Test System & Power Consumption

Intel Core 2 Duo Test System Specs
- Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 (2.60GHz)
- x2 2GB DDR2-1066 G.Skill (CAS 7-7-7-18)
- ASUS P5Q Pro (Intel P45)
- OCZ GameXStream (700 watt)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- ASUS Radeon HD 4550 (256MB)
Software
- Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (64-bit)
- ATI Catalyst 9.5

Synology Disk Station DS409+
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

Promise Technology SmartStor NS4600
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

Synology Disk Station DS109
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

Synology Disk Station DS107
- Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII)

The above power consumption results are very interesting indeed. The Synology DS-109 uses just 13 watts of power at idle, while in use this figure increased to just 15 watts. The DS-409+ was considerably more power hungry with three more HDDs installed using 52 watts at idle and 55 watts under load. The Core 2 Duo E7400 test system, which featured two hard drives, used 88 watts at idle and 91 watts when stressing the hard drives.

Interestingly the DS-409+ uses roughly 40% less power than the Core 2 Duo test system, which we found to be about 40% faster in the file transfer test. You could say then that in terms of performance vs. efficiency the DS-409+ and our Core 2 Duo E7400 test system are about even.

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