Synology announces RackStation units and enterprise HDDs

Synology has unveiled the next generation of its RackStation units that support its backup, virtualization storage, and remote work solutions. In a company first, it also announced the release of its HAT5300 series of enterprise hard drives, 

The 2U 12-bay RS3621RPxs and RS3621xs+, and the 3U 16-bay RS4021xs+ are designed for SMBs that require high-performance general-purpose storage, according to Julien Chen, product manager at Synology. The newest devices provide a reliable platform for data-intensive applications such as large-scale backup, ISCSi SAN storage, on-premises collaboration solutions, and video surveillance deployments, Chen adds.

All three units offer performance improvements compared with prior generation units. According to Synology, the RS3621RPxs delivers 68% higher, the RS3621xs+ delivers 50% higher, and the RS4021xs+ delivers 21% higher random read IOPS than their respective predecessors. The units’ two PCIe Gen 3.0 8x slots enable upgrades with compatible 10GbE NICsand/or NVMe SSD cache.

Synology HAT5300 enterprise SATA hard drives come in 16TB, 12TB, and 8TB models. Peggy Weng, product manager at Synology, says the HAT5300 drives deliver up to 274 MB/s sustained data transfer and with DSM-specific optimization, are up to 23% faster in sustained sequential read performance in demanding multi-user environments compared with other similar-class drives.With automatic firmware updates through DSM, HAT5300 drives always benefit from the latest firmware enhancements while reducing the work needed by system administrators. 

They’re backed by a 2.5 million hour MTTF rating, workload support of 550 TB per year, and persistent write cache technology. The RackStation RS3621RPxs (US$3,399.99), RS3621xs+ ($4399.99), RS4021xs+($5399.99), and 8TB and 12TB HAT5300 series drives ($239.99/$349.99) are available now.