Synology Cube Station CS407 - Do-It-Yourself NAS
Test Systems, Performance, Power Consumption And Acoustics
Evaluating the performance of a device like the Synology CS407 can be difficult. There are a number of variables to consider such as the hard drives used, the hard drive configuration, network speed, the router, switch, the size of network - we think you get the picture. Nonetheless, we wanted to quantify performance in some way that would be relevant to you. In this case, we kept network performance testing to a few basic tests, considering the multitude of variables in each environment that can pose a major influence on results.
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Notebook For Transfer Testing
ASUS Z96JS Whitebook
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System 1:
System 2:
System 3:
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For our first test, we transfered a large 1.75GB file - the World in Conflict beta to be exact - to and from the Synology CS407 in addition to a high-end workstation and a generic PC equipped with a 100Mb LAN connection that's setup as a basic storage server on our internal network.
Despite having much less memory and a comparatively slower processor, the Synology CS407 completed our large file test significantly faster than our simple storage server with its 100Mb connection. The CS407 couldn't quite keep up with our high-end workstation, but we weren't really expecting it to, considering the workstation's significant advantages in memory and CPU resources.
In our small file transfer tests, we took 285MB of data, broken up over 487 digital image files and again transfered them to and from the Synology CS407 and our two reference systems. Like the large file test above, the CS407 fell right smack in the middle of the two other machines. The CS407 and the high-end workstation had identical write performance in this test, but the more powerful workstation surged ahead in the read test. And once again, the basic file server couldn't keep up, largely because of its 10/100 Ethernet connection disadvantage, versus the CS407 and Workstation Gig-E connections.
A Note Power Consumption and Acoustics:
In a simple power consumption test, we hooked up the CS407's external power brick to an in-line power analyzer and data logger. This test methodology specifically measured the entire system power consumption of the CubeStation CS407, which of course includes the two 750 Gig SATA hard drives we had installed in the unit. During heavy read/write traffic, copying a large 1.75GB file to the machine while also streaming a high def video clip, the CS407 consumed about 33 Watts under load. When we factor in that each of our 750G SATA drives consumes about 9 Watts each, we can estimate the average power consumption of the Synology CubeStation CS407 to be about 15 Watts. We also tested the power consumption with the CS407 sitting in an idle state with the hard drives spun-down. Sitting idle, the unit consumed only 10.6 Watts. In other words, relatively speaking, this NAS box sips power. Also, as you would expect, with this low power consumption profile, the unit is also extremely quiet. The system's small 50mm fan was barely audible during our entire test effort.
