[section_title title=”Performance and Testing”]
Performance and Testing
We will now venture onto the performance and general testing of the DS216se by Synology to see how it works in a physical working environment because, as we all know, specifications dealt with by manufacturers are nothing until proven by real-world testing. We would like to note that the details performed on this NAS, like the others we have and will be reviewing, will be used as a guideline to approximate the level of performance comparability across the board. Your results may differ and please be aware that due to mass discrepancies with all networks, speeds may not be accurate so use the details we provide you as a level figure to compare with other devices we will or have reviewed.
To begin with, we will detail specifically how we set up our test environment and the configurations we will run through.
NAS Configuration – On the cards for this two bay NAS was a RAID configuration of 0, 1 and Just a Bunch Of Disks (JBOD). Each of these set ups are ideal for data storage and general back up but are the only options available for using just two disks.
Software –  The software we will be using is the industry standard Intel NAS Performance Toolkit – Exercise application that will be sending data to a set share file on Volume 1, our primary and only volume set up on the device. While the use of multiple volumes makes for a better set up for mass user data dumps, we will be sticking to just the one for now to keep everything basic.
Hardware – We will be using a workstation for testing this NAS. The set up includes an i7-4770K @ 5.0GHz, MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC (Killer Networking port) , 16gb of RAM, SSD for storage and boot, HDD for mass storage and Titan X.
Network Topology – Network wise, we set up the RAID array when connected to the network and disconnected, hard wiring the NAS to our test PC for actual testing. This allowed for the array to be set up when needed then standalone testing between the device and machine to be used for test purposes to remove any network based discrepancies.
Drives – The drives we are using, as previously stated, are twin 5400 RPM WD Red NAS 6tb Hard Disk Drives and set up as per the RAID configuration stated. Both Hard Disk Drives were provided to us by WD and a full review can be found here.
So after rigorous testing across a large number of application tests on offer by Intel’s tools and the different RAID configurations, we have collectively gathered all the relevant data we received. For your convenience, the information can be found on the next few pages of this review and details specifically what each performed actually was.
