Synology Ships New 8-Bay DS1813+ NAS

Storage specialist Synology on Tuesday took the wraps off its new DS1813+ Network-Attached Storage (NAS) appliance. Though it is an incremental upgrade over the older DS1812+, the DS1813 offers notable improvements that should benefit small and mid-sized businesses looking for faster and more robust storage capabilities.

According to data released by Synology, the DS1813+ offers significantly faster read performance and slightly better write performance than the DS1812+. It has read speeds of over 350 MB/sec, and write speeds exceeding 210 MB/sec, which is significantly better than the average 200 MB/sec for both read and write of its older brother.

More importantly, the DS1813+ comes with four one-gigabit Ethernet ports with link aggregation for greater data throughput or deployment flexibility. Specifically, the four LAN ports give the NAS high availability and automatic failover when set up as part of a Synology High Availability (SHA) cluster. This allows for seamless transition between clustered servers with minimal impact should a server fail.

Under the hood, the Synology DS1813+ also comes with 2GB of RAM preinstalled, and can be upgraded to a (expanded) total capacity of 4GB. Like its predecessor, the NAS is powered by a dual core 2.13GHz and can accommodate eight 4TB hard disk drives (HDDs) for a total of 32TB of raw capacity. In terms of expansion capabilities, the DS1813+ can be connected with two DX513 enclosures for an additional 10 storage drives, or up to 40TB of storage capacity.

The DS1813+ NAS offers many features that make it ideal for deployment inside a SMB office or remote branch office. To keep noise down and eliminate dependency on fans, the system is designed with passive cooling in mind. Nothing is left to chance, however, and a redundant fan will kick in should the primary one fail. It is also possible to enable HDD hibernation to significantly reduce power usage by shutting down HDDs after a specified period of inactivity.

Like all NAS sold by the company, the DS1813+ is powered by the Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating platform. This means that SMBs will have access to the rich host of applications such as a web server, mail server, VPN server and printer sharing, among others provided by Synology as well as third-party vendors. The DSM can also be deployed for network video surveillance with support for many brands of IP cameras, though additional licensing fees apply.

The DS1813+ is currently shipping globally, and pricing depends on region and configuration options. I’ve had the Synology DS1813+ for a few weeks now, and will be writing a follow-up report soon on my experience with it. In the meantime, you can read more about the DSM platform in my previous review of the five-bay DS1511+.