The Synology DS1512+ -
The DS 1512+ is a good looking product. It has a low profile unlike many multiple bay NAS devices. Synology has also opted against any type of LCD or LED display (most of these are of little use anyway). The front bays are clean looking and open by pressing them at the bottom. Each of the bays can also be locked with the small key that is included. Unlike many NAS devices that we have seen the keys are a very small form of barrel key which would make them very difficult to mix up with the keys from another NAS.

At the top of each bay is a green LED that indicates that the HDD is actively working. Other LEDs that are visible on the front are a Status LED, two LAN activity LEDs and an alert LED. Like we said it is a very simple design, but it has a clean and classic feel to it.

Flipping the DS 1512+ around we find the dual 1Gbe LAN ports, four USB 2.0 ports and surprisingly enough, two eSATA and two USB 3.0 ports. This should add quite a bit in terms of connectivity options if you are looking to back up portable drives, or just to have an extra volume for low I/O usage.
Synology has put two low RPM fans on the back and unlike many other manufacturers they have made these easy to remove for cleaning or replacement. The connectors for these are very easy to reach from outside the box so you won’t have to worry about cutting your knuckles on this one.

After a quick turn around the box we decided to take the DS 1512+ apart to see what was inside. Although we will not go into detail here (that is for the video) we will cover the highlights. Under the hood we found a D2700 Dual Core Atom (with Hyper Threading), 1GB of DDR3 SODIMM memory (there is an additional slot for expansion), an Intel ICH10R RAID controller and dual 82745L Gbe LAN controllers run through a mini PCIe 1.1 port. It was a nicely put together box as you will see in the video.