Synology DS415+ Review: DSM on Intel Rangeley

Encryption Support Evaluation

Consumers looking for encryption capabilities can opt to encrypt a iSCSI share with TrueCrypt or some in-built encryption mechanism in the client OS. However, if requirements dictate that the data must be shared across multiple users / computers, relying on encryption in the NAS is the best way to move forward. Most NAS vendors use the industry-standard 256-bit AES encryption algorithm. One approach is to encrypt only a particular shared folder while the other approach is to encrypt the full volume. Synology supports only folder-level encryption for now in DSM.

On the hardware side, encryption support can be in the form of specialized hardware blocks in the SoC (common in ARM / PowerPC based NAS units). In x86-based systems, accelerated encryption support is dependent on whether the AES-NI instruction is available on the host CPU. One of the most attractive features of the Intel Rangeley platform / Silvermont cores is full hardware acceleration for all essential cryptography functions. The results, as you can see below, are consistent across all evaluated scenarios. The penalty compared to unencrypted shares is non-existent.