The DiskStation DS1515 is aimed at home users besides as pocket-size businesses. Out of the box this NAS can handle five 3.5" difficult drives, giving it a maximum capacity of 40TB using the latest 8TB drives, while the addition of two DX513 expansion units boosts capacity to a whopping 120TB.

Synology'southward DSx15 series began rolling out most a year agone at present with initial models including the affordable DS415play, a multimedia NAS designed to allow home users to centralize their videos, photos, and music in one identify. The DS415play was built around Intel's Atom CE5335 and to date the majority of the DSx15 series has an Atom SoC inside -- the DS415+, DS1515+ and DS1815+ for instance all feature the Atom C2538.

Going confronting that trend was the DS2015xs, announced late final year and equipped with a high-end ARM processor from Annapurna Labs. The quad-cadre Cortex-A15 clocked at 1.7GHz was a beast, delivering the best SoC performance nosotros've seen.

As a large calibration business NAS, the DS2015xs was priced at $1,500, a sum few home users could justify. Granted, that corporeality of cash buys a capable Annapurna Labs quad-core SoC, 2GB of DDR3 retentiveness, five bays, dual USB 3.0 and eSATA along with quad 1GbE LAN supporting Link Aggregation and Failover.

For around the same price there are other alternatives such equally the Seagate STDF100 ($600), Asustor As-604T ($600) and QNAP TS-651 ($550 1GB or $700 4GB) and the TS-653 Pro ($770).

That territory is also now home to Synology's latest DiskStation, the DS1515, which we have in-house for review. Powered by an Annapurna Labs Alpine AL-314 quad-core SoC, we are bang-up to see how well the DS1515 performs, particularly compared to its closest rival, the QNAP TS-651, which nosotros've already benchmarked.

From what nosotros can see on paper, information technology looks similar the DS1515 is trying to bring DS2015xs-like operation to home users at $650 versus $1,500.

DiskStation DS1515

The DS1515 is based on the aforementioned blueprint ushered in by the DS1513+ back in May of 2022, which was in itself similar to the older DS1512+ model as well as the DS1010+ before it. Unsurprisingly then, the DS1515 has the aforementioned dimensions and weight as previous models, measuring 233mm long, 248mm wide, and 157mm tall equally well as being just equally heavy at 4.15kg -- a figure that'll climb equally you add storage. The front has five hot-swappable drive bays, each with their own lock and green activity lite at the top.

Synology has integrated a pocket-sized key hole into the bottom of each drive tray that lets you lock individual drives. This implementation is more attractive than you'll discover on other NAS devices.

Once unlocked, the bays release with a simple press. Sliding drives in and out of the DS1515 is a cakewalk. Ameliorate still is the tool-less pattern that allows for the installation of hard drives in seconds without using a screwdriver or screws. This was i of our favorite design improvements of the previous DS1513+.

Directly above the hot-swappable drive bays are half-dozen more than activity LEDs that indicate status, LAN1, LAN2, LAN3, LAN4 and alarm. There is likewise a bright blue LED integrated into the power button which indicates that the unit is active.

Spinning around to the back reveals a pair of 80mm fans, quad Gigabit LAN ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two eSATA ports for connecting upward to two DX513 units and a 3-pin power connector.

Synology has upgraded the cooling of the DS1513+ to include detachable fans and this characteristic has been carried on to the DS1515, which should go far easier to clean or supercede if they neglect.

As mentioned, the eSATA ports can be used to connect the DS1515 to one or two DX513 expansion enclosures, adding up to 10 more trophy to the base configuration. The four Gigabit LAN ports are used to achieve the claimed 403.77MB/southward read and 421.85MB/s write performance.

They practise this past using Link Aggregation engineering science, which allows grouping several physical Ethernet links to create one logical Ethernet link for the purpose of providing fault-tolerance and high-speed links between switches, routers, servers and in this case, the Synology DS1515.

Each individual PC will still exist express to a single Gigabit Ethernet connection, simply it means 4 users can simultaneously achieve maximum bandwidth to the DS1515, assuming it is fast enough (which information technology isn't given the claimed speeds).

Whereas models such as the DS415play feature forepart panel connectivity, Synology tends to exclude this feature on their more expensive models for whatsoever reason. This is the case with the DS1515, which features no form of front end panel connectivity. This means quick copying from external media must exist done from the rear of the unit, a potential inconvenience for some users.