Finishing up some news from CES 2020 on this holiday weekend, Synology launched a new NAS at CES. The Synology DS420j 4-bay NAS is designed to be an entry-level NAS. If you want to keep your data centralized with some local redundancy, this is designed to be a starter solution.
Synology DS420j Overview
Overall, this unit is going to remind many of our long-term readers of the Synology DS416j we tested. This is really an upgrade to that unit in a similar form factor. The Synology DS420j is a 4-bay NAS that can hit 64TB of capacity using 4x 16TB hard drives. The drive bays also support 2.5″ hard drives and SSDs. All drive connectivity is SATA which is common in this segment of the market. The DS420j has a similar method to access its drives as we showed in the DS416j review.
Given this, the drives are not externally hot-swappable, a feature many of our readers look for.
Processor wise, we see a 64-bit Realtek RTD1296 quad-core Arm CPU at 1.4GHz. There is also 1GB of DDR4 memory. Synology has a great software stack, so more RAM and CPU, especially an Intel CPU, could be useful. The lightweight CPU, combined with Synology’s cooling means that this unit is rated at 20.6dba operation which is extremely quiet.
The system has a single 1GbE NIC port. We really wish that Synology found a way to do 2.5GbE as 1GbE in 2020 on a 4-bay NAS is limiting. 2.5GbE single port network controllers are sub $3 even for Intel i225 models. In this market, every dollar on a BOM counts, but this is an area where we wish Synology made the choice to upgrade.
Final Words
A solution like this is a solid one for many of our readers to recommend to family, friends, and some clients. There is a big difference between having a backup strategy and not having one. Synology’s great DSM software suite makes management of the NAS easy even for novices or remote admins.
Can someone please help me understand why Synology keeps failing when it comes to hardware? I really wish they would comment on their decisions themselves because this stuff is getting totally out of hand. This unit specifically could replace something at my house but with that speed, it’s pointless. I’d much rather have an 8 bay unit, but I’m not choosing between 10Gbe or SSD Cache. Yes, they are coming out with a dual card at some point, but WHY not just use the freaking CPU features?? Synology, Just Freaking Update the DS1817+ and make us all happy. FFS.
We are looking forward to the review of this unit in the future. I, personally, expect the Design & Aesthetics score of no less than 9.6 for this here belle of the ball.
I don’t think this thing is going to remind anyone of the DS416J; It will however remind everyone of the DS418J as there seems to be zero difference between this model and that one (which came out 2 years ago). Would have been nice for the author to find out what has changed. As for the 2.5gbE, I doubt the processor supports it. I’m sure getting an SoC with that functionality would increase costs significantly
420?
Seriously though, if they’d put a real CPU in there I’d consider it. It shouldn’t cost much to option them with real CPU. This lame duck ARM core 1.4 Ghz is ridiculous. But maybe they know I’d then want to install my favorite Linux distro on it instead of the Sin-ology app crap.