A Look Inside

You have to deal with many screws to fully disassemble the NAS, but the whole procedure is straightforward.


The chassis is made out of metal, of course.


For a change, let's start our internal analysis with the cooling fans. These can easily be removed without taking out the one-piece top and side cover since the fans have conveniently been attached to a bracket. As you can see in the photos above, two 120 mm fans by Y.S. Tech are used, and their model number is KM121225LL (120 mm, 12 V, 0.33 A, 2000 RPM, 61.2 CFM, 31.5 dBA). These fans utilize ball bearings for a lifetime of roughly 60,000 hours.


The mainboard is small, and its SoC is passively cooled. There is no need for a beefy heatsink since the TDP of the Atom processor is only 15 W.


The backside of the PCB has a pair of RAM slots, of which only one is populated.


This is the mainboard's ATX connector.


This is the battery that keeps the BIOS alive.


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


This is an Altera Complex Programmable Logic Device (MAX V 5M240ZT100C5N).


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


This is a Marvell 88SE9235-NAA2 SATA controller; it can handle up to four SATA ports.


One of the PCIe slots is being used by the SATA expansion card, while the other is empty; it could be used for any of Synology's optional expansion cards, including the M2D18 M.2 adapter.


One of the USB 3.0 ports is provided this way.


A Realtek RTS 5411 USB 3.0 Hub controller.


The server's Serial Flash memory.


We again removed the trays to provide you with a clear view of the SATA expansion card. There was no point in fully removing the latter because all components are easily identified without doing so.


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 (+12 V, 5 V and 3.3 V), 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.