Synology launches ‘affordable’ NAS device

DiskStation DS410

Synology has unveiled a new network attached storage product, claiming to make the solution affordable for those who work both from home and the office.

Powered by a 1.06 GHz CPU and with 533MB of DDRII RAM, the DiskStation DS410 comes with 1 Gigabit LAN port, 2 USB ports and 1 eSATA port. It supports both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch hard drives and claims to have power saving qualities, using only 56 watts when operating.

It is not the speediest of writing machines with claims from the company of 54MB/s however it is designed for the read values, reaching an average of 115MB/s under a RAID 5 configuration.

Designed for a Windows environment, the device features Synology's own DiskStation Manager 2.3 claiming to provide an easy to use interface. The storage includes backup solutions and AES 256-bit encryption to keep those documents safe.

Edward Lin, marketing director of Synology, was very keen to reiterate the importance of this type of encryption.

He said in a statement: "Equipped with 256-bit AES hardware encryption engine that can offload the security encryption tasks from CPU cycles, the Synology DS410 will run at an increased performance level when compared to a pure software encryption implementation."

"The Synology testing lab shows that the hardware encryption engine boasts read speed that is about 200 per cent faster than a pure software encryption. The DS410 provides an optimal price/performance ratio at it price point."

The product is now shipping worldwide and will cost around $550 (366) without storage included.

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.