Synology DS620slim Gigabit NAS Review - Introduction

Synology DS620slim
Feeding your NAS SSDs offering an even better server

Synology is going on a diet as they now offer a NAS series that holds 2.5" storage units only, and you know what that means. Yes, the SSD revolution is slowly progressing towards the NAS segment as well. Powered with an Intel Celeron dual-core 2.0 GHz (2.5 GHz boost) this NAS is to set to deliver on the 4K media front as the new is looking to be offering to be an excellent Plex transcoder.

This DiskStation has been fitted with a Celeron J3455 dual-core processor. These puppies have a base clock at 2.0 GHz that can turbo to 2.5 GHz. Onboard you will find a ddr3l memory modules at 2 GB (expandable up to 6 GB). Synology provides the device with 6 x 2.5” SATA slots that you can populate with HDD/SSDs of your choice. Obviously, as NAND storage memory is getting cheaper and now below 10 cents per GB, the NAS is aimed at that as it offers super-fast IO on that storage unit with very energy-friendly power consumption as our tested unit with two SSDs consumed merely 10 Watts on average.

Even with a dual-core processor, this DS620slim can be an excellent media NAS, as it allows to encode/decode and transcode h264 and h265 via the Video Station and DS video, and here's the kicker as that includes 4k streams. According to Synology, this enabled 4k videos to be converted and played on computers and media players that otherwise do not support Ultra HD formats. It's all thanks to the SoC from intel, which can hardware accelerate that over its integrated graphics processor. However, this is a NAS back to its roots, a proper file (streaming) server with a wide application suite making this a server for all your common needs as well.

Synology fitted the NAS whilst offering a wide range of features including file-sharing, Usenet download, web applications, download systems, security center and so on. Yes, years ago a NAS unit had the sole function to serve files. These days however they have become easy to manage servers with selectable applications you can install. Combined with the right amount of security and options a NAS can be a very powerful solution for your LAN or SOHO environment. Today's tested model NAS unit has five HDD bays (hot-swappable) that are Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR), Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10 compatible. It offers 2x full-duplex Gigabit Ethernet jacks, but unfortunately lacks a 2.5/5/10 Gigabit Ethernet jack. It also comes with two USB 3.1 (Gen 1) connectors. As mentioned, power consumption with two SSD storage units sits at roughly 10 Watts. So this NAS might be a terrific low power option while providing a small server in features. 

The company is aming this NAS at higher-end home users and small businesses with a price (without drives) of $479,- and € 496,- Have a peek at the product and then we'll dive a little deeper into the review.