Introduction
A short time ago, Terry had the opportunity to take the Synology DS411+II through the WGS review paces. Today, I am taking on the Synology DS411 to see what it can do. The first thoughts you may have might be
- Is this Déjà vu?
or
- Don’t you guys talk to each other about review kit?
Well, the answer to the first question is No and the answer to the second question is Yes. To help with the first question, we must dissect the Synology naming convention. First, we have the basic naming convention of DS-NYY where
- DS = Disk Station
- N = number of bays (4)
- YY = last two digits of the model year (11)
For the above models, they are both Disk Stations, 4-bay units, and were designed/built for the 2011 model year.
That is where the similarity ends… The suffix (or lack thereof) designates the target audience of each model as can be seen below.
In addition, one can get a further idea of the differentiators by comparing various models on the Synology website
The DS411 falls into the high-end home to micro-business segment, whereas the DS411+II (which designates the second DS411+ model of 2011) falls squarely into the SMB market segment. Other than the feature differences noted above, one can expect a higher degree of performance and a higher price tag of course.
Unless you are into CPU intensive tasks or have a substantial number of users trying to access a NAS device, there really is not much to justify the DS411+II over the DS411 for use in the home. For file-sharing and client backups, the DS411 *should* be able to handle those tasks quite nicely. Of course, the DiskStation Manager 3.1 software will allow you to expand your horizons beyond simple file-sharing and backups if needed.
As this review falls in the middle of Terry’s OS X Lion Server series, I would also like to point out that a NAS (in general) and Synology units (specifically) coexist quite well in a PC home, a Mac home, a mixed PC/Mac home, as well as with other Linux machines.
But that is enough about model differentials, market segments, and OS compatibility. It is time to find out what the Synology DS411 can do for you. First, we need to find out
