Synology released a new desktop NAS that has a unique feature: all flash. The Synology FlashStation FS1018 is a 2.5″ desktop NAS that is intended for offices. At the heart of the Synology FlashSation, we see Broadwell-DE which makes sense given this unit’s target market.
Synology FlashStation FS1018 Overview
We wanted to take a moment to discuss the specs of the unit. First off, this is a desktop form factor NAS. Although one is likely to spend $6000-18000 outfitting it with SSDs, the primary focus is on being suitable for habitable areas (e.g. a creative professional’s desk or an office server.) With 12 2.5″ SATA bays, and drives like the 1.9TB Intel DC S4500 that retail for under $1000, one can get relatively affordable desktop storage with considerable capacity.
The underpinnings are Broadwell-DE based. Synology chose the Intel Pentium D1508 which is a 2 core, 4 thread model. We benchmarked the chip in our Supermicro X10SDV-2C-TLN2F Review: dual-core mITX Pentium D1508 review. While this is a solid chip, we were slightly surprised that Synology did not move to a Xeon D-1518 since the other focus on the new solution is Synology Virtual Machine Manager.
Synology Virtual Machine Manager is the company’s virtualization solution that can run Windows, Linux, and Virtual DSM on their NAS units. While the Intel Pentium D1508 is a strong CPU for storage, and basic virtualization, in what is likely a $10,000+ fully configured NAS unit, the incremental cost v. the performance benefit of moving to a quad core SKU would be justified.
Networking is provided by 4x 1GbE links even though the Intel Pentium D1508 is capable of 10Gbase-T (with a power hungry and “expensive” PHY.) If you are buying one of these units, we would suggest getting higher-speed networking. While you are upgrading, adding more than 8GB of RAM would be wise if you are also running VMs. The ECC memory is expandable to 32GB in two SO-DIMM slots.
With all of that spec scrutiny, we really like the concept of a desktop NAS for 12x SSDs based on a solid x86 CPU. For many creative professionals, this is going to be a clear winner.
You can check the Synology specs here.
