Synology 4-bay NAS targets media enthusiasts

By Joel Shore • April 29, 2014

Network-attached storage maker Synology today announced the DS414j, a budget-friendly four-bay NAS server designed for small offices and home users. Paired with the company's DiskStation Manager OS software, the $390 DS414j looks like a good solution for small workgroups and media enthusiasts – including photographers – looking for centralized, highly accessible storage. Each of its four bays can hold separately purchased hard drives of up to 5 TB in capacity, yielding maximum raw storage of 20 TB, or a bit less if your set up RAID fault tolerance. Hard drives from HGST, Seagate, Toshiba and WD are supported, as are solid-state drives from Intel, Samsung, and Sandisk.

In addition to adding dual-core architecture for faster processing and USB 3.0 ports, the DS414j addresses security concerns through inclusion of data encryption with hardware acceleration on encrypted, shared folders. It also includes an integrated floating-point unit, which generates photo previews quickly. Both features free up the system so it can be used for other key applications, including Synology's Audio Station, Video Station, and Media Server – with integrated DLNA streaming.

Synology provides mobile applications for on-the-go access to stored data, including albums, music. and video. Available on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone platforms, DS photo+, DS audio, and DS video applications place terabytes of content at the users fingertips. DS download makes it possible to manage and monitor download tasks remotely.

Synology's Cloud Station has developed into a private synchronization solution that supports any-time access. Content can be synchronized across multiple devices, multiple DiskStations, and even multiple clients. Cloud Station also syncs with Dropbox and Google Drive, for a hybridized approach to cloud storage. The cloud approach simplifies access to assets.

With support for 5TB drives, the DS414j can support up to 20TB of raw storage. With read/write speeds exceeding 100MB/sec and 80MB/sec, the DS414j should offer plenty of performance for workgroups and enthusiasts. Combined with DSM 5.0 the DS414j should be a convenient way to centralize backups and manage them for multiple users in a variety of styles. On top of Native Apple Time Machine support, DSM 5.0 also offers local versioned backup, backup to external drives or network destination, shared folder sync. Even Cloud Station can be used as a backup solution, in addition to its ample utility as synchronized storage.

The DS414j is now shipping globally with an MSRP of $389.99, not including disk drives.