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Unlike previous Synology products we've reviewed, the DS508 has quick-release drive bays, which makes it a lot easier and quicker to install disks. They're hot-swappable, too, which means you can add disks for extra capacity, or remove and replaceme failed disks. Naturally, this only works if you've configured the disks in a RAID 5.

The DS508 is the most powerful Diskstation in Synology's range. It has an 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM, which undoubtedly helps when managing the maximum of ten IP cameras (see below). Cooling everything are two 60mm fans; they're not too noisy, but this isn't the quietest NAS we've reviewed.

Around the back you'll find two USB ports for external disks, a UPS or a single printer, plus there's an eSATA port for connecting the latest external hard disks. Conveniently, the power supply is built in, so there's no unsightly black brick to find a home for. You'll also find not one but two gigabit Ethernet ports for access from two subnets simultaneously or the same subnet with two different IP addresses. In a future firmware update, Synology has also promised failover (where both ports are connected to the same network in case one port should fail) and teaming (where both network ports are used together to increase the available bandwidth).

One of the main criticisms we've levelled at NAS products in the past is poor file transfer speeds, but the DS508 is by far the fastest we've seen. Most people will configure the DS508 using all five disks in a RAID 5 since this provides extra performance of striping as well as the security of each disk holding parity information. You can, of course, create multiple RAID 0 or RAID 1 volumes, if you prefer. There's also the option to use each disk individually, with no RAID.

With all five disks in a RAID 0, the DS508 wrote large files at 40.4MB/s and read them at an astonishing 53MB/sec. These speeds became 34.7MB/s and 50.1MB/sec respectively when using RAID 5. Small-file transfers were slow, though, at around 1MB/s for writes and under 3MB/s for reads in both configurations. Bear in mind that our 100MB of small test files is mainly made up of documents which are just a few kilobytes, so you can expect faster speeds when copying larger files like photos or MP3s.

DISKSTATION MANAGER 2.0

Managing the DS508 is easy thanks to the new AJAX-based interface, which is now available to download for all Synology Diskstations. It has more features than we've ever seen on a NAS device and supports everything that business users need, including Windows ADS, Samba, FTP and AFP support, which makes it easy to share files between PCs and Macs. You can create up to 2,048 individual user accounts, 256 groups and have up to 128 concurrent connections. It's easy to set storage limits for users and give read or write permissions to shared folders.

There's much more, too, including secure FTP, a web server with PHP and MySQL, HTTP file access and both UPnP and iTunes media servers. A particularly

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useful new feature is the ability to schedule on and off times, which should save you money.

The brand new Surveillance Station is also noteworthy as it's a respectable application in its own right. It lets the DS508 act as a network video recorder for up to ten IP cameras, and you can find a full list of supported cameras on Synology's website. Each camera has to be manually configured, but you have full control over resolution (up to 640 x 480) and quality.

Surveillance Station supports motion detection and you can set specific areas in the camera's view to monitor. It's simple to schedule either continuous or motion detection recording by highlighting blocks of time on the timeline. Then, you can go to the event viewer to watch recorded video - this is surprisingly fast to use. Of course, if you want to watch live feeds, you can easily do this on a LAN or remotely by forwarding port 9000 on your router.

Backup is well catered for. Synology bundles Data Replicator 3 for backing up files and folders on network computers to the Diskstation, but the Diskstation can back itself up onto an external hard disk or another Diskstation on the network. Backups are encrypted for security. There's even third-party support for Acronis, Symantec, EMC and LaCie backup packages.

Another handy application, although not necessarily for business, is a BitTorrent Download Station. This client allows you to redirect downloads to the DS508 rather than leaving a PC on. There's full bandwidth control and you can change the range of ports is uses.

Finally, there's Photo Station 3, which lets you host your photos and videos so they can be viewed remotely over the internet. As you'd expect, you can create user accounts with passwords to prevent anyone else from seeing your media. JPEG and BMP photos are supported, while AVI, MPEG1, MPEG4, WMV, DivX, XviD files can be streamed. Performance will depend on the upload speed of your internet connection.

For enthusiasts who want to use the DS508 at home, the UPnP server now has full Xbox 360 and PS3 support, so you can store music, photos and videos on the Diskstation and access them easily through your console.

CONCLUSION

At this price, the DS508 begins to tread on the toes of entry-level Windows 2003 servers, and don't forget that it doesn't include any hard disks. However, it does a lot more than these servers, supports five disks and has dual LAN ports. Add Synology's great customer support and thriving community, and you can be sure that the firmware will continually be upgraded and new features added in the future. The huge array of features - particularly Surveillance Station - and the superb large-file performance mean it's well worth the outlay.

NETWORK ATTACHED STORAGE 2x 10/100/1,000Mbit/s network connections, 512MB RAM, three USB ports, eSATA port, FTP server, print server, web server, HTTP file server, UPnP media server, iTunes server, network video recorder, takes up to five 1TB 3in SATA hard disks, 203x242x177mm, two-year return-to-base warranty. Power consumption 55W on
DETAILS: www.synology.com

PERFORMANCE

RAID0
Large write 40.44MB/s
Large read 53.17MB/s
Small write 1.1MB/s
Small read 2.85MB/s

RAID1
Large write 26.05MB/s
Large read 41MB/s
Small write 3.18MB/s
Small read 2.38MB/s

RAID5
Large write 34.71MB/s
Large read 50.91MB/s
Small write 1.29MB/s
Small read 2.73MB/s