ioSafe: Packaging and Contents, System Setup
Packaging:
The ioSafe came double boxed, and even though the outer box took a few hits on the way here, the inner box suffered minimal damage:
Contents:
Once all was unpacked, we see the contents:
Included in the box is a power cord and adapter, USB (2.0) and eSATA cables. The plastic was to protect the ioSafe’s matte black paint job only, as I’m sure the enclosure itself could withstand a delivery from Ace Ventura.
System Setup:
With these particulars out of the way, lets get down to the brass tacks. We’ll be evaluating the performance of the ioSafe on our storage testbed which was configured as follows:
| Hard Drive Test System Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2500K |
| Motherboard | Asus P8Z68-V Pro |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3-2133 CL9 |
| Hard Drive | G.Skill 32GB SLC SSD |
| Sound Card | N/A |
| Video Card | Intel® HD Graphics 3000 |
| Video Drivers | Intel |
| Power Supply | Corsair CMPSU-650TX |
| DirectX Version | DX9.0c |
| Operating System | Windows 7 X64 |
And now onto the benches!
Woh, that is hardcore.
Woh, that is hardcore.
Indeed!
Indeed!
I got DS212+ last week, and
I got DS212+ last week, and its a big improvement over my old DS112J. Software support on Synology products is great. Also thanks for the review.
Funny, as I was watching live
Funny, as I was watching live the PCPer podcast recording on TWiT last week and Allyn alluded to an upcoming review of the Synology 212+, I quite literally was in mid-unboxing of the same unit. It hand me chuckling all night, but it also had me wondering if his considerable storage systems experience with a deep library of benchmarks would parallel to some degree my impressions from solely paper-born research and shallow, hands-on time with any NAS device.
After a week’s worth of testing, playing, configuring, and exploring, the 212+ has so far met or exceeded my expectations and looks like a great choice to serve my usage scenario. With two enterprise drives and a voltage regulated UPS, I have high hopes it’ll have the legs for a good, long, and uneventful marathon.
Now, having read Allyn’s posted review, I’m glad my computer-fu intuition was in keeping with The Sensei’s observations.
I, too, keep finding new stuff to do with Synology’s firmware. It’s highly polished, and nicely documented in clear English within the UI’s Help screens — their website extends it further. One peeve, however. For a product with so many features, here’s a case where including a paper manual would have made learning, referencing, and tweaking so much easier and faster than relying on a screen. Weighing in at 168 pages in full 8.5″ x 11″ glory, that’s a lot of screen-time for a PDF manual; or, a horribly expensive Color print job. I settled for black & white.
So hereto now, the missing paper manual for the NAS is for me, the only ‘gotcha’ in an otherwise excellent first week.
Thanks for the review Allyn. Great stuff.
ps – was kinda hoping you were gonna put the ioSafe through the PCPer paces, you know, give it a benchmark pounding — by which I mean, dropping the drive on the bench and measuring the mark.