A Look Inside

It's time now to strip the NAS down to discover what components it hides inside.


Breaking this NAS apart was fairly straightforward; however, lots of screws and components had to be removed to take the mainboard out of the chassis.


The mainboard is small, but hosts all the necessary components for such a modern and strong NAS. A small aluminum heatsink takes care of the quad-core Atom CPU (C2538, Rangeley). Since its TDP is low (15W max), it is only cooled passively, which boosts reliability and reduces noise output.


The voltage regulator that handles the CPU's needs is an Intersil ISL95831. It supports up to four phases (3+1).


The solder side of the mainboard is almost completely devoid of any components.


The mainboard has two PCIe slots. The card with all the SATA ports is attached to the bigger of the two. The other, smaller PCIe slot holds the card with two eSATA connectors.


The card with eSATA connectors also houses both fan headers.


The SATA card is powered by two connectors, and Chemi-Con polymer and some Sanyo (Os-Con) caps filter the input voltage.


The single SO-DIMM slot is occupied by 2 GB of DDR3 1600 RAM. Its chips are by Samsung, and their model number is K4B2G0846Q. As has already been stated, Synology should install a 4 GB DIMM into the slot instead since it is very difficult for the average user to access should an upgrade to 8 GB (2x 4 GB) be necessary. The empty RAM slot on the mainboard's solder side, on the other hand, is easily accessible.


The flash memory shown above only contains the part of the DSM operating system used to boot up the system. The rest part of the OS is installed on the HDDs. The first of the photographs above also includes the BIOS battery.


Next to the flash memory is an Altera Complex Programmable Logic Device or CPLD in short (MAX II EPM240T100C5N).


The clock IC is an IDT VRS4420DL.


All four Gigabit Ethernet transceiver are provided by Marvell (Alaska 88E1543); these also support port trunking and Jumbo frames.


A Silicon Image Sil3132, single-lane PCI-Express to dual-port Serial ATA (SATA) II host controller is soldered to the mainboard. Next to it are a 39VF01070-4C-W multipurpose flash chip with a capacity of 1 Mbit and an ICS 9DB403DGLF four output differential buffer.


There is another Silicon Image Sil3132 controller right between both PCIe slots.


The mainboard only uses Japanese capacitors from Chemi-Con and FPCAP.


The USB 3.0 controller is an EtronTech EJ188H.


The PSU is by Delta Electronics, the largest and probably best PSU OEM today. Its model number is DPS-250AB, and it can provide up to 240 W of power on its main rails (+12V, 5V and 3.3V), which is a lot for this NAS. The 80 PLUS organization says this PSU to meet 80 PLUS requirements, so it will also save you some money on your electricity bills, although the standard 80 PLUS certification isn't much to go by nowadays. The DPS-250AB exploits a small 40 mm fan that is very quiet under normal conditions.


The two fans are provided by Y.S. Tech, and their model number is KM121225LL (120 mm, 12 V, 0.33 A, 2000 RPM, 61.2 CFM, 31.5 dBA). These utilize ball-bearings for a lifetime of roughly 60,000 hours. Both fans have conveniently been attached to a bracket, so you will only have to remove four screws to take both out of the chassis should you need to replace them.