Review of the Synology DiskStation DS409slim NAS

General Specifications

Networking Protocols

• CIFS
• AFP
• FTP
• iSCSI
• Telnet
• SSH
• NFS
• SNMP

File System

• EXT3
• FAT32 (External Disk Only)⁸
• NTFS (External Disk Only)⁸

Volume Management

• Synology Hybrid RAID
• iSCSI Target (Max size: 16TB):10
• Volume Type: Basic, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare, RAID 6, RAID 10
• RAID Migration: from Basic to RAID 1, Basic to RAID 5, Basic to RAID 5+Spare, RAID 1 to RAID 5, RAID 1 to RAID 5+Spare, RAID 5 to RAID 5+Spare, RAID 5 to RAID 6
• Expand RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5+Spare or RAID 6 with Larger Hard Drives
• Expand RAID 5 by Adding a Hard Drive On The Fly

File Sharing Capability

• Max User Accounts: 1,024
• Max Groups: 128
• Max Shared Folder: 256
• Max Concurrent Connections(SAMBA, FTP, AFP): 64

Windows ADS Domain Integration

• Domain Users login via Samba/AFP/FTP/File Station

Backup Solutions

• Network Backup
• Local Backup
• Computer Backup
• Time Machine Backup (Mac)
• USBCopy

Security

• FTP over SSL/TLS
• IP Auto-Block
• Firewall
• Encrypted Network Backup over Rsync
• HTTPS Connection

WHATS IN THE BOX

The box itself is fairly small, containing within it the DS409slim, power supply, Ethernet cable, a stand for the DS409slim, a CD and a small manual.

ADDING A DRIVE TO THE DS409SLIM

The drive bays on the DS409slim just pull out.

Fitting a drive is fairly straight forward, you just remove the bay, put the drive in it, turn it upside down and screw the drive in place. Then you just slide the bay back into the DS409slim.

INSTALLATION

Performing the initial installation is very simple, in fact it is just a case of popping the CD into a drive on your computer, and running through the steps. Just remember that you will be warned that any data on the disks you are using will be deleted – so make sure you have copied off anything you might want to keep.

For those of you interested in the usual screenshots, see below:

And that’s it!