Synology DS2015xs: the NAS interface with 10 Gbit Ethernet
Ability to insert 8 mechanical hard drives and expand capacity with an external module are combined with a high flexibility in connecting to the network infrastructure: these are the features of Synology DS2015xs, a NAS with ARM processor quad core.
A NAS with room for 8 hard drives 3-inch and a half, now that they are also commercially available versions 6 TBytes of capacity, it may seem somewhat excessive in the eyes of users and more fans, and those in small and medium businesses must manage centralized storage.
The growth in the amount of stored data is a clear trend for all to see: acquire a NAS that offers room for expansion in the future may therefore be an effective strategy. The experience also leads to say that the space is never enough, as it may seem high at first glance.
With this in mind, Synology offers DS2015xs, recently announced a NAS on the market that combines 8 drawers to a quad core processor with 4 Gbytes of system memory expandable up to a maximum of 8. A model designed for the needs of professional users, to from compatibility with virtualization environments, VMware, Citrix and Microsoft Hyper-V.
The processor integrated in this NAS is the model AT-514 of Anapurna Labs: this is a solution based on 4 core ARM Cortex-A15 with clock frequency of 1.7 GHz, configured so as to be able to use more than 4 Gbytes system memory thanks to extensions LPAE (large physical address extension) that obviate the limitations of the architecture used by 32bit ARM core.
The exterior design is that adopted by other Synology NAS models already on the market: the drawers are easily accessible, stuck in their place by a lock and key. Do not miss the LEDs that alert the proper operation of each hard drive, as well as the use of the four network interfaces on the rear.
Synology declares product speed read and write very high: we get a little less than 2,000 MB/s when reading data and 800 MB/s write. To take advantage of these performance peaks were inserted in the rear panel 4 network connections: two are of Gigabit Ethernet traditional while the remaining two are 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP, special characteristic into account the price of this unit. There is the possibility to manage link aggregation techniques, thanks to which Ethernet connections can be handled in parallel so as to maximize the speed of data transfer.
In a product of this type, designed more for the needs of small and medium enterprises that user’s private as advanced, the redundancy mechanisms are an important added value. We find support fail over for all 4 network connections, as well as drawers that accept hot swap insertion and removal of the hard drives in the NAS on. From the operating system can easily configure the disks installed in various ways Raid, including RAID 5 and RAID 6 that prioritize data redundancy and thus protect against malfunctions.
Do not miss the rear panel for connecting a unit of future expansion, the model DX1215 : in this way you can switch between 8 standard hard drive up to a maximum of 20 hard drives, for a capacity of up to 120TB using mechanical 6 TB each, and no system of data redundancy.
The user of a NAS obviously tend to use this product for configuring the disks in one of the Raid mode available, so as to ensure high-speed performance balanced by an adequate redundancy of stored data.
For those scenarios of use of NAS requiring, even higher performance can be configured with SSD DS2015xs operated as cache memory: the top speed of reading and writing of the SSD significantly reduces the latency of access to information, especially with random data and not sequential. The design of this NAS will not allow you to install an SSD without taking up one of the drawers of the hard disk: using this unit for the cache increases the speed performance.
Heart of Synology DS2015xs, with regard to the software component, is the classic operating system that Synology DiskStation Manager makes available on its NAS. And this a solution already known for some time, and subject to periodic updates, which with an intuitive interface via browser allows you to access all the configuration options of the NAS as well as giving access to specific functionality implemented in App.
Synology DS2015xs is a NAS specifically designed for the needs of small and medium-sized companies. Compact dimensions, provides a particularly large storage space subject to the possibility of being expanded with an optional module in a second time.
The presence of two network connections 10 Gigabit SFP sets this product apart from other solutions of similar capacity expansion: to ensure a fast connection to the network infrastructure ensures that the potential of fast acceleration of the hard drives installed, can be exploited.
Peculiar also the choice of the processor based on ARM architecture: scale speed performance that are not those of traditional proposals x86 with very low fuel consumption, which in this case result in a completely passive cooling system for this component, and that leaves room for other solution’s techniques peculiar how precisely the two 10 Gigabit connections.
