Synology Disk Station DS1621+

The Synology DiskStation DS1621+ is a compact, power-driven NAS designed to give smaller businesses an effective way to store and protect their important data. This 6-bay NAS solution features an AMD Ryzen CPU and two M.2 2280 slots for NVMe Cache to highlight its focus on performance. It also can be equipped with two DX517 expansion units, which allows users to expand as their data requirements grow with up to 16 drives for a maximum capacity of 108TB.

Performance-wise, Synology quotes around 2.3GB/s read and 1.13GB/s write in sequential speeds using (when using Aggregated 10GbE SMB), while random speeds are expected to reach up to 110,000 IOPS read and 55,000 IOPS write (when using 10GbE iSCSI). To help achieve these speeds, the DS1621+ comes equipped with an AMD Ryzen V1500B 4-core 64-bit CPU at 2.2 GHz, which features Hardware Encryption Engine (AES-NI). When enabled, speeds will slow down a bit due to the encryption process. The DS1621+ also can be outfitted with up to 32GB DDR4 ECC SODIMM RAM (though only 4GB comes standard).

For connectivity, the Synology NAS is equipped with four RJ-45 1GbE LAN ports, three USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and two eSATA ports. If organizations need to more, they can build on the functionality of the DS1621+ via its PCIe Gen3 x8 slot (x4 link). This allows them to add components like a 10GbE network adapter card or another M.2 NVMe drive slot to significantly boost performance.

The DS1621 line also comes in an xs model. One of the major differences between the two units is the CPU, as the DS1621xs+ is equipped with an Intel Xeon D-1527 4-core 2.2GHz (Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz) compared to the DS1621+’s AMD CPU mentioned above. The DS1621xs+ also comes equipped with a 10GbE port, while the DS1621+ only features 1GbE. In addition, the base xs model comes with 8GB of RAM versus the 4GB of the DS1621+ (though both can be expanded up to 32GB) and has a larger maximum single volume size of 200 TB (this build requires 32GB of RAM and works with RAID 5 or RAID 6 groups only). These differences make the DS1621+ the much more affordable one of the two.

Like all Synology devices, the DS1621+ features the highly versatile Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM). This NAS operating system manages all aspects of the device and provides users with a range of applications to fit virtually any need or use case. For example, the Central Management System allows organizations to manage all their Synology NAS devices from a centralized console, while Synology High Availability provides a smooth transition between clusters servers when an unexpected failure occurs.