Synology RackStation RS3412RPxs Review

Synology have a wide range of NAS server systems available this year, targeting all ends of the market. Today we look at the RS3412RPxs, a high end NAS system designed for medium and large businesses. The RS3412RPxs can scale up to 136TB to satisfy the demands of an intensive corporate structure. The RackStation RS3412RPxs is an ultra high performance product which is scalable and can deliver bandwidth up to 1000+MB sec/100,000+ IOPS. It is a 10 bay system configuration which can scale to 136TB when paired up with the Synology RX1211/RX1211RP. These are connected to RS3412xs/RS3412RPxs via an Infiniband cable that carries 12 Gb/s SATA signal to ensure maximum throughput. Product Highlights: Ultra-high performance of 1000+ MB/sec throughput and 100,000+ IOPS1 Scale up to 136TB with Synology RX1211/RX1211RP2 Dual 10GbE ports support (with PCI-E add-on card) VMware®, Citrix®, Microsoft® Hyper-V® compliance CPU Passive Cooling Technology & System Fan Redundancy Expandable ECC RAM module (up to 6GB) Redundant Power Supply Unit (RS3412RPxs only) Running on Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) The Synology RackStation RS3412RPxs ships in a very large box which took some effort to move around the building. Synology bundle a driver disc, user manual and mounting screws for all the hard drives. They also include two power cables specific to the region. The RS3412RPxs is built to the highest standard and weighs almost 13 kg. The outer shell is heavy duty metal, which is what the corporate audience will expect for a Rack mounted device. It measures 88mm x 445 mm x 570 mm (H x W x D). There are ten drive bays at the front of the RS3412RPxs . There are a series of 3x3 rows and a single drive bay underneath the front control panel which houses the LED readout display at the right. There is also a power and beep on/off button here. The rear of the NAS server houses a power supply with dual power switches and ports for redundancy. There are four Gigabit LAN connectors with link aggregation on the rear alongside support for an optional 10GbE x2 add on card. Two expansion ports reside on the right side of the chassis alongside a reset button and several USB ports. Synology really have cut no corners when it comes to the chassis design of the RS3412RPxs. It takes only two screws to remove the upper shell, ideal for an IT team who need semi regular access to the hardware inside. There are very strong support beams running across the width of the chassis for added durability. We can see that Synology are now using a passively cooled heatsink on the motherboard to keep the dual core 3.1ghz processor in check. There is 2GB of Apacer branded ECC memory installed, although more can be added if the demand arises. Up to 6GB of ECC RAM can be installed. Synology used a Seasonic 500W 80 Plus Bronze certified power supply in last years revision of this server, although this year they have decided to use a redundant 400W supply model designed by 'Sure Star'. Along the front of the chassis, between the main motherboard and the hard drive bays are four high grade 80mm YSTECH fans. These are responsible for driving cool air between the drives and main system hardware on the other side of the chassis. Between the cooling system and the hard drives is the daughterboard which takes power from the 400w redundant power supply and feeds the data directly to the primary motherboards behind. This is a fantastic layout designed purely for 24/7 use in less than perfect environments. There is plenty of physical space to ensure that heat will never be an issue, even if a couple of the fans failed over time. The drive bays are made from metal, which is tough and ideal for a Rack mount system. The main unit can accept 10 x 4TB drives, for a total capacity of 40TB internally. On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. We have looked at the Synology DiskManager Operating System many times in the past, but today we are looking at the latest V4.1 revision which was released recently. It is one of the finest operating systems on the market for a NAS system/server, and doesn’t need a high specification list of hardware to run well either. The multitasking support means that multiple tasks can be handled simultaneously. It is important to ensure that the newest software package is downloaded directly from the Synology website over here. We are using the latest DSM_RS3412RPxs_2636.pat The Synology Assistant is a networking tool which can find all the Synology drives installed on a network. The RS3412RPxs needs to be configured once. The DSM is next installed to the RS3412RPxs which takes around 5-10 minutes. When this process is finished you are then presented with the login panel via your browser. We reused some disk drives from a previous Synology NAS installation and we had a report that the volume had crashed. We included some screenshots as the new operating system revision will highlight any status reports along the right side of the screen. Very easy to find and fantastic for troubleshooting. There is also a new ‘pop up’ guide which shows a step by step guide on configuring the NAS system. This is an improvement on the older version of the software and can be quickly dismissed by an experienced user. The control panel interface can be accessed by the top leftmost icon. This is easy to follow and all the icons are clearly labelled to ensure that inexperienced users don’t feel too intimidated. There are various panels available to allow the user to configure new accounts with access to specific folders and locations on the device. The Resource monitor is a useful tool to judge CPU load and memory usage. The web services panels can be used to adjust various options, including the set up of a personal website into the ‘www’ folder in the user home directory. If you don’t like the default colour scheme via your browser software, then you can configure your own scheme. The control panel allows the Synology server to directly access an NTP server for accurate time reporting. You can override this and use manual settings, along with specific time zones. External devices can be connected and accessed via this panel. USB printers can also be connected to the DS1512+ NAS. The DiskManager software offers many applications for media and networking support. Photo station supports BMP, JPG (jpe, jpeg), GIF, RAW (arw, srf, sr2, dcr, k25, kdc, cr2, crw, nef, mrw, ptx, pef, raf, 3fr, erf, mef, mos, orf, rw2, dng, x3f image formats and 3G2, 3GP, ASF, AVI, DAT, DivX, FLV, M4V, MOV, MP4, MPEG, MPG, QT, WMV, XviD, RM, RMVB, VOB, RV30, RV40, AC3, AMR, WMA3 video formats. The DNLA/UPnP Media Server can support both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 with AAC, FLAC, M4A, MP3, Ogg, Vorbis, PCM, WAV, WMA, WMA VBR, WMA PRO, WMA Lossless audio formats. 3GP, 3G2, ASF, AVI, DAT, DivX, DVR-MS, ISO, M2T, M2TS, M4V, MKV, MP4, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MTS, MOV, QT, SWF, TP, TRP, TS, VOB, WMV, XviD, RV30, RV40, AC3, AMR and WMA3 video formats. It also can handle BMP, JPG (jpe, jpeg), GIF, ICO, PNG, PSD, TIF (tiff), UFO, RAW (arw, srf, sr2, dcr, k25, kdc, cr2, crw, nef, mrw, ptx, pef, raf, 3fr, erf, mef, mos, orf, rw2, dng, x3f ) image formats. iTunes Server is also supported with MP3, M4A, M4P, WAV, AIF audio formats, M4V, MOV and MP4 video formats and M3U, WPL Playlist Format. Two printers can be hooked into the system supporting LPR, CIFS, AppleTalk and Multi Functional Print Server. If all this isn’t enough it also offers the following iPhone and Android applications.: DS Photo+, DS Audio, DS Cam, DS File (iPhone only) and DS finder (iPhone only). Survelliance station is a useful feature, especially for a business. Users can hook an IP camera into the unit. We have looked at this in detail before and if you missed it before you can read it here. We are using a slightly different network configuration than we have previously – this means that these results today are not comparable to our other NAS reviews (except the RS3411XS). The reason for this is simple – the RS3412RPxs has an insane amount of bandwidth within the right network. We are basing our network around two linked Belkin 1Gbit switches with 4x Gbit LAN connections to the RS3412RPxs and RS3411XS. Without preempting the test results, they were almost identical to the RS3411XS (so there is no need for a ‘head to head’ in the graphs). With a 10GbE x2 add on card installed differences may be seen, but our network is the limitation in this review. We are using three separate RAID 0 configurations across 9x500gb (3 x 1.5TB Raid 0) hard drives set into a 802.3ad dynamic link aggregation configuration. This enables multiple connections to be linked in parallel to increase the link speed beyond the limits of any one single cable or port and to increase the redundancy for higher availability. Most implementations now conform to what used to be clause 43 of IEEE 802.3-2005 Ethernet standard, usually still referred to by its working group name of “IEEE 802.3ad”. The definition of link aggregation has since moved to a standalone IEEE 802.1AX standard. We are opening 9 connections and copying 3 big files to each of the paired Raid 0 drive configurations. To try and mirror a business environment we set up three local machines with 120GB ADATA S511 SSD drives to ensure that no local drive limiting will be a problem. Each of these drives are transferring multiple files, back and forward. Our final bandwidth score was around 508 MB/s, matching the RS3411XS in the performance stakes. The limiting factor is our network. We are confident that Synology’s claims of 1000+ MB/s are accurate (with the add on card), but we can’t push the RackStation to its limits. We managed to achieve a total of 489MB/s when writing to the nine Raid 0 configured drives, which is again a fantastic network result. We take the issue of noise very seriously at KitGuru and this is why we have built a special home brew system as a reference point when we test noise levels of various components. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on components we are testing. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635. As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA - High Quality Computer fan 40dBA - A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA - Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA - MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA - Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA - Threshold of Pain 140dBA - Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA - Instant Perforation of eardrum Noise was measured from half a meter away with 10x 500GB drives installed. As we have mentioned before, with Rack based systems such as this, it is normal to record higher emissions as the devices use a series of smaller fans configured to push a substantial level of air. We recorded over 40dBa when all drives were heavily loaded for a few hours. Generally the emissions shift between 34dBa and 37 dBa. Noise isn’t such a critical concern for a rack device, considering they are normally stacked in dedicated, locked, air conditioned rooms. With 10 x 500GB drives installed we measured around 122 watts under load at the socket. To test temperatures we maintained a steady 23c via our room conditioning unit. The fans in the unit spin quite high at all times, reacting even to modest internal temperature increases. This is ideal for the desired environment as data safety is more important than a little extra noise from the unit. It really is imperative that the drives run as cool as possible at all times to prolong life and data security. All drives peak between 32c and 34c. The Synology RackStation RS3412RPxs is purely designed for the professional sector, and large scale corporate environments that need staggering performance across complex, multi-user networks. In this regard we haven't been disappointed, although our network has been the limiting factor for this review. The rackmount RS3412RPxs is crafted from sheets of heavy duty metal and requires considerable strength to move around, especially when ten hard drives are installed. The product is built to withstand 24/7 abuse and even the drive bays are crafted from thick metal. Performance in our network was identical to the RS3411xs, although as I have explained we are limited by our network. That said, pushing 508MB/s across our network was certainly impressive and would likely double if we adopted the dedicated dual 10GbE PCI Express x8 Gen2 Network Interface card. As we look through the range of NAS server systems that Synology have currently available, they seem to be leading the market in all of the sectors. The RS3412RPxs is currently available in the United Kingdom for £2,757 inc vat. Obviously this is not marketed as a home NAS server, so we need to look at the cost from a different viewpoint. For the target audience a sub £3k price point is very reasonable, especially considering the expandability and performance available. The option of adding more memory and a performance network interface will be very welcomed by database intensive organisations. The new redundant power supply configuration and passively cooled processor help to ensure long term reliability and by adding the additional RX1211/RX1211RP units, up to 136TB can be supported. This is enough for even the most data critical environments. Pros: Built to survive a small nuclear explosion. superb performance. expandable up to 136TB. DiskManager OS is class leading. fast processor. Optional 10GbE PCI Express x8 Gen2 Network Interface card support. Cons: Needs a high powered network to get the most from it. quite loud. Kitguru says: Powerful, expandable and built to last. Ideal for a large business environment.