I was comparing this to the DS412+ (which is the business class model) and the DS413 (older version of the current DS414). This was not much less expensive than the DS412+, but I opted for this because this model has hardware encryption built in (the DS412+ did not appear too), and I didn't need the high power of the DS412+. I was also considering the WD Cloud EX4, but ultimately decided to spend the extra because the DS414 spec indicates it should be a faster box.
One thing I didn't realize is that the entire case is made of plastic, everything from the housing to the trays. However, it is solid and quality plastic, so not really missing anything. The tool-less drive trays were easy to use, and it took me about 10 minutes to set everything up.
I have this running off my Airport Extreme router, through a Linksys switch (10/100 MBps, not a gigabit switch, I plan on upgrading), and it was recognized instantly on my LAN. The setup wizard seems very good, but I am still learning all the ins and outs of setting up a NAS, so even though the software seems really good, be prepared to do some learning if you are like me and new to this. That said, it does seem to be a no hassle set up for the most part (I am using a Mac on Mountain Lion) in the software.
I will update this review with any observations about performance, I haven't put a lot of data on this yet and I want to see if there is any lag when trying to access files.
Update 12/23/13: In Action - transferring photos to NAS was only at about 1.0 to 1.2 MBps (some peaks at 1.6 MBps) - 1.7 GB was estimated to take about 25 minutes. I am using a 2008 MacPro with an Airport Extreme and Linksys switch. Also, this computer is hooked to the local network using a Linksys AC power line converter connection. This somewhat disappointing rate might be due to the AC power line connection and maybe the WD Red drives which are only 5400 rpm.
Accessing photos - immediately after finishing the upload to the NAS, I went into Finder and it took a LONG time for the thumbnails to generate in Finder (still waiting....) - this might be the MacOSX indexing the files, not sure. But during this time, it would take close to ten seconds or longer for a file to open, so there was a significant delay. I am hoping this delay goes away once the indexing is done, so I'm not going to attribute this lag in performance to the NAS, there are other weak links in the system likely.
Update 12/24/13: Still having massive 10+ second lag when accessing photos - I do believe this has more to do with the Mac OSX than anything else, I've experienced this before when I "upgraded" to Mountain Lion a few months back. Some of the photos do open more quickly with a minor 1-2 second lag, so I think this is the Mac OS still working on the indexing of the photos for spotlight search. I might disable spot light for these external drives.
However, when I try to access these photos from the web browser DSM software, it is a little faster, but I am still having a 2-3 second lag for photos to generate. These photos are only 2 MB size, so not sure why everything is so slow, maybe this is the trade off with NAS and the RED drives? I probably have a few weak links in my set up, I am going to upgrade to a gigabit switch to see if that is the culprit.
Final Update 12/24/13: It seems my Mac has finally finished indexing all the files and generating thumbnails - now all photos open within a second, much happier now. I found that I had to keep the Finder window open showing the files for the indexing to finish (didn't seem to be doing it in the background overnight), so I learned in the future to allow the files to finish indexing before trying to access them and everything should be good. There is still a slightly longer lag when trying to access the photos from the browser based DSM software (2-3 seconds per photo), so not sure why that is. But overall it seems snappy now when accessing through Finder.
| RAM | 1024 MB |
|---|---|
| Hard Drive | 16 TB Portable |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
