ioSafe 1513+ Review: A Disaster-Resistant Synology DS1513+

Miscellaneous Aspects and Concluding Remarks

It is expected that most users would configure the ioSafe 1513+ in RAID-5 for optimal balance of redundancy and capacity (reflected in ioSafe's decision to ship the units pre-configured with SHR 1-disk fault tolerance). Hence, we performed all our expansion / rebuild testing as well as power consumption evaluation with the unit configured in RAID-5. The disks used for benchmarking (Western Digital WD4000FYYZ) were also used in this section. The table below presents the average power consumption of the unit as well as time taken for various RAID-related activities.

One of the issues that we would like Synology to address is the RAID expansion / migration / rebuild durations. Though we don't have the full corresponding data from similar (read, 5-bay) competing units, the expansion durations with QNAP NAS units and rebuilds with the Seagate NAS units are much shorter compared to the ones in the table above.

Coming to the business end of the review, there are two different aspects of the ioSafe 1513+ to comment upon. The first relates to the software platform from Synology. DSM 5.0 is arguably one of the most full featured COTS NAS operating systems around. Its popularity is even reflected in the fact that specific viruses have been created for the platform (though it is also an indication of the security weaknesses that Synology has been actively patching in the recent past). The mobile apps and NAS packages extend the functionality of the appliance to provide a comprehensive private cloud experience. SMB features such as virtualization certifications / iSCSI support further enhance the appeal of the ioSafe 1513+ for enterprise users. All the plus points of the Synology 1513+ (including the performance, capacity expansion, high availability, hot-swappable fans etc.) translate as-is to the ioSafe 1513+.

The second is obviously related to the chassis design that makes the ioSafe 1513+ one of the most unique products that we have evaluated. ioSafe continues to impress us by scaling the disaster-proofing techniques to handle more and more complicated scenarios every year. The ioSafe 1513+ is an awesome piece of engineering aimed at solving the very relevant issue of protecting data from disasters. Fire protection is rated for 30 minutes at 1550°F (ASTM E-119) and the unit's drives are kept safe even in 10 ft. deep water for 3 days. ioSafe provides the option to purchase a Data Recovery Service (DRS) scheme along with the unit. The DRS period can be extended at a simple rate of $2.99/TB/month. The only points that consumers might complain about are the limited 'qualified hard disks' list, fan noise and the cost of the units. From our evaluation, we believe that the unit is best operated in an air-conditioned server room where fan noise should not be an issue. Some of the qualified hard disks are suitable for usage only at ambient temperatures lower than 30°C, but neither that nor the cost are likely to be factors for SMBs and SMEs that constitute the target market of the ioSafe 1513+.