Exterior

At the face, the NAS has a glossy cover a thin plastic film protects. Behind it are the HDD trays.


There are LED indicators, a USB 3.0 port, and the power switch at the front.


Some dots on top of the trays are used to number them. However, the trays themselves aren't numbered, which won't matter as you won't have to put them back in the same order to have the NAS operate properly.


Acting as an exhaust grille, Synology's logo has been punched into one of two sides.


At the bottom are four rubber feet.


Two 92mm diameter fans move hot air out of the server's internals and occupy most of the real estate in the rear. There are also two Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a Kensington lock, and the reset switch Synology recessed into the chassis for obvious reasons.


We removed the trays to take some photos of the HDD compartment.


Seagate equipped our test sample with four HDDs, and we are grateful, but will use our own Seagate disks in order to produce results that are comparable to those of previous NAS reviews.


The trays are made of plastic and their quality isn't good enough for this category. The lack of any sound-absorbing material is also a big mistake. In a business environment, lockable trays are also preferable.