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I am a huge fan of WD Red Hard Drives and I am using 4 of them in my Synology DiskStation DS413j and they have not been giving me any problems so far.

WD Red hard drives are designed and extensively tested for compatibility under 24×7 operating environment and for the demanding system requirements of home and small office NAS.

Western Digital announced the My Passport Ultra back in May 2013. Many of you are familer with the popular My Passport. My Passport Ultra is basically a premium model of the My Passport.

It is available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB in size, it comes preloaded with WD SmartWare Pro backup software with Dropbox integration, hardware encryption, and password protection to safeguard against unauthorized drive access and it comes with a carrying pouch.

Launched on the 19th April 2013, the SanDisk Cruzer Orbit USB Flash Drive, features a 360-degree swivel cover and weighs only 4g. The ring hole allows you to attach to your key chain easily!

The only downside is that it supports only USB 2.0 in order to keep the price low. I would totally get the 32GB one and attached it to my key chain/pouch.

In my first part review of the Synology DiskStation DS413j, I talked about the Unboxing and Setup, in the second part review, I talked about the Performance, Backup & CloudStation and for this last review, I will talk about the multimedia features of the DS413j and that includes Video Station, Audio Station and Photo Station as well as their mobile apps, DS Video, DS Audio and DS Photo+ respectively.

There are a lot of features in the Video/Audio/Photo Station, and hence for this review, I will focus on my personal use case; I want to access/stream my music/video/photos stored in my Synology NAS wherever I am on my iPhone or Android.

The Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo (8TB) is retailing for S$1,199 which is pretty expensive for a external hard drive.

It comes with dual Thunderbolt ports that allows you to daisy-chain up to six My Book Thunderbolt Duo drives (48 TB using six Thunderbolt Duo 8 TB drives) or other devices such as monitors, media players, and video / audio editors.

In the first part review of the Synology DiskStation DS413j, I talked about unboxing and setting up and in this second part review, I will talk about the performance, backup and CloudStation.

Performance

I am being seeded the Synology DiskStation DS413j alongside with 3x WD Red 1TB hard disk drives for a 3 part review. For the first part, I will talk about the unboxing and setting up of the DS413j.

Since I only have 3x WD Red 1TB and the DS413j is a 4-bay NAS, I went to Sim Lim Square to get another WD Red 1TB so as not to let 1 of the bay goes to waste. I didn’t realized that WD Red 1TB is a pretty old HDD and most of the stores carry 2TB onwards. Luckily Bizgram still has some WD Red 1TB left. So I bought it for S$120.

SanDisk ReadyCache SSD was announced backed in September 2012 and is currently retaining for S$78.

The ReadyCache SSD is a affordable 32GB 2.5″ Solid State Drive (SSD) which compliments your existing 7,200rpm normal hard drive.

I am proud that Singapore made it into the tech news last week with the announcement of the world’s thinnest 2.5″ hybrid hard drive! It is only 5mm thick and is capable of storing 1TB of normal HDD and 32GB of SSD.

One of the main challenges in reducing the thickness of current 7mm hard disk drives by almost 30% without compromising on its performance and stability is its spindle motor design. To achieve a reduction in size, DSI researchers developed a proprietary axial field motor which runs smoother, quieter, more efficiently, lowering power consumption by up to 70% yet at a fraction of the cost of SSDs. The motor’s design has been patented, along with 30 other unique designs for the “A-Drive”. In addition, DSI has collaborated with multinational corporations and local companies, such as Seiko Instruments, Miyoshi, and Unisteel, to develop key components for the “A-Drive”.