Synology DiskStation DS1019+
A GREAT 5-BAY NAS FOR THOSE NEEDING A BIT MORE OOMPH.
NAS UNITS ARE more than simple file servers these days. They run all sorts of server apps that require faster CPUs and faster storage than the humble NAS units of the past provide. Synology’s new DiskStation DS1019+ is kitted out with hardware features that reflect the demands placed on NAS units in 2019.
The DS1019+ is built around an Intel Celeron J3455, quad-core, 64-bit CPU. This CPU contains both hardware video transcoding support (Intel QuickSync), but a hardware encryption engine (AES-NI). These features mean applications like Plex or Emby can transcode video, or you can encrypt your storage array without an impact on overall performance.
Also inside the DS1019+ is 8GB of DDR3L RAM. That’s quite a fair chunk of memory for a NAS, so it’ll be tough for the average user to run out of memory doing the typical home server related tasks. That said, out of the factory the 8GB is provided via two 4GB SO-DIMMs that can be upgraded at your leisure, should you be running applications that demand more than the stock 8GB of RAM.
If four drive bays aren’t enough for your storage needs, the DS1019+ has 5-bays for 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives. With the latest 14GB SATA HDDs, there’s the potential for 70TB of raw storage (more like 56TB after you’ve enabled Synology’s Hybrid RAID).
One of the unique features of the DS1019+ are two M.2 NVMe PCIe SSDs for blazing fast storage. What’s the point of these M.2 slots in a NAS? Synology also has a feature called “SSD Cache” that stores frequently accessed data on the speedy SSDs, reducing I/O latency and improving system performance. SSDs installed in the M.2 slots can also be used to host server applications (e.g: internal wikis, databases, development servers, etc.) with superior performance to SATA hard disks.
Considering the DS1019+ contains a relatively fast CPU (for a NAS), loads of RAM and two slots for super quick SSDs, it’s interesting Synology didn’t kit it out with 10GbE LAN ports. There’s two 1 GbE LAN ports that can be configured for either link aggregation or failover, but even with 200MB/ sec of bandwidth, a RAID array of modern disks and even a single PCIe NVMe SSD will be bottlenecked.
Software wise, the DS1019+ runs DiskStation Manager 6.2 (aka DSM) – subjectively the best NAS operating system on the market. There’s loads and loads of features, with some highlights including Docker support, Let’s Encrypt integration, Office 365 & G Suite backups, iSCSI built-in and a vast array of third-party packages – if it doesn’t run on DSM, you probably don’t need it.
QNAP’s TS-473 is probably the closest competitor, which only has four drive bays and less RAM, but packs 10 GbE LAN, a faster CPU and PCIe expansion card slots. But what makes the DS1019+ stand out is Synology’s DSM software, which has a slight edge in features over the QNAP, making the Synology a more pragmatic purchase unless the hardware specs of the QNAP really matter to you.
[ ANTHONY AGIUS ]