Synology DS-1512+

Synology DiskStation DS1512+ NAS Review

Synology made significant upgrades to its high-end small and medium business product range last year, adding the 5-bay DS1511+ and 12-bay DS2411+ to counter the competition's products in the sub-$1,000 to $2,000 range. Despite being nearly a year old and as expensive as ever at $800 and $2,000 (that's without storage drives), the DS1511+ and DS2411+ are still very solid and relevant in today's market. Both devices have dual-Gigabit LAN controllers for Link Aggregation, offering a read speed of over 190MB/s. They also tout hot-swappable SATA bays, as well as the ability to significantly boost storage using the DX510 and DX1211 expansion units, which can allow the DS1511+ to support up to 15 drives for a maximum capacity of 45TB, while the expanded DS2411+ supports up to 15 drives for 72TB. Again, if you're shopping for a dedicated network-attached storage box, you can't really go wrong with either unit. Both are still quite sound in terms of technical specifications -- unless you need USB 3.0, which is rapidly becoming a standard feature for NAS devices. As such, Synology has upgraded the 5-bay DS1511+ with the latest USB standard and it's taken the opportunity to polish some other specs too.