QNAP hits back by bringing you their newest fanless NAS server, the HS-210. This 2-bay NAS server is equipped with a 1.6GHz Marvell processor, a 512MB RAM, a 16MB of flash memory, two 3.5-inch SATA HDD bays, an SD card slot, 1x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 2x USB 3.0 ports and runs on QNAP Turbo NAS System 4.1 + OS. The HS-210 is available now. [QNAP]
QNAP is bringing you their latest 2-bay NAS server, the TS-212P. Designed for home and SOHO users, this 2-bay NAS server is equipped with a 1.6GHz Marvell 6282 processor, a 512MB DDR3 RAM, a 16MB of flash memory, two 3.5-inch SATA HDD bays, 1x Gigabit Ethernet, 1x USB 2.0 port (front), 2x USB 3.0 ports (rear) and a 60mm quiet cooling fan. The TS-212P is available now. [QNAP]
Tekwind has released a new 4-bay NAS server from QNAP, the TS-470. Designed for SMB/corporate users, this 4-bay NAS server is equipped with a mono-LCD display, a 2.60GHz Intel dual-core processor, a 2GB RAM, a 512MB flash memory, four 3.5-inch SATA HDD bays, 4x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 3x USB 2.0 ports, 2x eSATA ports, 1x HDMI port, a 90mm quiet cooling fan and supports for multiple RAID setups (0,1,5,6,10,5 + hot spare) as well as JBOD. The TS-470 is available now for 178,000 Yen (about $1,786). [Product Page]
Here comes a new 1-bay NAS server from QNAP, the TS-120. Designed for HOME / SOHO users, this 1-bay NAS server is equipped with a 1.6GHz Marvell 6282 processor, a 512MB DDR3 RAM, one 3.5-inch SATA HDD bay, 1x Gigabit Ethernet port, 1x USB 2.0 port (front), 2x USB 3.0 ports (rear), 1x eSATA port and a 50mm silent cooling fan. The TS-120 is available now. [Product Page]
![[REVIEW] QNAP TS-469L 4-bay NAS](https://i0.wp.com/www.akihabaranews.com/wp-content/uploads/images/6/86/130386/1.jpg?fit=300%2C300)
Introduction
It had been a while since we last received a QNAP product to be reviewed. As it happens, last week the gods favored us and brought in one of QNAP’s recent additions in their 4-bay SOHO/SMB NAS segment: The TS-469L.
The TS-469L puts itself between its little sister, the TS-419P II and bigger brother, the TS-469 Pro. What sets it apart from “little sister” TS-419P II is the fact that the TS469L has about double the capacity in memory (and is expandable), has a much more potent CPU and comes with the VGA/HDMI outputs allowing for the brand now HD Station features. The “bigger brother” TS-469 Pro doesn’t have that many differences versus the “L” version, lockable trays and a list of certified server features printed on the box and most noticeably 2 extra buttons on the LED display for ‘touch-n-go’ configuration are the only things separating the Pro model from the L version.
QNAP TS-469L’s key features:
What we notice is that QNAP used to be the company putting their speed and built quality in the spotlight, now we see a company steering towards advertising the features that actually matter the most to your average day user. Backup, sharing, access features & cloud services, downloads and video playback are possibly the best way to sum up what most people do with their “black box”.
System specs
On the software side the most notable features are:
iSCSI Target
When it comes to server virtualization & clustering we see support for all of the 3 major standards: VMware vSphere, Citrix XenServer & Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V & Failover Clustering.
Security features integrated:
For the full list of features (such as Backup, replication, photo station, itunes server, etc…) please click here.
Design
Design wise QNAP’s TS-469L doesn’t really draw much attention to itself, and that’s not really a bad thing since most people put their NAS somewhere out of sight or don’t want it to be “too visual” in case they integrate as HTPC/DLNA home server.
The device comes in an all-black front (panel, brackets & buttons) and gunmetal grey enclosure. A nice feature are the status LEDs (Status, LAN, USB, eSATA) and the hard disk tray LEDs, both are made slightly matte, a good thing when being placed and used for the XMBC HD Station features. In previous product iterations the LED used to be brighter, to some user’s annoyance.
Built quality remains very much up to par to what we’ve seen in the past, QNAP never compromises. This one, just like any other unit, is solid rolled steel with PVC front bezel. Choice of internal components, the possibility to upgrade to 3GB SO-DIMM and now compatibility with the QNAP Remote control to get the best out of HD Station, shows QNAP is constantly innovating. Still, that said a QNAP unit always esthetically looks “like a QNAP unit”… Never change a winning design right?
Acoustics
This subject is a bit of a tricky one. QNAP could get away with a low-rpm 120mm fan in this device, yet they opted for a 92mm self-proclaimed ‘silent’ cooling fan. 22.4DB isn’t that particularly silent. It is in every respect taking proper care your internal disks will stay cool, however I have doubts the pitch will please users who have it in close working-environment proximity. That said, as a TV-XMBC solution you’ll rarely notice it being there.
For the people not liking the sound of the current 92mm, you can very easily replace the fan to a more-silent one and put silicon grommets between the fan and metal frame to eliminate any resonance from the spinning parts. QNAP is one of those few companies making good used of an exuberant amount of metal, in a perfect world they could start using copper/aluminum/nickel for the hard drive cages and create a totally fan-less NAS solution. Obviously we do understand this would seriously increase weight and have an impact on pricing. That said, I’m pretty convinced there is a niche out there to sell fan-less NAS units at a premium price. Especially the HTPC NAS adepts would crave such innovation.
The TS-469L does come with an internal 250W power supply, it seems however this particular one being a bit more silent than previous generations. There is still the mini cooling fan’s presence, this time it just isn’t that noticeably noisy anymore.
A word on power efficiency
The TS-469L has great potency, and is definitely a killer bee when it comes to defining what fast networking should look like. It does however come with a slight “consumption bump”; 43 Watts in operation is moderate, 25 Watts in sleep mode is rather on the high end compared to some of the recent models from competing brands we’ve seen.
We get the fact that the speeds this machine sets, don’t come hand in hand with world’s most efficient consumption, so we checked what can be done to get the best of both worlds:
There is the EuP feature available, preferred over WoL when you’re using it for a small home office. This feature gets the total consumption down by a large margin, actually up to 40% in our tests. In standy-by the TS-469L consumes a mere 1w, which is definitely more advised than 25 watts of “doing-nothing”.
The big difference between EuP and WoL, to put it down easy for you: WoL (or Wake On LAN) is more of a “dozing off” feature, the disks are in sleep mode but the unit keeps checking for active computers in your network who might need its services. So what WoL is doing, is every time it detects computer activity in your network, it will keep “the disks awake” to stay ready.
EuP is a more lazy-efficient protocol. What it does is put the device and disks to sleep, without caring much if there are 1 or 100 active computers in your network. Unless a computer specifically tiggers the NAS’s IP to ask for connection, the EuP feature would simple keep everything in deep sleep to save power wherever it can.
So are there disadvantages? Yes, the EuP requires the whole device to “awake”, where as WoL will keep an eye out for activity and be awake when you are. Thus, EuP will save power, but let you wait longer till the unit is fully active, WoL will consume more power, but is there when you are.
XBMC over HDMI, That’s HD Station for you
Well oh well, ever since one of the competitors came up with TV on your NAS, pretty much every serious manufacturer out there came up with their own native way to integrate TV features on their new devices. QNAP’s TS-469L is no exception. The unit has a HDMI out, allowing it to be connected to a HD TV.
Now what’s so thrilling with HD Station? Actually, plenty. QNAP provided us with a remote control for the NAS, this is an optional purchase in case you’re fond of getting one. There are plenty of apps from QNAP that allow you to use your smartphone to control HD Station. The mobile-way is a good idea, and really nice…. But we all know how fantastic your smartphone’s battery is, right? And those familiar with smartphone remotes know, when somebody calls you, you better rush to the TV remote, cause the app remote’s screen turned to the call app. So, yea, get the remote, it will save you battery life and avoid you rushing to the volume controle when the phone rings.
HD Station has some nice tricks up its sleeve. For one, it works based on XBMC, one of the most popular HTPC Linux solutions out there. Second it allows apps such as google chrome and YouTube to be installed, for easy couch surfing. Third, it has an administration app so you can browse and modify you NAS’s settings by just a push on the remote (no more need to get your computer near to log on to the web-admin panel, or use the mobile admin app).
As said before, the XBMC is a very popular award-winning distribution and received much praise for easy of use. The XBMC on your QNAP TS-469L is exactly the same as the one you are accustomed to from XBMC.ORG (in case you’ve tried the package before). For more info about XBMC please visit www.xmbc.org.
Surveillance, download, and various apps
Yes, QNAP definitely has them. Nowadays surveillance, download, DLNA, iTunes, advanced web & database server and various networking (Apple/Windows/Unix protocol supported) features are a common sight in the NAS landscape. For a full list of features and mobile apps we recommend you to check QNAP’s app list at www.qnap.com/qpkg.
Aside from the new HD Station app and various other QPKG’s available, there is one that popped our interest bubble, Google Drive Sync. This particular app can use a shared folder to sync your files from Google Drive locally on your NAS. I particularly liked this one because you don’t need to wait any longer for them to sync to your desktop/phone/tablet/Mac. Just drag and drop your files to the folder you have synced with the app and automatically everybody in the loop is up to date. Especially for small teams this can save a lot of time and effort since local users can still use the QNAP TS-469L locally, while external users can synchronize and benefit from the additional features Google Drive offers compared to the native NAS cloud services.
Speed & performance
We are providing you with a simple table of file read/write actions we performed and which represents a more real world model of what users actually do with their NAS devices. These test are averages from Windows (SMB) and Apple (AFP) systems in RAID 5 setup.
Description:
| QNAP TS-469L | Copy from NAS in MB/sec AVG – PEAK | Write to NAS in MB/Sec AVG – PEAK |
| 1 (100 JPEG) | 85 – 112 | 78 – 86 |
| 2 (1000 MP3) | 68 – 91 | 75 – 88 |
| 3 (4GB Folder) | 65 – 117 | 72 – 96 |
| 4 (8GB Archive) | 116 – 118 | 87 – 96 |
| 5 (35GB Folder) | 110 – 118 | 88 – 98 |
| 6 (800MB File) | 116 – 118 | 88 – 96 |
| 7 (350MB File) | 116 – 118 | 86 – 98 |
| ATTO record R5 | 111 write @512Kb, 118 read @ 4Mb | |
Default network cables supplied by the manufacturer have been used for testing. No Jumbo packages used, default MTU1500.
Because both run on similar hardware/CPU, it comes as a surprise to me that the TS-469L didn’t get the same write speeds as “bigger brother” TS-469 PRO which we reviewed a couple of months ago. However what is striking, is the way this unit doesn’t back down in sending data packets! Meaning: If you require ultra fast data upload to your QNAP NAS choose the PRO model, if you only focus on fast access/streaming from the NAS to your devices the L-version will do just as fine.
It has to be added that setting up your QNAP TS-469L is a breeze, you can either click the “one click” way or run through all the steps of the setup process manually (see screenshots below). Obviously we prefer the manual way, but the “one-click” solution does a great job and auto-detects what the optimal “fast yet safe” combination would be for you. No need to be a tech-guru!
Upgrading hardware
When it comes to ease of use of upgrading (or repairing) the TS-469L is a “3 bolt solution”. Cause that’s the only thing you have to do to remove the top shell of this device. Once the lid is off, it’s a breeze to add a 1 or 2GB module of SODIMM memory.
QNAP supplied us a memory module for testing, and (see photo in the photo stream) you can buy those blue QNAP certified upgrade boxes online. This makes it particularly easy for the not-so tech-geek to upgrade the RAM memory them self. It doesn’t require more than lifting up the plastic cutout piece and plugging in the additional RAM module in the free slot. Optionally you can remove the white strip to make sure the plastic clip sticks into place.
Equally the PSU unit and rear fan can be very easily swapped in case of malfunctioning without the need of a technician. Unless you’re really really clumsy that is…
Verdict
Overall, the QNAP TS-469L is a really solid performer. The only 2 drawbacks were it being rather on the loud end of “silent operation”; and the sleep mode power draw being significantly higher compared to its direct competitors.
Those 2 bits aside, the TS-469L is no slouch, big brother TS-469 PRO has a very potent offspring that’s pretty much capable of delivering almost the exact same network speeds, yet comes with a lower price tag. If you don’t need the management buttons and LED display, and you don’t care much for the advanced Citrix/VM & Windows certifications I very much dare say the TS-469L is a better buy.
Just like some of the competing NAS units who orient themselves in catering a home entertainment environment, we didn’t quite get the point why absolutely NONE of all the units available come with lockable drive trays and front panel power switch… Why, I hear you think? Well, as we notice, these units all have HDMI, so they’re put in close proximity to a TV set, right?
Now imagine people who have toddlers, kids or similar pets? How appealing would it be for those cute little gerbils to “try what daddy did” when they spot him replacing or adding a hard drive, and learn those fancy trays can snap out? Oh, and that power button gives a beep if you press it long enough…
As you can notice, the last thing you want is just adding a hard drive, creating a migration operation, and noticing your kid or girl/boyfriend discovered what “snapping trays” are. When that happens during a migration. You have my condolences. Been there, tried that… never again.
![[REVIEW] QNAP TS-469L 4-bay NAS](https://i0.wp.com/www.akihabaranews.com/wp-content/uploads/images/6/86/130386/hdstation.jpg?fit=300%2C300)
Finally, to round up, the QNAP TS-469L is very easy to upgrade/maintenance, has excellent (and constantly improving) apps that continuously crank the possibilities of your NAS. The built quality and components used are of a very high standard and make this unit pretty much flawless in durability.
On the software side we had been seeing issues in the past. This current firmware came as a serious surprise in ease of use, and it has to be said QNAP put a lot of time in redesigning and tweaking the settings to better-fit new users entering the NAS niche. HD Station (XBMC) is a very valuable add-on feature, which combined with the (optional) remote, turns your NAS into something we never could have imagines a few years back: a fully fledged home entertainment setup. Job well done, and at a MSRP of 599 EUR/USD it stays on the same lane with the competition.
High-rolling (or just highly nerdy) home theater PC setups often have network-attached storage to hold the reams of video that invariably won’t fit on the PC itself. QNAP wonders why we don’t just cut to the chase — both of its TS-x69L and TS-x69 Pro entries in the Turbo NAS range support XBMC’s home theater software out of the gate, letting either NAS serve as the front-end as long as they’re hooked up through HDMI. They won’t be the most powerful when they’re powered by dual-core, 2.13GHz Atom chips; that might be forgiven when there’s space for as many as eight hard drives shareable across the entire home. The lineups start at $479 for empty two-bay editions and scale up to $1,099 for eight. Not cheap, we know, but they may be relative bargains for any movie-watchers looking to simplify the living room.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Storage, HD
QNAP has also released their new 8-bay NAS server, the TS-869L. Designed for SMB / SOHO users, this 8-bay NAS server comes with a 2.13GHz Intel Atom dual-core processor, a 1GB RAM (expandable to 3GB), eight 3.5-inch SATA HDD bays, 2x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 5x USB 2.0 ports, 2x eSATA ports, two 120mm quiet cooling fans and supports for multiple RAID setups (0/1/5/10/6/5, 6,10 + Spare) as well as JBOD. Pricing info is still unknown at the moment. [QNAP]
QNAP has introduced a new 2-bay NAS server to its line-up, the TS-269L. Designed for SMB / SOHO users, this 2-bay NAS server is equipped with a 1.86GHz Intel Atom dual-core processor, a 1GB RAM (expandable up to 3GB), two 3.5-inch SATA HDD bays, 2x Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 3x USB 2.0 ports, 1x eSATA port, a 70mm quiet cooling fan and supports for multiple RAID setups (0,1) as well as JBOD. Pricing info is still unknown at the moment. [Product Page]
Introduction
Both QNAP and Synology provided us with a unit from their high-end SMB NAS lineup. In this review we will be comparing both units both on hardware performance as software functionality.
Synology’s key features:
205.68 MB/sec Reading, 182.66 MB/sec Writing(combined)
2 LAN with Failover and Link Aggregation Support
Features SuperSpeed USB 3.0
CPU Passive Cooling Technology & System Fan Redundancy
Hot-swappable Hard Drive Design
Windows® ADS and ACL Support
VMware® / Citrix® / …
Cloud storage may be the big buzzword of the moment, but what if you’d rather have your storage where you can see it? QNAP has one solution, in the shape of the TS-669 Pro TurboNAS: six-drives-worth of network-attached storage with streaming, remote access and data-redundancy on tap. Everything, in fact, the company thinks a home or small office might require. Is it worth the $1,199.99 sticker price, however? Read on for the full SlashGear review.
While consumer NAS units usually try to throw some curves into the mix so as to make the drive arrays more home office friendly, QNAP’s no-nonsense approach means the TS-669 Pro is a battleship of a device. Measuring 6.89 x 10.12 x 9.25 inches and constructed from sheet metal and dense plastic, it’s sturdy enough that we’d consider putting it under a desk as long as it was reasonably out of the reach of idly-swinging feet.
Up front there are six individual drive bays, each hot-swappable and with a security lock, topped with a two-line LCD to show status and settings; a pair of buttons alongside allow you to navigate through the simple menu structure. Each bay gets status LEDs, and there’s a front USB 2.0 port with an instant-copy button for quickly offloading content from an attached drive or memory card (in a USB reader).
On the back, meanwhile, QNAP gives you more than the average number of ports for a NAS. There are a further four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 and two eSATA, along with a VGA port that’s reserved for maintenance use; two gigabit ethernet ports handle networking duties. You also get a total of three fans, one dedicated to the power supply and the other two 90mm fans for keeping the drives from overheating. In use, there’s a noticeable whirr but not a tremendously intrusive one, though it’s more suite to the home office, study or workplace than the living room.
Inside, there’s a 2.13GHz dual-core Intel Atom processor with 1GB of RAM preinstalled; a single spare SO-DIMM RAM slot will take either 1GB or 2GB chips to take the total to 3GB. That runs QNAP’s custom Linux OS, which supports just about every drive spanning and redundancy format you could hope for (Single Disk, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 5 + Hot Spare, 6, 6 + Hot Spare, 10, 10 + Hot Spare, along with online RAID expansion and use of external drives hanging off the USB and eSATA ports) and is managed through the usual browser-based interface.
QNAP positions the TS-669 Pro as a NAS suitable for small and home businesses, but there are plenty of media features ideal for home users. Like Synology systems we’ve reviewed, there’s the ability to set it up as a file or FTP server, a backup server for Apple Time Machine or various third-party Windows clients, a webserver, or a standalone BitTorrent downloader. It can also collect video from up to four IP cameras simultaneously, or share up to three USB printers to network clients.
Meanwhile, it will work as an iTunes server or a generic UPnP media server, streaming to mobile devices, smart TVs and other hardware, and if you plug in a USB soundcard or speakers you can use the TS-669 Pro as a standalone music jukebox. It will serve up photo galleries and sync them to Facebook, Blogger and other sites, as well as stream them remotely to the iOS and Android QMobile apps. It’s also open to official and third-party extensions, which will turn the NAS into anything from a SqueezeBox server for home media streaming, an Asterisk VoIP system, or a WordPress host.
All of that functionality would be for nothing if the TS-669 Pro couldn’t keep up with network traffic. We used six 1TB Western Digital Black 7200rpm 1TB drives with SATA 6 Gb/s interfaces and 64MB of cache, set up in a RAID 10 array. The QNAP was connected to a 1Gbps ethernet switch; we tested with a Windows 7 PC using SAMBA, also with a gigabit ethernet connection, and then with an OS X Lion Mac, using FTP (since SAMBA is not natively supported in OS X).
On the PC, using 4GB files, we saw read speeds of 178 MB/sec and write speeds of 138 MB/sec. On the Mac, again using 4GB files, we managed 211 MB/sec read speeds and 206 MB/sec writes. Those numbers, under OS X at least, are impressively close to QNAP’s own figures, and were certainly sufficient to run backups (either using Apple’s own Time Machine or the supplied copy of QNAP NetBak Replicator for Windows) in the background in short-order.
As for the remote access apps, we tried QNAP’s software for iPhone and Android, and were quickly accessing files and media stored on the TS-669 Pro. Obviously the experience depended significantly on the speed of our mobile connection and the upload speed available to the QNAP itself.
With street prices hovering around the $1,000 mark, the TS-669 Pro TurboNAS isn’t cheap, and you’ll need to factor in the cost of drives, too. It would certainly pay for a whole lot of cloud storage, if sheer terabytes are your primary concern. What most cloud storage doesn’t give you, however, is the flexibility that the QNAP offers.
For home users, there’s a huge breadth of media options, everything from simply using the TS-669 Pro as a hub for your photos, music and video, to DLNA streaming to an Xbox or PlayStation, phone or tablet, or as the centerpiece of a Sonos or Squeezebox multi-room audio setup. The Android and iOS apps are neatly designed and functional, and with none of the time consuming uploading of music and video that cloud locker services demand, we were up and running in no time at all.
For businesses, meanwhile, there’s the promise of speed and the convenience of a huge amount of flexibility in what the TS-669 Pro can be for you. Need a solid backup box with redundancy? With six 1TB drives we had a 3TB RAID10 array with high levels of both redundancy and performance. Need an FTP server, or an email server, or a printer server, or a VPN server? The QNAP will do it all, simultaneously, as well as monitor your IP webcams and more.
Flexibility costs, as does knowing exactly what drives are being used to maintain your backup. The convenience of the cloud is great, but if you want a pro-level data storage and sharing system and you take backup seriously, the QNAP TS-669 Pro TurboNAS should be on your shortlist.
QNAP TS-669 Pro TurboNAS Review is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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