Disk Station Manager 2.2

As experience has taught me, perhaps the most important aspect of any NAS device is the software used to configure it. Like all Synology products I can remember, this is where the DS410j really shines. The Synology Disk Station Manager 2.2 is an impressive piece of software that will let you do virtually anything.

One of the coolest applications within the suite is called Download Station 2, which allows you to turn the DS410j into a 24/7 BitTorrent, FTP, or HTTP download center. Even shutting down your computer won't affect transfers as files are downloaded directly to the DS410j.

The feature can be used via the Disk Station Manager 2.2 or a third party utility called "Download Redirector" which is offered to both Windows and Mac users. This software is very simple to use and we encountered no problems with it.

Photo Station 3 lets you publicly or privately share picture albums, which can also be accessed via the Internet. You simply need to enable the feature in the admin console and it will create a folder on the DS410j ready to receive pictures. The only issue we had with this is that the DS410j can take quite a while to create thumbnail views of large images files.

As you might expect the DS410j is a master at backing up data and can do so in a number of ways. The local backup allows data to be copied from the DS410j to an external hard drive using one of the rear USB 2.0 ports. This allows for quick and easy backups of any data located on the device.

There's also the option to carry out a network backup, which allows to back up files and data from one Disk Station to another (or other rsync-compatible servers) over a network. With the Encrypted Network Backup option, users can encrypt data when a backup task is being processed, so sensitive data will not be exposed to uninvited guests.

Besides the mandatory backup functions, the extra software features can certainly come in handy even if you don't plan to use all of them. We particularly liked the Photo Station, Download Station and Web Station functions.