Side-by-side specifications of the Synology RS3614xs+ and RS3617xs+, from official datasheets. Differences are highlighted.
| RS3614xs+ | RS3617xs+ | |
| CPU | Intel Xeon E3 quad-core 3.3 GHz | Intel Xeon D-1531 2.2 GHz |
| Cores / threads | 4 cores / 8 threads | 6 cores / 12 threads |
| RAM (base) | 8 GB ECC | 8 GB DDR4 ECC UDIMM |
| RAM (max) | 32 GB ECC | 64 GB |
| Drive bays | 12 | 12 |
| Expandable to | 24 (up to 36 total) | 24 (2× RX1217/RX1217RP) |
| M.2 slots | 0 | 0 |
| Network | 4 x Gigabit | 4× 1GbE RJ-45; 2× 10GBase-T RJ-45 |
| 10GbE | optional | yes |
| Max raw capacity | 216 TB | 360 TB |
| Hot-swap | yes | yes |
| Form factor | 2U rackmount | 2U rackmount |
| Released | 2014 | 2017 |
| Power consumption | unknown | — |
| DSM at launch | — | — |
Choose the RS3617xs+ if you need higher performance: it has a newer 8-core Intel Xeon D-1541 versus the RS3614xs+’s 4-core Xeon E3-1230 v2, supports up to 64GB RAM versus 32GB, and offers built-in M.2 NVMe slots. Both provide 12 bays, expansion support, and 10GbE via an add-in card, so the RS3614xs+ is the budget choice if those upgrades are unnecessary.