A Look Inside

Taking apart the DS718+ is not that difficult, but you will have to remove lots of screws, so make sure to take plenty of photos before you do so or you might not know which screw goes where. Thankfully, you won't have to completely take the NAS apart in order to expand its memory. Once you remove the trays, the empty RAM slot is easily accessible.


Here is the NAS in pieces, while the second photo shows all the screws we removed. Thankfully, there was only one left after we had put everything back together.


The mainboard is tiny, and the Intel Celeron J3455 is passively cooled due to its low TDP of 10 W.


A T650942A0 power-management integrated chip (PMIC) supports the Intel SoC.


The rear side of the main PCB is empty. The most significant part there is a Winbond 25Q128FWSQ serial flash memory module.


One RAM slots is occupied by a 2 GB DDR3L SO-DIMM, and there is another empty slot for up to 4 GB SO-DIMMs. Should you replace both SO-DIMMs, keep in mind that the SOC supports a maximum of 8 GB. If you decide to keep the original RAM module, you can have up to 6 GB.


A Marvell 88SE9170 NNX2 controller is installed on the mainboard. It can handle up to two SATA devices.


The flash memory shown above only contains the part of the DSM operating system used to boot up the system.


The mainboard's buzzer is close to the board that hold's the flash memory.


An Altera 5M80ZE645N Complex Programmable Logic Device, or CPLD for short, stores the server's configuration.


A number of AP4435GM FETs are used by the mainboard's DC-DC converters. We also spotted a single AP4410GM. Finally, the filtering caps on the mainboard are Chemi-Con polymers, so their quality is high. We would hate to see anything of lower quality in a product that is supposed to work around the clock.


The two USB 3.0 ports in the rear are controlled by an EtronTech EJ168A. We also discovered an eSATA port on the same board; it allows the NAS to be connected to an expansion unit (DX513) for more storage capacity. The same exact board is also used in the DS918+.


Two Intel WGI211AT (I211) Intel Ethernet controllers handle the Ethernet ports.


This is the SATA expansion card.


The cooling fan is by Y.S Tech, and its model number is FD129225LL-N (92 mm, 12 V, 0.12 A, 1900 RPM, 36.3 CFM). Its speed is kept low for as long as the unit operates normally, which means noise output is low. According to Y.S Tech, this fan uses a Sintetico bearing, which looks to be of high quality.