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April 27, 2007
Dual Drive File, Media & Web Network Server
A Review of the Synology Disk Station model DS-207
By Arthur Whalem
Sans Digital is distributing the Synology Disk Station DS-207 ($479 MSRP) in the USA. It supports up to two 3.5" SATA hard drives that can be configured as JBOD, RAID 0 or as a RAID 1 mirror configuration. The DS-207 includes a Freescale model MPC8241 266 MHz RISC processor with 64MB of memory, three USB 2.0 ports, gigabit ethernet and a 60mm cooling fan. The Disk Station DS-207 provides file sharing services for Mac OS X, OS 9 and Windows computers. In addition, it can also be configured as a Web server, FTP server, iTunes server and a Photo server. The Disk Station DS-207 supports the UPnP multimedia protocol which allows devices that support this standard to stream audio and video files from the DS-207. The three USB ports located on the DS-207 can be used for printer sharing, adding storage or backing up data. The small foot print, low energy usage and large feature set provided by the Synology Disk Station makes it an ideal solution for expanding the functionality of office and home computer networks.
System Requirements
Supports Mac OS X, OS 9 and Windows computers.
Requires up to two 3.5 SATA hard drives.
Supports RAID 0, 1 and JBOD.
Requires an ethernet network.
Supports CIFS, AFP and FTP.
128 maximum user accounts.
32 maximum concurrent connections (SAMBA, FTP, AFP)
SMTP support for email notification.
What's Included?
The Synology Disk Station DS-207 includes a Disk Station DS-207 enclosure, a two meter ethernet cable, AC power adapter, power cord, hard drive assembly kit, installation CD and a printed quick installation guide.
HD InstallThe Synology Disk Station DS-207 is shipped with no hard drives. To install the hard drives, place the DS-207 on its side with the rear connectors closest to the table. Then push the top half of the enclosure forward and remove the white plastic side cover. With the DS-207 open, users can install one or two 3.5" SATA hard drives.
For the purpose of this review, AMUG installed two Hitachi T7K500 320GB hard drives inside the Disk Station DS-207. However, the DS-207 supports any SATA 150 or 300, 3.5" hard drive model. The Disk Station hard drive assembly kit includes hard drive screws and SATA power and data cables.
Disk drive #1 is mounted on the bottom and disk drive #2 is mounted on top inside the Synology Disk Station DS-207. Two screws on each side hold the hard drives in place. If the user will be installing two hard drives, it is best not to tighten the screws on the bottom hard drive until the top hard drive is installed.
Once the SATA hard drive(s) are mounted, the Disk Station hard drive assembly kit is utilized to attach the SATA power and data cables. The SATA power cables attach to the left side of the circuit board and to the hard drive power plugs. The short SATA data cable is connected to the "disk #1" circuit board port and to the bottom hard drive. The slightly longer SATA data cable is connected to the "disk #2" circuit board port and to the top hard drive. Once the cables and the hard drives are installed, the white side panel can be re-attached to the Disk Station DS-207 and two small screws are used to secure the cover.
ConnectionsThe rear panel of the Synology Disk Station DS-207 provides a 60mm cooling fan at the top followed by two USB 2.0 ports that can be used for local backup or for expanding the amount of storage available on the network. The next port is the RJ-45 10/100/1000Mbps ethernet port. Below that is the reset button and a security port. On the bottom is the power adapter connector. The setup of the Disk Station DS-207 rear panel is well marked and easy to use.
On the front of the Disk Station DS-207, another USB port is provided for easy access. A copy button on the front of the unit allows the contents of an external USB drive to be copied to the internal DS-207 SATA hard drive. A blue power light is also provided on the front of the DS-207 along with green status, LAN and disk activity lights. The front of the Disk Station DS-207 is professional looking and provides the user with plenty of indicators for monitoring the activity of the unit.
HardwareThe Synology Disk Station DS-207 mother board is located under the hard drive chamber. This board functions as a small computer. It includes a Freescale MPC8241 Integrated host processor that features a 266 MHz RISC processor core, 32-bit PCI interface operating at up to 66 MHz and a memory controller offering 133 MHz SDRAM support. It also provides a two-channel DMA controller, an Industry standard I2C interface and very low power consumption. The DS-207 includes 64MB of SDRAM with a 64bit/133 memory bus that is soldered to the motherboard. It also includes 4MB of flash memory. A Marvell Yukon 88E8001 32-bit gigabit ethernet controller is used to provide ethernet support while a Silicon Image SteelVine SATALink 2-port host controller chip provides the dual SATA hard drive interface. Clicking on the image below will display a larger view.
Energy Usage
According to the Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, the Synology Disk Station DS-207 utilizes 25 watts when operating with two 320GB Hitachi T7K500 SATA hard drives installed. The power management settings of the DS-207 provide a "HDD Hibernation mode". This feature allows the hard drives to spin down after 20 minutes of inactivity. The user can alter this setting to change the amount of time that is required to pass before hibernation is activated or remove the hibernation mode entirely.
Once the Disk Station DS-207 has entered hibernation mode the energy usage with two 320GB Hitachi T7K500 SATA hard drives installed drops to 14 watts. This feature allows the Disk Station DS-207 to provide two 3.5" SATA hard drives on the network while only using 14 watts while idle or 25 watts when active. This power management system provides a large amount of data storage space on the network with very little power consumption.
When the Disk Station DS-207 is waking from hibernation mode it takes about 12 seconds for the hard drives to spin up and the DS-207 to accept file sharing requests. This small delay does not seem unreasonable when you consider it will provide energy savings and may extend the life of the hard drives. If the user does not want the short wake up delay they can easily adjust this energy saving feature at any time. In these tests, the Disk Station DS-207 woke from hibernation mode each time without difficulties.
Initial Setup
In order to setup the Synology Disk Station DS-207, the hard drive(s) must be installed and the unit should be powered and plugged into an ethernet network. Macintosh users will insert the Synology Install CD and copy the Mac OS X folder to the Macintosh hard drive. Users can also download the latest DS-207 drivers on-line at synology.com. The firmware used during this review is version 2.0.3 - 0452; released 02-26-2007.
Once the Mac OS X Disk Station software is copied to the hard drive, users will launch DSAssistant setup wizard to discover the Synology Disk Station DS-207 and install the system software. The Mac OS X firewall may need to be turned off during the DSAssistant installation. Once the DS-207 is discovered, DSAssistant will prompt the user to select the .pat installation file and the install will begin. The .pat file used for the review was named synology_ppc824x_207_04 52.pat. From this point, a web browser is used to configure the Synology Disk Station DS-207 with the selected features desired by the user.
Once the Synology Disk Station DS-207 web interface is displayed users will need to go to the "Privileges" menu to setup a password for the "admin" and establish user accounts that can access the file sharing and multimedia capabilities of the Disk Station DS-207.
The default DS-207 user settings enable the guest account. The guest account can be disabled by selecting "guest" and checking the "Disable this account" box. If you are going to place files on the Disk Station DS-207 that you do not want available to the public you may want to consider disabling the guest account. A usage quota can also be established for user accounts. The default setting is to provide unlimited user access. Various different groups and access rights can be established for shared network volumes using the "Privileges" menu.
Storage
Users will need to setup the hard drive(s) using the "Storage" Volume menu. If two hard drives are installed, they can be configured as individual hard drives, a RAID 0 stripped RAID set (that combines the volumes) or as a RAID 1 mirror that provides duplicate hard drive data protection. The RAID 1 setting is my favorite as it provides the easiest method for recovering from a hard drive failure.
Once the Disk Station hard drive setup is configured, the "Shared folder" menu is used to create network volumes that can be accessed by users. At least one shared folder will need to be setup on the Disk Station DS-207 so that users can access data on the hard drive(s).
In the example above, several shared folders have been created. These shared folders are used for different Disk Station server functions. The network shared folder was created to support file sharing. The Disk Station DS-207 works well with Mac OS 9 clients and Mac OS X clients. This is an ideal solution for Mac networks as Mac OS X 10.4.9 has a bug that causes file sharing to be unreliable when a Mac OS 9 client is used with it. Once the Disk Station DS-207 was installed, my Mac OS 9 computer and Mac OS X 10.4.9 computers were able to easily share data by using the DS-207 network volume.
The beauty of the Synology Disk Station DS-207 is that it provides many different network services. While file sharing data between different computers is a great feature, the DS-207 is also capable of providing ftp, web, multimedia and iTunes services.
Web Service
The Web Service menu of the Disk Station DS-207 allows users to setup their own web site. Https and MySQL are available for those wanting to setup a database or an on-line store. Once a "web" network volume is established using the "Shared Folder Setup" menu, users can mount the web volume on a Macintosh and copy their web site data to the volume. Typing in the IP address of the Disk Station DS-207 displays the web site. As you can see in the image below setting up Web service on the DS-207 is as easy as checking "Enable Web Station".
Photo Station
Users can also create a "photo" network volume using the "Shared Folder Setup" menu. With the "Enable Photo Station" option checked, the Disk Station DS-207 will turn on the Synology Photo Station 2 web services. Any images that are copied to the "photo" network volume can be viewed with a web browser by typing in the DS-207 IP address with /photo at the end. An example URL would be http://192.168.0.78/photo with the IP numbers changed to reflect the IP address of the DS-207.
The Photo Station2 web service allows users on the network to browse the photo library, add descriptions, view slide shows and navigate between images. As the user only needs to copy images to the photo network volume to add photos to the Photo Station2 web service, this provides an easy way to enable photo sharing on the network. Images can be configured as public or require the user to log in to view them. The Photo Station2 web service design provides network users with lots of photo sharing options.
Movies
Another feature that the Disk Station DS-207 Photo Station2 application supports is streaming video. Users can place a video folder full of movies on the "photo" network volume and watch them using the same Photo Station2 IP address. Movies streamed to the users browser will be limited to the video file formats that their particular browser supports. However, users can get around these file format limitations by using the VLC application with Photo Station2.
To use VLC to play videos located on the DS-207 photo volume, open VLC and select the File:Open command. Click on the network tab and select the HTTP button. Now paste the URL that shows up for the video in the Photo Station2 browser window, into the URL field of the VLC window. This will allow VLC to play the movie while the source is streaming from the DS-207. In this example, the DS-207 is located at http://192.168.0.78/. Using the photosrc/video/LAST.avi path allows the video file named LAST.avi located on the "photo" network volume to play. VLC supports just about every format out there. Using this method allows the DS-207 to stream MPEG 1, 2, 4, .VOB, AVI, and even HD formats to a computer running VLC on the network. Large video formats streamed well over a wired network in these tests. Once the user understands how the URL formatting works, it is easy to stream movies from the DS-207 to VLC using Mac OS X clients.
iTunes ServiceTo setup the Disk Station DS-207 iTunes Service, create a "music" network volume using the "Shared Folder Setup" menu. Next, navigate to the iTunes Service tab. Check the "Enable iTunes Service" box. Users can setup a custom shared name or use the default which is DiskStation. Another setting allows a password to be required for access. For these tests, no password was used in the setup. As the object of this feature is to share music on the network most users will probably not want to require a password.
With the DS-207 iTunes Service setup complete, simply mount the "music" network volume on the Macintosh and copy individual songs to the volume or an entire iTunes folder. After the copy process is complete, the DS-207 will share the music with the iTunes clients connected to the network. To access the Disk Station iTunes Service launch iTunes and click on the DiskStation shared folder icon under "SHARED".
This setup allows network users to share a music library without having to copy the songs to their hard drive. Using the Synology Disk Station DS-207 as an iTunes Server is a great way to provide an instant music library to users on the network. If music is added or erased from the DS-207 "music" volume the iTunes Service listing is automatically updated by the Disk Station software. One nice feature provided with iTunes sharing is that the music network volume does not need to be mounted on the users computer. Only registered users mount the "music" volume on their desktop for making changes to the music available. In addition, if the music copied to the Disk Station has album cover art assigned before it is copied, the album cover art will also show up when using the Disk Station iTunes Service. However, once the music is copied to the Disk Station, cover art cannot be altered or added.
Disk Station iTunes Service Limitations
The Disk Station DS-207 iTunes Service only supports MP3 and AAC audio formats without DRM. Audio files with an extension of .mp3 or .m4a will play using the DS-207 iTunes Service. However, AIFF audio files (.aif) and iTunes Music Store purchases (.m4p) will not be displayed in the DiskStation shared music directory. AIFF audio files can be converted to the Apple Lossless format using iTunes, before copying them to the Disk Station DS-207. Apple Lossless data is stored in an MP4 container with an extension of .m4a. This codec is designed to reduce the AIFF file size without a loss of acoustical information. I have not been able to distinguish between AIFF and Apple Lossless in an A-B listening test. As the Apple Lossless file has a .m4a extension it is able to be shared via the DS-207 iTunes Service. This conversion of AIFF audio files to the Apple Lossless format has the advantage of providing high quality, smaller audio files that are also compatible with the DS-207 iTunes Service.
Apple Store Music
If users have purchased DRM encrypted music from the Apple Music Store they can still store the files on the Disk Station DS-207 and play them using iTunes (even though they will not work with the iTunes Service).
To do this simply copy the iTunes Store purchased music to a folder on the music network volume of the Disk Station. Then open the iTunes Preference menu and select Advanced. Now uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library".
Next, create a new playlist in iTunes. In the example below, the new playlist is called ds207. While the DS-207 music network volume is mounted on the desktop, drag and drop the folder of DRM music files to the ds207 playlist window. A new iTunes playlist will be created using the audio files selected from the DS-207. The Apple Store purchased songs and AIFF files will play in this configuration. This method of configuring iTunes will support every audio format that iTunes supports. The only draw back is that the "music" network volume will need to be mounted on the computer when playing music listed in this playlist. If the music volume is not mounted, Mac OS X will prompt the user to mount the volume once one of these songs is selected for playback.
Front Row Compatibly
The Disk Station DS-207 "iTunes Service" is not compatible with Front Row using the current 2.0.3 - 0452 firmware version dated 02/26/07. However, AMUG has requested that this feature be added in a future version of the Synology Disk Station firmware and the company has passed the suggestion along to the developers. In the meantime, Macintosh users can get around this limitation by using the instructions provided below.
Getting DS-207 Music to play with Front Row
To play music stored on the Disk Station DS-207 with Front Row, mount the "music" network volume and create a playlist(s) in iTunes just like the example above for Apple Music Store purchases. Now with the music network volume still mounted launch Front Row, select the music icon and click on playlists. The playlist(s) created in iTunes using the Disk Station DS-207 "music" volume will be displayed as an option. Click on a song in the playlist and Front Row will play it. iTunes will stream the music from the DS-207 while Front Row plays the audio selections. This works with Apple DRM Music purchases, AIFF, AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless and any other format that iTunes supports.
One thing to remember is that if the DS-207 music network volume is not mounted and the user tries to play the DS-207 playlist, Front Row will provide a dialog that states, "This computer is not authorized to play the selected song". To correct this, quit Front Row and mount the DS-207 music network volume. Once its mounted the DS-207 playlist will work properly with Front Row.
Getting DS-207 Videos to play with Front Row
To play videos stored on the Disk Station DS-207 with Front Row, users can create a separate video folder on the DS-207 "music" network volume or create a separate network volume on the DS-207 called video. The advantage of simply creating a video folder on the DS-207 music network volume is that only one network volume needs to be mounted for both music and videos to work with Front Row.
Once the video folder is created on the "music" network volume and a few videos have been copied to the folder, select the video folder and use the File menu to make an alias (command L). Place this alias in the users movie folder. Now launch Front Row and select the video icon, next open the "Movies" selection and scroll down to the "video" folder alias and click on it. Inside are all of the movies stored on the DS-207 network drive. Selecting a movie will play it using Front Row. One fact to remember is that if the DS-207 network volume is not mounted the alias will not be displayed in Front Row.
Multimedia Service
The Synology Disk Station DS-207 also supports the UPnP DMA (Digital Media Adapter) format. To setup Multimedia service create a "video" network volume using the "Shared Folder Setup" menu. Next, open the Multimedia Service window of the DS-207 web setup application. Check "Enable Multimedia Service" and set the DMA Codepage setting to match the UPnP device that will be connected to the DS-207.
The Disk Station DS-207 can play multimedia files located on the music, photo or video shared folders of the DS-207. The official list of compatible Digital Media Adapter clients that Synology has tested with the Disk Station include the following:
In addition, users are reporting that several other players also work with the Disk Station UPnP Multimedia Service. These include the following
Helios X3000 (DS-101G+)
Netgear EVA700 (DS101j)
Turtle Beach Audiotron (DS-106e)
All of these multimedia UPnP players are designed to allow PC users to stream audio, video and photos to the home theatre. Macintosh users should be able to get these UPnP clients to work with the Disk Station DS-207 based on user feedback. However, as AMUG has not tested them you may want to purchase from a reputable store that accepts returns. Calling the company and discussing the features available on the units that you are interested in is also a good idea.
Elgato sells EyeConnect. It is a software solution that allows Macintosh users to to stream media from their computer to UPnP compatible players. They have a compatibility list posted here. However, if Disk Station works with the UPnP player I selected, I would rather just copy the multimedia files to the Disk Station so that my computer does not need to be left on to play movies or audio selections while using the home theatre. The Disk Station DS-207 Multimedia Service provides Macintosh users with a method for interfacing with a wide range of UPnP players without requiring a PC.
Slimserver Support
Users that own a Squeezebox or Transporter sold by Slim Devices may be wondering if the Synology Disk Station can be used to stream music to these units. While the Disk Station DS-207 does not officially support the Squeezebox, Synology has posted a tech note on this issue. It recommends that users refer to the SSODS information posted at http://oinkzwurgl.org/ssods. SlimServer On DiskStation (SSODS) is an add-on to the Disk Station firmware (operating system) which allows the Disk Station to run Slimserver. The package installs using the Disk Station firmware upgrade routine. It supports Slimserver versions 6.2.2, 6.3.1 and 6.5.1. Based on user feedback it appears that if SSODS is installed on a Disk Station with less than 128MB of memory it may prevent the HDD hibernation mode from working when Slimsever version 6.5.x is installed.
The answer to whether Slimserver will work with the Disk Station DS-207 seems to be a qualified yes. While it will work, the hard drive hibernation mode may not function properly after the install and installing Slimserver on a Disk Station is a bit of a hack. I asked Synology if they planned to support Slimserver on the Disk Station in the future? They indicated that Synology would like to provide Slimserver support but that they have not been able to do so yet. For now, my Mac mini will support the Squeezebox player that I have on the network. There are so many other network services that the Disk Station DS-207 currently supports that I would rather keep its full power available for file sharing and streaming audio/video files to the Macintosh computers on the network.
The Synology Disk Station DS-207 provides three methods for backing up the data stored on the unit. These include local backup, network backup and using a RAID 1 setup. Network backup requires a second Disk Station. The advantage of this method is that if the Disk Station hard drive(s) fails the second backup Disk Station can be used to repopulate the data. Two Disk Stations were not available for testing this recovery method during the AMUG review process. A dual Disk Station network backup setup sounds like an interesting way to add redundancy. However, it will be more expensive than using a single unit with an additional backup drive.
Local Backup
The local backup method involves connecting a USB drive to the Disk Station and backing up. The problem with this method is that the web interface does not provide a direct method for copying the USB backup drive data back to the Disk Station and it does not save the Disk Station settings. Users have to reinstall a hard drive, rebuild the system using DSAssistant, restore the system configuration using a .dss file that hopefuly was saved. Next, the passwords may need to be reset, all of the network services have to be reconfigured, SMTP has to be setup for email notifications and the time server needs to be reconfigured. Next, the user mounts the USBbackup network volume on a computer while logged in as admin and then copies all of the data back over the network to the various DS-207 shared volumes. This method provides a slow data recovery process. Each network volume has to be copied separately and trying to copy too much data at once caused errors during my tests. By any measure, local USB backup is NOT an ideal recovery method. The Disk Station local backup function should provide users with a complete recovery capability that allows for the reinstallation of all data and settings via the USB port to the internal Disk Station hard drive(s). Until that feature is available, Disk Station recovery using a USB drive will be time consuming.
RAID 1
The Disk Station DS-207 dual drive model has the advantage of supporting RAID 1 mirror mode. If a hard drive fails in this configuration, a new hard drive can be installed and the RAID 1 setup rebuilt. As a test, one of the RAID 1 hard drives was removed from the DS-207 to simulate a hard drive failure. The DS-207 began to beep. The unit was turned off, a new hard drive installed and the DS-207 was powered back on. The unit began to beep again. I opened the web manager and pushed the stop beeping button. Next, using the web manager the new hard drive was initialized and the "Repair" button was pushed to start the RAID 1 rebuilding process. After one hour and 22 minutes the dual 320GB RAID 1 setup was finished rebuilding. All of the settings and the data was intact with no further user maintenance required. This is a far better solution for recovery than the Disk Station local USB backup implementation.
Using the non-RAID or the striped RAID set configurations available with the Disk Station DS-207 will require the user to depend on the local USB backup method for data protection. I found recovering from a hard drive failure using the USB backup method was significantly more time consuming to complete than when recovering with a RAID 1 configuration in place. When critical data is stored on the DS-207, using a RAID 1 configuration and creating a local USB backup copy will provide the best protection. Should the RAID 1 rebuild fail, the USB backup copy provides another layer of data protection.
In this section of the review, the Disk Station DS-207 was tested for network file copy performance. A 1.11GB video file was copied between the Synology Disk Station DS-207, a Mac Pro 2.66 GHz and a Mac mini 1.66 GHz. A gigabit ethernet network was utilized. The purpose of this test was to see how the file server performance of the DS-207 would compare against using a Macintosh file server instead.
The Mac Pro and the Mac mini were able to copy the 1.11GB video file to and from each computer in 1:44 minutes. That was used as the baseline performance result that I would expect from a Mac server performing this task.
The Disk Station DS-207 performed this copy test fastest with the Mac mini. Enabling jumbo frame support with an MTU value of 9000 was also tested with the DS-207 and the Mac Pro. However, that setup resulted in slower write performance for the DS-207 than when the jumbo frames setting was disabled and a MTU value of 1500 was used. The results are provided below.
Disk Station DS-207 Copy 1.11GB Video File Speed Test
| DS Config. |
Copy From
|
Copy To
|
Time in Minutes
|
File Size
|
| Jumbo Frames |
Mac Pro 2.66
|
DS-207
|
3:10
|
1.11GB
|
| MTU 9000 |
DS-207
|
Mac Pro 2.66
|
1:44
|
|
| Mac Server | ||||
| Mac mini 1.66 | Mac Pro 2.66 |
1:44
|
1.11GB
|
|
| Mac Pro 2.66 | Mac mini 1.66 |
1:44
|
||
| Single Drive | ||||
| Disable Jumbo |
DS-207
|
Mac Pro 2.66
|
1:44
|
1.11GB
|
| MTU 1500 |
DS-207
|
Mac mini 1.66
|
1:11
|
|
| (1500) |
Mac mini 1.66
|
DS-207
|
2:04
|
|
| (1500) |
Mac Pro 2.66
|
DS-207
|
2:39
|
|
| RAID 0 | ||||
| (1500) |
DS-207
|
Mac Pro 2.66
|
1:44
|
1.11GB
|
| (1500) |
DS-207
|
Mac mini 1.66
|
1:11
|
|
| (1500) |
Mac mini 1.66
|
DS-207
|
2:04
|
|
| (1500) |
Mac Pro 2.66
|
DS-207
|
2:40
|
|
| RAID 1 | ||||
| (1500) |
DS-207
|
Mac Pro 2.66
|
1:44
|
1.11GB
|
| (1500) |
DS-207
|
Mac mini 1.66
|
1:12
|
|
| (1500) |
Mac mini 1.66
|
DS-207
|
2:10
|
|
| (1500) |
Mac Pro 2.66
|
DS-207
|
2:45
|
|
As you can see in the results above, the Synology Disk Station DS-207 performed better on our gigabit ethernet network with jumbo frames disabled and a MTU value of 1500. The file copy performance of the DS-207 with a single drive or a striped RAID set is very similar. The RAID 1 setup provided 3-4% slower write speeds. This is a result of the extra processes required for maintaining the RAID 1 hard drive mirror.
In the next performance test, the Helios LanTest X 3.1 application was used on a Mac mini 1.66 GHz to test how the Disk Station DS-207 performs compared to using the Mac Pro 2.66 GHz computer as the server. In addition, the Mac mini was tested as a server using the Mac Pro 2.66. The results of the three tests are provided below. A lower score is better.
The Synology Disk Station DS-207 allows two SATA hard drives to be setup on an ethernet network in RAID 1, 0 or as individual hard drives. The RAID 1 mirror configuration provides the advantage of being able to easily recover from a hard drive failure. While the Disk Station DS-207 may not provide as much horse power as a standalone Macintosh configured server, it only utilizes a fraction of the energy required by a standard computer server.The Disk Station DS-207 provides file, web and ftp service in a very small foot print. In addition, the multimedia sharing capabilities of the DS-207 provide many advanced network features. Macintosh users with a Disk Station installed are able to interface with UPnP DMA clients on their network that normally only ship with PC compatible client software. In addition, the iTunes, video and photo sharing services provided by the DS-207 are awesome. The web interface provided with the Disk Station DS-207 is easy to use and allows for monitoring and configuration of the server. The DS-207 operates quietly and also keeps the hard drives cool.
The Disk Station DS-207 does have some limitations. Recovery using the USBbackup method can be slow. Using a RAID 1 mirror setup will usually allow the user to avoid this process. In addition, If several users are copying large multimedia files to the Disk Station DS-207 at the same time, file service performance may slow.
The Synology Disk Station DS-207 provides file service and the ability to stream multimedia content 24 hours a day with very little energy usage. The hibernation feature allows the hard drives to spin down and the unit only used 14 watts in this low power mode during these tests. The Disk Station DS-207 is ideal for light file sharing and streaming audio/video files to network users.
Pros
Supports two 3.5" SATA hard drives as JBOD, RAID 0 or RAID 1.
Shares files between OS 9 and OS X easily while OS X 10.4.9 does not.
Provides file, web and ftp network services.
32 maximum concurrent connections (SAMBA, FTP, AFP).
128 maximum user accounts.
Supports CIFS, AFP and FTP.
Supports iTunes and UPnP DMA clients.
Front Row is supported if the network volume is mounted.
Includes Photo Station 2 web software.
Provides Download Station support.
Excellent RAID 1 rebuilding capability.
Web Manager displays hard drive temperatures.
Supports hibernation mode for hard drives.
Quiet fan keeps hard drives cool.
SMTP support for email notification.
Postscript USB printer sharing feature.
PHP/MySQL support.
Excellent read performance.
Hard drive failure alarm.
Very low power usage.
Easy to install.
Small foot print.
Cons
USBbackup feature does not restore all server configurations.
USB recovery process can be slow.
iTunes Service does not support Front Row.
Multiple users with large file sharing demands may slow performance.
Documentation could be more detailed.
Disk Station DS-207 gets 4 AMUGs out of 5!
The Synology Disk Station DS-207 provides a high quality solution for adding streaming multimedia support, file service, photo sharing and web site capabilities to any computer network with minimal power consumption. The small size, quiet operation and the outstanding web configuration tool provided with the Disk Station DS-207 make it a pleasure to use. Music lovers will appreciate the built-in Disk Station DS-207 iTunes sharing feature. With a DS-207 installed on the network, there is no need to keep large music libraries on each computer. Just copy the music to the Disk Station DS-207 and it will stream the audio selections to all of the iTunes users on the network. The Photo Station 2 software also provides an excellent interface for sharing photos over the network using a web browser. The wide range of services provided by the Disk Station DS-207 will enhance any office or home computer network.
Contact Information:Sans Digital
10038 Pioneer Blvd.
Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670
Phone: (800) 980-1988
Fax: (562) 949-3328
http://www.sansdigital.com
sales@sansdigital.com
Copyright 2007
Arizona Macintosh Users Group, Inc. (AMUG). Visit AMUG at www.amug.org for news, discounts and friends. JOIN AMUG!