Synology released a new 1U 4-bay rackmount NAS that now includes M.2 cache SSDs. The Synology RackStation RS1618xs+ is a 1U storage server with up to 64GB of DDR4 support and four 3.5″ bays designed as a small business rackmount server. We saw the Synology RS1619xs+ at a recent Synology event in NYC. Now that unit has been formally launched.
Synology RackStation RS1619xs+ Launched
The Synology RackStatuion RS1618xs+ is a 1U 4-bay (3.5″) NAS powered by an Intel Xeon D-1527 processor, part of the Xeon D-1500 second wave of processors. This is the same SKU we see powering a number of embedded devices including 400GbE switches.
With 8GB of RAM expandable to 64GB the Synology RS1619xs+ is designed to be not just a NAS, but as an edge compute device. This is also one of the first Synology devices to support NVMe storage with dual M.2 2280 slots. Synology supports the smaller 2280 (80mm) standard, not the larger M.2 22110 standard so these are more for read caching rather than PLP NVMe SSDs for write caching.
On the networking side, there are four 1GbE ports and an expansion port for 10GbE. We would have liked to see 10GbE standard in this class of product but Synology’s view is that it lowers the system cost while allowing the user to decide SFP+ or RJ-45.
Synology DiskStation DS1819+ Launched
As a quick aside, Synology also launched an updated 8-bay rackmount unit. The new Synology DS1819+ is based on the Intel Atom C3538 processor, part of Intel’s Denverton family. This is the same processor that powers the Synology DS1618+ we reviewed.
Synology’s 8-bay desktop units have been extremely popular in the market. As drive capacities have increased, these units now have storage capacities exceeding 100TB in a single desktop unit which is plenty of storage for a large number of users.
Final Words
We want to see Synology start to utilize onboard 10GbE functionality offered by Broadwell-DE, Denverton, and now Skylake-D as that will make their products more compelling as we move into 2019. 1GbE is an extremely low-performance interface for storage these days. Part of the issue is that there are two viable and competing 10GbE interface standards so making a product with one excludes the other. We would like to see 10Gbase-T as standard and SFP+ as an option via add-in card. 10GbE in the data closets is being rapidly replaced by 25GbE so using an add-in card allows those who have modern networks to move to 25GbE while making an ease of integration case for those on 10Gbase-T networks.
Synology should have STH design their hardware. Nice
Why isn’t Synology listening? I seriously don’t understand that company. Why do they insist on inferior hardware. QNAP is blowing them out of the water, but Yes, Diskstation is really great, so why are you tormenting us Synology? Stop being so @$%#ing greedy and just upgrade the hardware.