with two hard drives pre-installed and there what's missing is the hard drive mounting screws, serial ATA cable and serial ATA power cable.
The DS209 is protected by soft foam and sits inside a foam bag to prevent scratches to the white chassis during shipment.
Let's take a quick look at the features and specifications before completing a thorough tour of the DS209.
Page 3 : Synology DS209 Features & Specifications
The Synology website has a clean look and is incredibly simple to browse. It drives me insane when companies can't put together a decent website but expect their customers to spend hundreds of dollars on their products. Thank you Synology for making it easier for potential customers to find products that they are interested in. Here's an overview of the DS209 as seen on Synology's website
Effortless File Sharing & Backup
Synology Disk Station is designed for data storage and sharing among Windows, Mac, and Linux. Seamless file sharing across different operation systems is an effortless process.
Synology File Station 2 offers an innovative user interface with drag-n-drop and right-click capability allowing users not familiar with FTP to easily access files with a web browser.
Synology Data Replicator 3 allows Windows users to back up desktop data to the Synology Disk Station. Immediate, Sync, and Scheduled Backup are fully-supported.
Synology Local Backup helps to safeguard data by backing up to external hard drives via USB interface with flexible scheduling options.
Office Applications
Synology Mail Station add-on provides a one step installation and enables Synology Disk Station to be a mail server that supports Outlook-like Web mail, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP.
Synology Web Station with Virtual Host option allows users to host up to 30 websites on one single Synology Disk Station. The built-in PHP+MySQL provides the ability to create interactive websites without complicated settings.
Synology Disk Station supports two USB printers simultaneously, and the Add Printer Wizard simplifies setup process with a wizard.
3rd-Pary Application Integration
Following ‘Synology Disk Station 3rd-Party Apps Integration Guide’ on Synology website, users can customize their Synology Disk Station by installing their favorite applications.
Eco Friendly
Synology Disk Station is designed and developed perpetually with the concept of energy saving. Compared with its average PC counterparts, Synology Disk Station consumes a relatively low amount of power and hibernates when not in use. This not only helps to save energy but also extends the lifespan of the hard disk.
Synology Disk Station truly earns the title of ‘green product’ because of the unique Scheduled Power On/Off feature, and the smart fan design effectively cools down the system with minimum power consumption, yet keeps the system quiet on operation.
Finally, all Synology products are produced with RoHS compliant parts and packed with recyclable packing materials. Synology recognizes its responsibility as a global citizen and is continually working to reduce the environmental impact of the products we create.
Synology doesn't bother boasting what make the CPU processor is. We see that it has a clock speed of 1.2GHz. We'll later find out that it's a Marvell make.
Some features:
Page 4 : Exterior & Interior
The DS209 has a pure appearance; the white chassis is accented by the black front panel. The main function for the front panel is to relay information to the owner, to let them know the status of the unit, network and disk. The only user inputs allowed are the power button and the USB copy button.
The side of the DS209 is pure white with a simple sticker indicating the Synology make. On the bottom we have 4 rubber feet as well as ventilation slits to cool the internal components.
On the back of the DS209 we see a 70mm grill to provide cooling to the hard drives as well as a href=’/images/articles/synology/ds209/large/pkg13.jpg’>two additional USB ports, a single GB Ethernet port, a K-Lock, a hard reset button and a DC 12V power plug.
I mentioned earlier that my sample came with 2 hard drives installed, that won't be the case for you so we'll quickly walk through the steps of installing hard drives. The chassis is split in two and the removable portion is held down by three screws on the backside. Once removed, you'll be able to push the chassis cover off and expose the internals.
The hard drives slide into the drive cage and are mounted on the side like a typical hard drive installed in a tower. The shortened SATA data and power cable keep cable clutter to a minimum.
The 70mm fan to cool the hard drive can easily be swapped out for a brand of your choice. The four self-tapping screws can be removed and the power cable for the fan is plugged into your standard 3-pin motherboard connector. The fan provided by Synology is an Evercool brand, EC7025L12ER. This fan is capable of 28.2 CFM with a noise rating of under 25 dBA according to Evercool's website.
Removing a few more screws and the motherboard can be removed from the frame. We can see that the Marvell 88F6281 (Kirkwood) 1.2GHz processor is soldered directly to the board. Surprisingly this processor is actually capable of 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports opening the option for redundancy should Synology wish to evolve the DS209 line some more, beyond the DS209II already offered. On the topic of networking, a single Marvell Alaska Gigabit Ethernet Transceiver can be found to the right of the Kirkwood chip. The motherboard's FLASH ROM is provided by a Microchip PIC16F627A-1/SO. This is a low overhead microcontroller located beside the battery.
I don't have a close up shot available but the 512MB onboard memory is provided by a single Elpida E1116AESE module.
Page 5 : Installation & Web Setup
In the page earlier I mentioned that the chassis can be taken apart after screws on the back are removed. In the photo below we can see how the top half of the chassis slides front and then out.
The drives installed with my Synology DS209 are Samsung HD753LJ (750GB, 7200RPM, 32MB Cache drives). To complete the installation the only thing left to do is provide power using the 12V power brick and use a patch cord to put the DS209 on the network.
With everything put together, I pressed the power button and was ready to configure the drives and start taking advantage of my new NAS device.
Software for the DS209 is provided by Synology and you get the option of reading the Quick Installation Guide, run the Set up for the Synology Server, Synology Assistant, Data Replicator, Download Redirector, read the User's Guide and the Quick Installation Guide.
Running the Synology Assistant prompts you to configure the server. I was asked to enter the administrator password, enter the network settings and confirm. Once the basics are done you can then manage the server by mapping the NAS or adding a printer.
To map a network drive you need to have completed the configuration of the DS209, including user permissions. The ‘Map Network’ feature will identify the available shares and prompt for your user password. It doesn't take very long and if you don't want to use Synology's software you can manually map network drives yourself through Windows Explorer.
In order to realize the full potential of Synology's DS209 you
must
utilize the web administrative features. After you log in to the administrative page you can chose between Management and Online Resources. The Management page lets you modify the system configuration and the Online Resource teaches you the basics about a NAS and the DS209. Working with the management subsection, it's not only extensive in the number of features it provides but the web administrator has a great graphical user interface that makes it easier to navigate and remember where things are. There are pictures to go along with the menu and while it takes a second longer to load compared to other menus I've worked with, it is far more complete and intuitive.
Here's an overview of the features that can be modified by the administrator:
Instead of showing a picture of each menu option I will create a list with links to a screenshot of each menu. If you want more information about a particular feature then click on the title and you will be able to see what it does.
Information
System
Privileges
Storage
File Sharing
Network Services
Applications
BackUp
External Devices
Page 6 : IOZone Testing
For testing, we will be using IOzone which runs a set of read and write benchmarks within a set parameter, then outputs a file with the results. The Synology DS209 will be outfitted with two 750GB, 7200RPM, 32MB Cache Samsung HD753LJ drives and attached to a D-Link DGS 1008D Gigabit Ethernet Switch connected to my D-Link WRT DIR-655 Gigabit Ethernet router, jumbo frames disabled.
Here's a blurb about IOzone:
IOzone is a file system benchmark tool. The benchmark generates and measures a variety of file operations. IOzone has been ported to many machines and runs under many operating systems. IOzone is useful for performing a broad file system analysis of a vendor's computer platform. While computers are typically purchased with an application in mind it is also likely that over time the application mix will change. Many vendors have enhanced their operating systems to perform well for some frequently used applications. Although this accelerates the I/O for those few applications it is also likely that the system may not perform well for other applications that were not targeted by the operating system. An example of this type of enhancement is: Database. Many operating systems vendors have tested and tuned the file system so it works well with databases. While the database users are happy, the other users may not be as happy as the entire system may be giving all of the system resources to the database users at the expense of all other users. As time rolls on the system administrator may decide that a few more office automation tasks could be shifted to this machine. The load may now shift from a random reader application (database) to a sequential reader. The users may discover that the machine is very slow when running this new application and become dissatisfied with the decision to purchase this platform. By using IOzone to get a broad file system performance coverage the buyer is much more likely to see any hot or cold spots and pick a platform and operating system that is more well balanced.
IOzone is a command line operated testing utility; we will be using the following command.
'-i 0 -i 1'
Write/ Re-Write, Read/ Re-Read tests
Read: Performance measured by reading an existing file
Re-Read: Reading a file which has already been read, tests the utilization of cache
Write: Performance of writing a file to the disk
Re-Write: Re- Writes a file that already exists on the disk
'-q 64k'
Maximum record size of 64Kb, 4Kb, 8Kb, 16Kb, 32Kb, 64Kb
'-n 32M -g 5G'
Minimum file size of 32MB and maximum file size of 1GB
'[file name].xls'
Location where to write test results
'[test location]'
Target of tests
Page 7 : IOZone JBOD Testing
JBOD, at the logical level combines physical disk drives into one larger drive. This comes in handy when dealing with an assortment of drives. Where RAID configuration combines drives at the limit of the smallest disk, JBOD does not.
Starting with the Reader tests, IOZone places a file on the system measures the performance of reading that file.
Next, the Re-Reader test measures the system's caching ability. While it is typical that Re-Reader results are significantly higher than those reported in the Reader test as the test measures reading performance of a file that was previously read, the effects are insignificant with larger file sizes. If we attempted this test with files in the few hundred KB mark, we would see a larger jump.
The peak read speed is just over 40MB/s and the average considering all file sizes and record sizes is 22.5MB/s.
The Writer test measures performance of writing a new file to the system.
The average throughput of writing is just shy of 18MB/s. With Re-Writer the cache significantly increases the performance to an average of 55MB/s. We peak as high as 133MB/s with Re-Writer and 45MB/s with Writer when transferring 32MB at record sizes of 64kb.
Page 8 : IOZone RAID 0 Testing
Anyone itching for a sense of speed has probably created a RAID 0 system. RAID 0 splits data across multiple disks (2 is the minimum). With each disk attached in RAID 0 the likelihood of data failure increases but so does speed.
We average 18MB/s read considering all file sizes and record sizes. Much like JBOD, there is no performance increase with Re-Reader.
The throughput drops to 13MB/s and increases to 41MB/s with Re-Writer.
Page 9 : IOZone RAID 1 Testing
Those that are concerned with data integrity have likely heard of RAID 1, mirroring. It's generally slower as the data needs to be written onto both disks.
The average read speed is 23.9MB/s, surprisingly faster than RAID 0 and this is carried through with the write results as well. The average is 16.5MB/s on writer and 51MB/s on Re-Writer compared to 13.4MB/s with writer and 41MB/s with Re-Writer on RAID 0.
Page 10 : IOZone 64Kb Record Size Comparison
Typically, with modern day software, a record size of 64kb is used with larger files. With the sheer amount of data conveyed throughout the last few tests, it was hard to accurate gauge the Synology DS209 performance, and even harder to do so across different RAID configurations. In the next section, we will be comparing the data compiled through the tests we ran earlier to gauge performance over the various RAID configurations.
RAID 1 appears to have the fastest read times either on par with the JBOD results or ahead when the file sizes increase beyond 128MB. RAID 0 hovers in a narrow bandwidth of between 25MB/s to 35MB/s.
The difference between first and last place is a mere 10MB/s but surprisingly JBOD remains always at the top and RAID 0 is at the bottom. I would have imagined RAID 0 and JBOD being relatively close together with RAID 1 a few MB/s behind.
Page 11 : Intel NAS Performance Test
Intel's Intel's Network Attached Storage Performance Toolkit, or NASPT if you would prefer, will conclude our look at performance.
The Intel NAS Performance Toolkit (NASPT) is a file system exerciser and analysis tool designed to enable direct comparison of network attached storage (NAS) performance. NASPT seeks to discern differences in user level performance when a given client PC uses different remote storage solutions. To that end, NASPT uses a set of real world workload traces gathered from typical digital home applications: HD video playback and record, office productivity applications, video rendering/content creation and more. NASPT reproduces the file system traffic observed in these traces onto whatever storage solution the user provides, records the system response, and reports a rich variety of performance information. While NASPT runs on a Windows XP* client, the target NAS device may run any operating system.
Intel's NASPT offers a number of strengths. First and foremost: consistency. With INASPT's built in traces, performance numbers resulting in various tests are easily emulated across various systems and gives insight into how a NAS system would perform under real world conditions. Unlike with localized storage, we are not interested in separating software environmental factors as by definition and function, NAS storage units are heavily dependent on system software, operating systems, network settings and so on. Of course, if we were to simply test the bare hard drive performance at the system level our resulting numbers would be significantly higher.
With the trace files, we can simulate specified hard drive activity down to the distribution of random and sequential reads/writes, the spread of data over individual platters, or locality, and a number of access characteristics.
For our tests, we will be looking at four tests: HD Video Playback, Content Creation, Office Productivity, Copy To NAS and Copy From NAS.
Let's examine the results, starting with the HD Video trace. This test consists of reading a single file approximately 4800 MB in size and for the most part consists of sequential reading, meaning that all the pieces of the file are located physically near one another on the platters of the hard drive resulting in little arm movement to retrieve data.
Content creation is exactly what the name suggestions. This test simulates the creation of a video. A total of 99 files are used the test is primarily write driven (95% write operations) with up to 64kb block sizes and 39.1% sequential operations.
With office productivity, we are a wide array of file sizes and generally random access. While in comparison with sequential throughout, random access as shown by the Office Productivity test does look rather grim, however is quite typical of NAS units.
Finally, the Copy To NAS and Copy From NAS is simply the recorded throughput rate of either copy to or from the Synology DS209, as suggested. This test includes a blend of random and sequentially written data and best represents day to day performance.
In these benchmarks we finally see JBOD taking more of a backseat to RAID 0 and RAID 1. The results are still in a very narrow bandwidth and the numbers are quite amazing for a two drive NAS. I've seen 4 or 5 drive NAS units not come close to these figures. The TS-209 Pro II's results were only half of the DS209.
Page 12 : IOMeter Testing
IOMeter is a new addition to the NAS results. It is an I/O subsystem measurement and characteristic tool for single and clustered systems initially designed by Intel.
Iometer is both a workload generator (that is, it performs I/O operations in order to stress the system) and a measurement tool (that is, it examines and records the performance of its I/O operations and their impact on the system). It can be configured to emulate the disk or network I/O load of any program or benchmark, or can be used to generate entirely synthetic I/O loads. It can generate and measure loads on single or multiple (networked) systems.
I configured IOMeter to create a 1GB file on the target device, DS209, and it will pull the performance of 5 minutes and report back the average transfer rate for various block size recordings. The results are 100% sequential; in the future this will be expanded to include random results.
The IOMeter shows RAID 0 taking a small lead over JBOD and RAID 1. At most the difference is around 5MB/s which makes it a fairly small difference. The difference between read and write performance is also fairly small, no more than 10MB/s with the 32K transfer size and as little as 1 or 2MB/s,
Page 13 : Crystal Disk Mark, ATTO Disk Benchmark & Power Consumption
Crystal Disk Mark and ATTO Disk Benchmark are more conventional benchmarking applications. They do the exact same as IOZone and IOMeter but in a far more simplified manner. The only take a minute or two too completed versus the several hours it takes to finish one run with IOZone.
I'm always curious to know how much power my newest toy consumes. Toronto has just introduced time of use billing where peak hours are charged at significantly higher rates than low usage rates. The Synology DS209 doesn't do too badly. There is a phantom load of 4W when the device is sleeping. When idle there is a consumption rate of 21W and active transferring eats up 24. The heaviest usage comes when the drives are being compiled to a particular RAID configuration. This is because the processor is in full use. We max out at 26W in this case. Overall the load is fairly small and steady.
Page 14 : Conclusion
The Synology DS209 is an impressive device. Right from the get-go it has a very simple and sleek appearance with the white chassis accented by the black control panel. The plastic makes it both light but has the minor drawback of being warm to the touch; that said Synology is using a 70mm fan for added cooling in the back. What is missing is an eSATA port, one I'm sure Synology could have added to the motherboard without much extra cost. What would have been harder would be the integration of a power supply to get rid of the power brick. It not only makes the DS209 larger in footprint, it is unsightly and can easily be unplugged, disrupting service.
Now that I've vented about the small things that bother me with the DS209, let's rave about the successes. The Synology DS209 is no doubt fast, faster than any other 2 drive NAS that I've ever worked with. You're unlikely to find a 2 drive NAS in RAID 0 write as fast at 55MB/s or read as fast as 75MB/s. You also don't need to worry about finding or adding features to extended the capabilities of the DS209, there's already so much built-in and the web administrative page is incredibly easy to navigate. A couple clicks and the device is setup for everyone on your network to use or you can restrict directory access or add quotas.
Overall, the Synology DS209 is a great alternative to maintaining a server. For a few hundred bucks you could have a 3.0TB file server capable of managing downloads, hosting websites and feeding multimedia to network users without shelling out too much. It's an easy way to expand your network and save money by shutting off a computer at home.
Advantage
- Excellent performance
- Affordable
- Detailed and easy to use Web Administrator
- Sleek looking appearance
Disadvantages
- Wed Admin had slow load times
- Power brick is easy to unplug
- No eSATA connectivity
I'd like to thanks Synology for making this review possible