The DS415+ is essentially succeeds the DS412+ I reviewed almost two and a half years ago. According to the performance chart on the previous page, the upgrades are noticeable and the gain in performance is huge. Synology did a great job with this product, and a lot of praise should also go to the incredibly efficient and well-performing Rangeley processor for its blazing fast network transfer speeds. Supplied with proper HDDs, this NAS will easily cover the needs of a small business environment or those of an enthusiast user. The only downside of the DS415+ might be the lack of a hardware-transcoding engine as its C2358 CPU doesn't come with one, which could have it struggle with 1080p content; however, transcoding anything with upward of 720p won't be a problem. If you need a more media-centric NAS, you should look at the DS415play or the DS215play as those are the only Synology servers that support 1080p video transcoding.

The DS415+ easily took the lead from among the high-end competition in network transfer speeds and also offers a very silent operation. Its fans didn't increase their speed, which goes to show that they can easily handle the thermal load. However, note that I used small capacity disks with a cooler operation than bigger ones. Should you prefer lower HDD temperatures instead of keeping noise as low as possible, you can opt to select the "cool" fan profile from within DSM instead. It didn't really make a difference in my particular case. The tool-less installation of drives also left a very good impression on me. This is surely a nice feature, although most users probably won't bother to detach or change drives after installing them. Speaking of the trays, I expected them to be made of metal since we are talking about a $600 NAS, after all. These trays should also come with locks since this is a NAS for business environments. Last but not least, I think the Rangley CPU is the DS415+'s biggest asset. The C2538 might not include QuickAssist support, but it does incorporate an AES-NI hardware-encryption engine for fast network speeds even with encrypted data.

To conclude, the DS415+ is an amazing product with only minor faults (e.g. the front USB 2.0 port instead of a USB 3.0 one, the lack of HDMI connectivity, and the non-upgradeable RAM). It consumes very little power, provides very fast network speeds, and DSM 5.1 is simply awesome! Synology did a very good job in terms of the software as this NAS won't even give inexperienced users cause to struggle while providing experienced administrators with tons of functions and abilities. As a home user, I would very much like Synology start bundling HDMI ports with their offerings. Having asked them at an exhibition, I know first hand that they prefer media streaming, but providing an HDMI port isn't all that difficult or expensive, and many a user would surely like to connect their NAS directly to the TV. Don't get me wrong: An HDMI port isn't crucial since such SMB NAS servers don't focus on media content; however, I am pretty sure no one would complain if there were one.