A Look Inside

It didn't take us long to fully dismantle the NAS since we have lots of experience when it comes to taking apart Synology products. However, the whole procedure can be tricky for many because a good amount of force needs to be applied to remove the covers.


If you are not careful or apply too much force, you can easily break the plastic clips that hold together this two-part chassis.


The mainboard is very small, and the Pentium N3710 CPU is passively cooled thanks to its low TDP of 6 W; it definitely doesn't have to be cooled actively.


The power management IC that control's the CPU's power phases is an IDT P9165. Among others, this IC also includes five integrated, synchronous step-down DC-DC regulators and eleven LDO (Low Drop Out) regulators. We also spotted an IDT P9148 which is probably used for the same purpose, working in parallel with the P9165.


The only components that drew our attention on the solder side of the mainboard are the two Ethernet controllers and the PCIe slots; one is occupied by an SATA expansion board while the other holds a card for the USB 3.0 and eSATA ports.


The RAM slot is occupied by a single DIMM featuring Samsung DDR3 memory chips (K4B4G0846D-XYK0). The voltage regulator that controls its power circuit is a RichTech RT9199.


A Marvell 88SE9215-NAA2 controller is installed on the mainboard. It can handle up to four SATA devices.


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


An Altera 5M80Z Complex Programmable Logic Device, or CPLD for short, stores the server's configuration.


We found several AP4435GM FETs on the mainboard, which are used by the DC-DC converters that feed various parts with power.


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 DS416, where the eSATA port is covered by the chassis to prevent upgrading this server's capacity through a Synology expansion unit. Synology most likely didn't want to create any internal competition, which meant the DS416's eSATA port had to be removed. Synology apparently only wants to provide the option of adding an expansion unit to their high-end products.


We spotted a PIC16F1829 8-bit micro controller on the mainboard.


Here is a Macronix MX25U6435F Serial Flash module.


A pair of Intel WGI211AT (I211) Intel Ethernet controllers handle the Ethernet ports.


Only high quality polymer caps, provided by Chemi-Con, are used on the mainboard. This is definitely a good sign for this unit's reliability.


The HDD cage holds the NAS server's SATA expansion board.


The two fans are by Y.S Tech, and their model number is FD129225LL-N (92mm, 12V, 0.12A, 1900RPM, 36.3CFM). Their speed is kept low for as long as the unit operates normally, which keeps noise output quite low. According to Y.S Tech, the fans use Sintetico bearings, which look to be of high quality. Y.S Tech says this bearing type to last much longer than a sleeve bearing.