Test System Specs & Power
Every NAS we test is filled with WD Red 4TB hard drives unless specified otherwise. Two-bay models are tested using RAID1, while those supporting three or more drives run in RAID5.
The Synology DS414slim and QNAP TS-453mini were tested using four WD Red 1TB 2.5" hard drives, along with an SSD configuration using the Samsung SSD 850 Pro 512GB.
When we benchmark, the NAS device in question is connected directly to a Netgear GS108T v2 switch while our test PC is the most high-end desktop on-hand with an SSD to read and write the data.
Both the Synology DS414slim and QNAP TS-435mini consumed very little power, though having said that please note that both these devices are occupied with four 1TB WD Red 2.5" drives whereas the other NAS devices are filled with 4GB WD Red 3.5" drives which consume more power. Still, we can certainly compare the DS414slim and TS-435mini here, and surprisingly even under load there isn't a great deal of difference between the two.