A Look Inside

It's time now to strip this NAS down to discover what components are hidden inside. Taking apart the N2310 is fairly easy, but there is a catch: You not only have to remove the screws at the back as there are also two well-hidden screws underneath its rubber feet at the front. Remove all of these and you can take the plastic bezel out by tugging at it gently. Now apply some pressure toward its solid top and both sides to remove the cover. We, strangely enough, didn't see any warranty stickers.


The parts of the plastic enclosure in all their glory.


The mainboard is really small but very densely populated, though most of the components it uses are integrated into the SoC.


The battery for the BIOS is installed on the solder side of the mainboard.


The metal cage holding the HDD rails and the PCIe expansion card with its SATA connectors.


An Applied Micro APM86491 SoC is the brains of this NAS. It can support up to two USB 3.0 ports (there is, however, only one in the N2310), two PCI Express Gen 2 ports, up to two SATAII ports, and two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports. The Catalina APM86491 PowerPC 465 core features a floating point unit, 32KB L1 I-cache, 32KB D-cache, and 256 KB L2 cache, and its TDP is so low that it doesn't even need a passive heatsink to keep cool.


A couple Samsung FGBA K4B2G1646E-BCK0 DDR3 RAM ICs are soldered to the board. Their combined capacity is 512 MB. The same ICs are also used in the Synology DS214Play we have reviewed recently.


The single PCIe slot of the mainboard on which the SATA expansion card is installed.


A Realtek RTL8211E gigabit Ethernet controller and the Micron 2Gb x8 ECC NAND Flash Memory the APM86491 SoC uses.


Two of the VRMs (Voltage Regulation Modules) that feed the mainboard's components. The first uses a Fitipower FR9806 step-down DC/DC converter with up to 3 A continuous current output, and the second uses an FR9809 that can deliver up to 5 A current.


The buzzer is next to the fan header, and there are two polymer caps by Nichicon in the same area.


We spotted this IC on the solder side of the main PCB. It is a TI LVC14A HEX Schmitt-Trigger. An active circuit that converts an analog input signal into a digital output signal, it is called a "trigger" because its output retains its value until the input changes sufficiently to trigger a change. You can read more about it here.


The cooling fan is by ADDA, and its model number is AG06012DB159000 (12 V, 60 mm diameter, 0.07 A). It uses double ball-bearings and is a low-speed fan. It isn't noisy while operating normally but picks up in noise at close to full speed.