Packaging and Accesories:

Many of the things we will see with the DS415play are nearly identical copies of what we saw with the recently reviewed DS414j. The packaging and accessories is one such area, but we will quickly roll through what you get with the purchase of this NAS server. The whole kit shipped double boxed in rather plain cardboard boxes. The outer box was completely blank except for the shipping label, while the inner box featured a few Synology / Diskstation logos. Inside the box, the NAS server and its accessories were well packed inside a form fitting foam frame that kept everything safe as it travelled cross country to reach me.



For additional protection, the DS415play was wrapped in a thin foam bag before being placed in the center of the foam frame. The accessories were all found in two small cardboard boxes tucked in between the NAS server and the side of the larger box. The below right image shows everything that you receive, which includes: a quick installation guide, a bag of screws, a CAT5e network cable, and a 2-piece AC/DC power adaptor. As we will see later in the review, the installation of 3.5" hard drives is a completely tool-less process, so the provided screws would only be necessary if you happened to be using 2.5" HDDs or SSDs.



The Basics:

While we covered a few of the hardware related differences between the DS414j and the DS415play on the first page, another big one will jump out at you as soon as you see the DS415play out of the box. While the DS414j required the removal of screws to open the back of the housing (4 screws total), screws to attach the drive rails to the housing (2 screws per drive rail), and more screws to attach the drives to the rails (4 screws per drive) - the DS415play is completely tool-less. The large, glossy black panel seen on the front of the enclosure simply pops off, revealing access to the drives inside. Other features on the front of the device include a system status LED, a status LED for each of the four drive bays, a USB 2.0 port, and a power button with integrated LED status light.



While the device features a variety of finishes, every surface is black. As seen above, the front of the device has the large glossy area, with a matte finish found around the buttons and LEDs. As shown below, the sides of the DS415play feature a matte finish with the Synology logo punched through the panels to allow for some ventilation.