The upcoming Disk Station Manager 2.2 firmware, will release its beta in July 2009 and official version in September 2009, further catering users’ desire for hassle-free digital content sharing and storage. Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox360 are also supported. UPnP support allows users to stream multimedia files with an UPnP DMA on a stereo system or a TV-set. Audio Station supports music, Internet radio stations, and iPod playback with connected USB speakers. As for multimedia applications, Download Station 2 functions as a 24x7 BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP, eMule and NZB dpwnload center. The Disk Station Manager 2.1 firmware supports Windows ADS integration, cross platform data sharing, RAID data protection and several backup alternatives. The smart fan design keeps the DS409slim’s fan off under normal operations and brings quiet operation. The DS409slim consumes only 19 watts under normal operation with four hard drives installed. The adoption of 2.5” hard drives helps to increase shock tolerance and MTBF and reduce power consumption. Supporting up to 2 TB with the combination of four 2.5” SATA or SSD hard drives of 500GB which is the largest capacity in the market, it remains stylish and compact (120 x 105 x 142 mm).
The snap-in disk tray requires minimal effort to install and replace disks. The DS409slim is equipped with a 1.2 GHz CPU, 128MB DDRII RAM, one Gigabit LAN port, two USB2.0 ports and one eSATA port.