A few weeks back, we had the launch of the DS1513+ 5-bay NAS from Synology. Today, we have the follow-up product in the 8-bay DS1813+. Similar to the DS1513+, we have four GbE ports in the new unit. The base platform remains the same (a 2.13 GHz Atom D2700 CPU and 2 GB of RAM, with the memory being upgradable to 3 GB 4 GB).

Gallery: Synology DS1813+

With all four links aggregated, Synology claims up to 350 MBps reads and 200 MBps writes. This is the same as what was claimed for the DS1513+. Other features available in the DS1513+ (such as Synology High Availability, screwless drive bays etc.) are also available in this new unit.

The total capacity can be extended from 8-bays to 18-bays using two DX513 expansion units. This unit is quite attractive to consumers looking for a 8-bay unit, with the only obvious issue being lackluster encryption performance (the Atom D2700 doesn't have the AES-NI feature to accelerate encrypted volume performance).

The unit is now shipping globally, though availability may vary by region. Going by what the DS1812+ was launched at, this unit can be expected to cost slightly north of $1000.