Updated – Synology has announced a trio of SOHO NASes, including one optimized for video transcoding.
The company said that the DS214play is its first NAS to launch with dedicated hardware acceleration specifically intended for video transcoding. The DS214play can stream multiple 1080p video codecs while simultaneously handling " a variety of additional processor-heavy tasks".
The DS214play’s hardware platform has a 1.6 GHz dual-core Intel Atom CE5335 "Berryville" "Evansport" CPU with integrated floating-point unit with 1 GB of RAM. Two hot-swappable bays support 2.5" or 3.5" solid state or hard drives that can be configured in JBOD, RAID 0, 1 and individual volumes.
Ports include one Gigabit Ethernet, one USB 2.0, two USB 3.0 and one eSATA. There is also an SD card slot for easy media transfer.
Synology DS214play
The DS214play runs DiskStation Manager 4.3 (DSM 4.3), which supports a full complement of media applications including Synology’s Video, Audio and Photo Stations and DLNA media server. The play also supports all other DSM 4.3 features.
The Synology DS214play is now shipping outside the U.S. and will start here in the "next few weeks". MSRP is $369.99.
Also announced today are the single-bay DS114 and four-bay DS414. Both are based on Freescale PowerPC Marvell processors, with the DS114 having a single-core 1.2 GHz Armada 370 processor and 512 MB of DDR3 RAM and the DS414 using a dual-core 1.33 GHz Armada XP CPU with 1 GB of DDR3 RAM.
Synology DS114 & DS414
The DS114 has a single Gigabit Ethernet LAN port, two USB 3.0 and one eSATA ports. Its single bay accepts 2.5" or 3.5" solid state or hard drives up to 4 TB.
The DS414 has dual Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, one USB 2.0, two USB 3.0 but no eSATA ports. Its four hot-swappable bays accept 2.5" or 3.5" solid state or hard drives up to 4 TB.
The DS114 and DS414 are currently shipping outside the U.S. and will start here in the "next few weeks". MSRPs are $199.99 and $499.99, respectively.