Testing:

The Synology DS213j was evaluated for network transfer rates and energy efficiency. As mentioned earlier the review model was fitted with two Seagate Barracuda 1TB drives (model # ST1000DM003) in a RAID-1 configuration. On the network side of things the DiskStation was plugged into a Gigabit switch/router configuration comprising of category 6 network cables. All network controllers were capable of Gigabit transfers. Data transfers were timed with a stopwatch and then the file size was divided by the elapsed time to calculate average transfer rates. The test PC used to send and receive the test files utilizes a 120GB SSD to ensure the test PC would not bottleneck the transfer speeds.

To see Synology's summary of transfer rates for their devices, please navigate here.

Two types of file transfers were conducted - large file and small file - and the read and write results are listed below. Small file transfers consisted of sending a 4.3GB collection consisting of just over 1,100 MP3 files to and from the Synology DS213j. Large file transfers consisted of sending a single 4.3GB MKV movie file to and from the Synology device.

Large file transfer results:

Transferring large files tends to be quicker than smaller files, and this trend was observed with the Synology DS213j. The chart below highlights the average large file transfer speeds of the DS213j with 2x Seagate 1TB drives installed in a RAID-1 configuration. The Synology website shows 110MB/s reads and 70MB/s writes are possible with the DS213j. Write performance matches the advertised values but read speeds were down substantially. Repeated tests could not improve performance even when adjusting MTUs and even when configuring jumbo frames.



Small file transfer results:

Synology rates maximum transfer speeds for smaller files at 61MB/s read and 38MB/s write. Actual performance measured came in at 36MB/s for both read and write performance. Once again we showed the DS213j transfers close to spec in terms of write performance however read performance surprisingly lagged behind.