SYNOLOGY SA3400 NAS – review

The world of NAS is huge. We have talked a lot about those that are intended for home environments, or for small companies and associations that simply want something simple to store their personal data or their website. With Synology it is different, because are more focused on business, and the SA3400 NAS is proof of that.

With a huge size, and weighing more than 14 kilos, it is seen that it is not one that you can keep on a shelf in the living room at home, because you will need your own rack compartment so that you are safe. It is one of the many pieces that make up the entire system of the IT department of a company that moves a lot of data on a daily basis, that has its website, and especially in recent years, that has to allow access to workers who work from House.

All this in constant operation. It is not something that is accessed through a simple mobile app, or at least not for webmasters and system administrators. And it is not only the physical benefits that are paid for, but also access to an ecosystem of applications conceived and designed so that webmasters can accurately monitor the movements and status of the NAS. With this they get to know who has connected and how much, if there is an application that could be malware installed, or if one of the physical components requires urgent maintenance or has to be replaced.

There is also the design, highly modular and intended for scalability. A NAS is only the first piece of a network of storage systems and connections, and such a piece cannot be taken lightly.

We thank Synology for giving us the product for review.

Design

A NAS of this size requires the use of four dedicated fans. They are easily removable for maintenance and in the event that one needs to be replaced.

These fans point towards a nozzle that directs the airflow onto the main chipset of the Synology SA3400 NAS to ensure proper ventilation, especially of the capacitors.

Like the NAS on its own cannot physically store all 180 media, allows the entry of SAN devices through its Infinity Band port on the rear.

At the back we find its ventilation grille, and its most common series of rear ports. There's the COM port, four RJ-45 LAN ports, and two other 10Gb data transfer ports, and two USB 3,0.

To keep it always on, it takes the use of a redundant power supply. It will be necessary to connect it to two power sources, only for the NAS. In the event that we want to connect several SANs to it, we will need more.

But this food requirement is very normal in this range of products. As one of its uses is to store a website or allow remote workers to connect, and therefore needs to be constantly connected and safeguarded that if one of them fails, it will continue to be active.

Already input and base, we can use about 12 storage units in a distribution of 4 columns and 3 rows.

For a correct and safe handling, all these storage units come with a caddy to which Synoplogy has accustomed us. With this they continue to make it easy to remove the hard drives or SSD, and that during their stay in the NAS they have their fixed position already secured.

Available from four RAM memory modules. Since it does not use an Intel Core Alder Lake, it will be necessary to ensure that we are using the memory in DDR4 format.

Specifications

• CPU Model: Intel Xeon D-1541.
• 64-bit CPU architecture.
• CPU frequency 8-core 2.1 GHz (base) and 2.7 GHz (turbo).
• Hardware encryption engine (AES-NI).
• 16 GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM hardware memory.
• One 16 GB memory module pre-installed
• 4 total memory slots
• 128 GB maximum memory capacity, with up to four modules of up to 32 GB DDR4
• 12 drive bays
• 96 drive bays max. with expansion unit using RX1222sas or RX1217sas; or 180 Drive Enclosures max. with expansion unit seven RX2417sas
• Compatible with 3,5″ SAS hard drives, 2,5″ SAS hard drives, 2,5″ SAS SSDs, 3.5″ SATA hard drives, 2.5″ SATA hard drives, and 2.5″ SATA SSDs. XNUMX″.
• Hot swap drive.
• 4 RJ-45 1GbE LAN ports with Failover / Link Aggregation support.
• 2 RJ-45 10GbE LAN ports with Failover / Link Aggregation support.
• 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports.
• Expansion port.
• 2 clusters of 8 PCie Gen3 expansion ports.
• Compatible with Btrfs and EXT4 internal drives.
• Compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS+ and exFAT external drives.
• Form factor
• CPU Model: Intel Xeon D-1541.
• 64-bit CPU architecture.
• CPU frequency 8-core 2.1 GHz (base) and 2.7 GHz (turbo).
• Hardware encryption engine (AES-NI).
• 16 GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM hardware memory.
• A pre-installed 16 GB RAM memory module
• 4 total memory slots
• 128 GB maximum memory capacity, with up to four modules of up to 32 GB DDR4
• 12 drive bays
• 96 drive bays max. with expansion unit using RX1222sas or RX1217sas; or 180 Drive Enclosures max. with expansion unit seven RX2417sas
• Compatible with 3,5″ SAS hard drives, 2,5″ SAS hard drives, 2,5″ SAS SSDs, 3.5″ SATA hard drives, 2.5″ SATA hard drives, and 2.5″ SATA SSDs. XNUMX″.
• Hot swap drive.
• 4 RJ-45 1GbE LAN ports with Failover / Link Aggregation support.
• 2 RJ-45 10GbE LAN ports with Failover / Link Aggregation support.
• 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports.
• Expansion port.
• 2 clusters of 8 PCie Gen3 expansion ports.
• Compatible with Btrfs and EXT4 internal drives.
• Compatible with Btrfs, EXT4, EXT3, FAT, NTFS, HFS+ and exFAT external drives.
• 2U form factor.
• 88mm x 482mm x 724mm in size.
• 14.5 kg of weight.
• 4″ 19-post rack mount bracket (Synology Rail Kit: RKS-02)
• 4 x 80mm x 80mm fans.
• Full speed mode, Cool mode and Silent mode for the fans.
• Easy system fan replacement.
• Energy Recovery
• 49.8 dB(A) maximum noise level.
• Scheduled power on and off.
• Wake on LAN/WAN option
• 500 W Power Supply / Adapter
• Redundant power supply
• AC input power voltage 100 V to 240 V AC
• Power frequency of 50/60 Hz in Single Phase
• 137.17 W of power consumption when in use, and 70.95 W during HDD hibernation.
• Operating temperature from 0°C to 35°C.
• Storage temperature from -20 ° C to 60 ° C.
• Relative humidity tolerance from 5% to 95% RH.
• Certifications from FCC, CE, BSMI, EAC, CCC, KC, UL, VCCI and RCM.
• 5 year warranty
• RoHS compliant environment.

Gallery

Who is this Synology SA3400 NAS for?

Here at Hardwaresfera we are not disgusted by any technological product, whatever its range. We understand that both high-end and low-end products have a meaning, a market and a niche to satisfy. This, in particular, goes to medium and larger companies. Those companies with a lot of movement that can afford to have a NAS as large as the Synology SA3400. You will think that, why, if they can outsource the service? Well, to have it on site and supervised by a dedicated technical team. It is used to store the web with numerous form data, save backup copies of the data that is required with the necessary security to meet the requirements of European data protection, be able to manage all the data input and output requests of the workers who work from home and access through their own VPN, store all the recordings of the security systems of the building in which they are located for the time required by law, save all invoices, payroll and human resources documentation for years, and much more.

Having hundreds of GB of important or confidential data is always going to be better to have locally than outsourced.

Large companies are the ones who are most interested in such a dedicated and large product. This very high possibility of storage with up to 180 hard drives of capacity is something that when you have several dozen employees, you see that it is necessary for a human resources department that must store and catalog all the documents that are sent to them, which requires the security of RAID 10 storage, it is a investment. And this is only with one department. We are talking about the Synology SA34000 NAS drive and six HUD 5300 SAS storage drives They are close to a price of 8.000 euros. A home user will think that is a lot, and it is understandable. But it is the large users who see in it an investment they need for the security of their website, their employees and their data.

We dare to say that the price of 8.000 euros and the units that we have been able to test is even low. Because it is a resource that in a medium-sized company where large amounts of data are moved, even the Synology SA3400 in a basic configuration like the one we have been able to test, it will have been used in less than a year. Although they haven't filled even half of the storage. Part of its appeal is its scalability, as serial storage can be added via extension ports, so it can easily keep up with the transition from medium to large enterprise.

We could get it to handle entire drives with up to 1PB of storage, but we'd need to put it in RAID 6, and put in 64GB of RAM, which isn't included. Apart from the RAID 6 configuration, it will be necessary to ensure that the DDR4 RAM memories are all of the same frequency to guarantee correct operation. If we wanted to put multiple 200TB modules in it, we would simply have to put another 16GB RAM module in it to reach 32GB.

Possibilities of Synology software

You have to understand that a NAS is not a large external hard drive that we access from the internet. It is a whole computer with its operating system that manages data and connections, said in a very simple way. As such, requires a dedicated operating system with the necessary software so that a systems administrator can control even the smallest detail of the use that is being given to it.

The Synology operating system itself allows the installation of many additional software packages, as is done in many Ubuntu distributions intended for home users, such as Linux Mint. Is that we can install the packages we want from its own website and package manager to mold the NAS to our uses and needs. This will be necessary if we want the NAS to host a website, or to install the ERP storage that we use in the company.

Synology's ecosystem offers a large number of applications to adapt the SA3400 NAS to any need we have.

But even factory reset, the Synology SA3400 NAS already includes a large amount of software to monitor the use that is being given, and provide us with the necessary information. The control panel already allows us to use shared folders and manage users and even domains, control the connectivity of external access, networks and their security together with the terminal and SNMP.

Resource monitor comes equipped with comprehensive performance monitoring, including a task manager, connection manager and speed limit manager, with critical performance alarms. Its performance monitor allows us to monitor the use of the CPU, memory, network, hard drives and solid state drives, even with IOP data when handling a high volume of data; LUN and NFS. All these are elements that show that this NAS is made and designed for the most demanding uses.

One of its qualities is the Hot Spare, which allows us insert a new disk into the unit so that if one of the already existing disks suffers an error, the Hot Spare unit is activated to avoid data loss problems or RAID regeneration. It also allows us to update the firmware of the storage units.

All this is what we have found in the most basic version of the NAS Synology SA3400. Right from the start, and sorry for the expression, it is an awful lot of elements and content that it offers us. If we add to that the DiskStation Manager packages that we can install to provide the NAS with possibilities such as hosting a website, running internal messaging programs for connected devices, antivirus and more, we see that it is a very accessible premium package, always in the context that it is for large companies.

As with most advanced business technology, it's not so much what's out there, that what's out there is very compelling; otherwise what you can do with it. We can assure you that with the Synology SA3400 NAS, all the connection needs of any business can be met, including the full move to remote work. That is, if you put yourself in the hands of a technical support team to make the necessary adjustments and maintenance.

Conclusion on Synology SA3400 NAS

In a crude way, the Synology SA3400 NAS it is a high price for someone who wants a simple NAS. But if we talk about a company that wants this NAS to have its IT department and data locally, its price is highly recommended. It is not so much because of its raw features, but because of the enormous scalability it has. By using this NAS as a key piece to connect other SANs, we can store a huge amount of data that the company would rarely fill even with multiple backups.

It's hard to put into words what a Synology NAS has to offer without going into extremely complicated terms. But our experience with them has always been positive as system administrators and this time it was no different. Its ecosystem, that is, the support and access to numerous proprietary operating system applications and customization possibilities, are implicit in the purchase of this high-end NAS.

The Synology SA3400 NAS has great features and possibilities. Of course, if we are looking for one of quality and business benefits.