For the last few weeks I have been playing with the Synology DS413j, unfortunately I have had an intense few weeks so I have not bee able to play with until this week really. What is unique about these 4-bay models is that they are the first to not use the Intel Atom Processors and instead use different solutions from Marvell. It has the single-core Marvell processor, clocked at 1.6 GHZ. The DS413j has a retail price of 430 US Dollar.
The DS413j runs on the Marvell Kirkwood 88F6282 processor. This includes a 256KB L2 cache and runs between 1.6 and 2 GHz. What I like with this drive is that does not require passive cooling when it runs at 2.0 GHz.
The design on the box for the DS413j is the same as when they launched previous generation of devices. One thing that I like about this is that they show all of the features directly on the box. The DS413j is 230mm long, 168 mm wide and 184 mm tall. When it is empty it weighs just 2.23 kg, though one thing that you have to notice is that it will be heavier once you install your four drives into it J
The front of the DS413j is really good looking, another word I would describe it as simple. On the front there is a round power button, which lights up blue when it is active. On the left side there is a button which indicates both the status and LAN. There are also four more indicators for each of the hard drives, which are labeled for HD1, HD2, HD3 and HD4. Just like with a regular computer these indicates the current status for your computer.
The back side of the DS413j is just as good looking. It features a single LAN port, power input and two USB 2.0 ports. You can use these USB ports so that you can connect an extra hard drive if you are looking for additional spaceJ What is even more interesting with this one is that it features two 80 MM fans, which are designed to extract heat which is generated from the four hard drives inside it.
Installing the DS413j is an easy process, you can easily hot-swap drives, run the DiskStation Assistant to configure the disk and install the operating system. This software comes on the CD that comes with the package but you can also install it by downloading it from Synologys website. When you create your volume you have to choose your desired drives and volume type. Just a few example of these are Hybrid RAID, Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6 and RAID 10. I personally configured these drives with RAID 5 for testing. You can then access to your storage solution by doing so through a web browser. I have installed four 2TB drives and it worked perfectly.
When doing some speed tests I got an average of 63 MB when transferring larger files, and around 17 MB when I transferred smaller files. If you decide to get one of these you will not regret it. It can handle everything in your network from streaming media to when you run your website from at home. It is a great purchase, which you will not regret.
Just so that you know that this is basically an essential part of my network that it cannot live without J
