Behold, a ready-made answer for those who own a Linux-powered fruit machine but who are still looking for new ways to use it. It’s a simple media center starter kit, fresh out and shipping today, which makes it easy to hook your Raspberry Pi up to an HDMI display and use it to play video or music from the internet or your home network through the wonders of XBMC. Known simply as “XBMC Solution,” it consists of the Raspbmc software on a bootable SD card (this is an all-in-one install that combines XBMC with a lightweight Linux distro), a rechargeable RF controller with a small keyboard and touchpad to aid navigation (it’s generic, unbranded, and even has a “Win” key, but it works fine), plus Ethernet and HDMI cables in case you don’t have any going spare. Read on for more.
The Raspberry Pi-focused XBMC port Raspbmc’s June changelog is a lengthy one. Among the changes are new settings, new skins, support for the Stealth Nighthawk F117A device and changes to make booting up faster, among many other things. Getting this month’s update should only require rebooting one’s Raspberry Pi, and a few new mirrors that have joined the network should make downloading the updated software even faster. That’s not all however, because the July update is promising Linux kernel updates, Raspbmc “Cloud” features with automatic settings backup / restore across multiple devices and an unspecified “special announcement.”
Back in January, XBMC for Android trotted out what it called the first End User Friendly build of its mobile media center — a release designed with compatibility in mind. Half a million downloads later, the team is ready for the custom build’s first major update, releasing XBMC for Android’s first stable End User Friendly version today. “This is the first and only truly End User Friendly release of XBMC available on the internet,” writes the team on its official blog. “We’re hoping that it will in time bring XBMC to a whole new mainstream level.” For the uninitiated, the release page gives new users a brief rundown of what XBMC is, explaining how the software snags streaming content from all over the web and serves it to the user in a single, easy to access place. Installation is a little more complicated than simply hitting up Google Play, but folks who tried the team’s last release should be familiar with the process: sideload two APKs, and jump in. Check out the release for yourself at the source.
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:
Centralized Storage and backup
Share and stream your media contents
Access your files anywhere
Direct video playback with XBMC
Download BT and videos
Mobile access
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
CPU: Intel® Atom™ 2.13 GHz Dual-core Processor
DRAM: 1GB RAM (Expandable RAM, up to 3GB) The system memory can be increased up to 3GB by installing an additional 1GB/2GB SO-DIMM RAM module.
Flash Memory: 512MB DOM
Hard Disk Drive: 4 x 3.5” or 2.5” SATA 3Gb/s hard drive or SSD
Support USB printer, pen drive, USB hub, and USB UPS etc.
eSATA: 2 x eSATA port (Back)
Buttons: System: Power button, USB One-Touch-Backup Button, Reset button
Alarm Buzzer / System warning
Form Factor: Tower
Dimensions: 177 (H) x 180 (W) x 235 (D) mm
6.97 (H) x 7.09 (W) x 9.25 (D) inch
Net weight: 3.65 kg (8.04 lbs)
Gross weight: 4.65 kg (10.24 lbs)
Sound Level (dB) HDD sleep: 13.7 dB
In operation: 22.4 dB (with 4 x 500GB HDDs installed)
Power Consumption Sleep mode: 25W / In Operation:43W
Power-off (in WOL mode): 1W (with 4 x 500GB HDD installed)
Temperature : 0-40˚C
Humidity: 0~95% R.H.
Power Supply: Input: 100-240V AC, 50/60Hz, Output: 250W
Secure Design: K-lock security slot for theft prevention
VGA: Reserved VGA interface for maintenance
Fan: 1 x quiet cooling fan (9 cm, 12V DC)
On the software side the most notable features are:
iSCSI Target
Multi-LUNs per Target
Up to 256 Targets/LUNs Combined
Supports LUN Mapping & Masking
Online LUN Capacity Expansion
Supports SPC-3 Persistent Reservation
Supports MPIO & MC/S
iSCSI LUN Backup, One-time Snapshot, and Restore
iSCSI Connection and Management by QNAP Finder (Windows)
Virtual Disk Drive (via iSCSI Initiator)
Stack Chaining Master
Max No. of Virtual Disk Drives: 8
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.
Encrypted Access: HTTPS, FTP with SSL/TLS (Explicit), SSH/SFTP (admin only), Encrypted Remote Replication between QNAP NAS Servers (Rsync over SSH)
CIFS Host Access Control for Shared Folders
Antivirus Protection
FIPS 140-2 Validated AES 256-bit Volume-based Data Encryption*
AES 256-bit External Drive Encryption*
Importable SSL Certificate
Instant Alert via E-mail, SMS, Instant Messaging (Windows Live), and Beep
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:
A set of 100 HQ JPEG photos in folder
A bulk of 1000 itunes audio files
A 4GB folder containing mixed small files and folders
A 8GB single file archive
A 35GB folder with 10*3.5GB files inside
An 800MB single file archive
A 350MB episode
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.
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.
Just because you have a Raspberry Pi, and the know-how to change the world, doesn’t mean you want to do everything the hard way. For those who haven’t already applied the 12.1 update to XBMC running on their Raspberry Pi, the Raspbmc team is now eager to handle the dirty work for you. Wondering how easy it is to upgrade? Just reboot your Pi and wait about 15 minutes. Seriously, that’s all the elbow grease required to receive a litany of fixes and enhancements in the latest version of XBMC as well as a number of specific patches for Raspbmc. Specifically, there is a newer version of HDMI-CEC, improved support for internet streams and third-party modules, and finally, a few security fixes.
The OpenELEC Linux distro came out of beta with its official 3.0.0 version this week, and according to its makers nearly every part has been upgraded since the 2.0 release last year. This release of the media center package is based on XBMC 12.1 and as such includes its assortment of updates, as well as specific improvements for the Raspberry Pi, MC001 devices, Apple TV and AMD hardware. If you’re on 2.0 you’ll need to manually update to the new version. Hit the source link for a full changelog and instructions on how to get it all working.
Playjam, the team behind GameStick, has announced that a new deal with tech company Pivos will ensure that the previously-mentionedXBMC will arrive fully-formed on its Kickstarter console. All those Media Center features will sidle up alongside your games selection and while the company maintains that gaming is still the focus of its device, given the competition, we’d say this announcement makes a whole lot of sense.
The XBMC crew hasn’t been distracted by its early work on XBMC 13 Gotham — it’s more than willing to share the love with those who are still busy with Frodo’s adventures. A just-launched XBMC 12.1 update improves the experience in several ways on Apple platforms, rolling up iOS 6 support for second-generation Apple TV boxes, making full use of the iPhone 5’s expanded screen and bringing support in OS X for both the default audio device and playback acceleration from Intel GPUs. There’s a number of upgrades elsewhere as well: XBMC no longer monopolizes audio in Linux, runs more reliably on the Raspberry Pi and supports more Xbox 360 controllers and HDMI-CEC devices. Android has received an audio control tweak of its own and the software is available in seven new languages We’d say 12.1 is a near-automatic download if XBMC is the cornerstone of your living room, hit the source to find out everything new that awaits, or check out the Github link.
Jailbroken Apple TVs with software update 5.2 (iOS 6.1) snagged Bluetooth keyboard compatibility roughly a week ago, and now Cook and Co.’s hockey puck is in store for a heftier perk: support for XBMC. Memphiz, a developer on the entertainment hub project, has managed to tweak XBMC to run on Cupertino’s TV box with its latest software release. Ready to load up your hardware with the alternative media suite? Hit the bordering source link for the download and instructions, or check out the “Manage Extras” section if you’re running aTV Flash.
After a year of effort the Raspbmc team announced it has reached the 1.0 milestone. This means the team is confident they’ve delivered a stable distro to run the port of XBMC specifically designed to run on the Raspberry Pi, created by TeamXBMC, and the image is ready to be downloaded for free and copied to your ready and able SD card. If you were already enjoying the fruits of the early builds of Raspbmc, you’ll need to do a complete re-install but that shouldn’t be too much trouble since you probably store your content on a network drive or external USB.
Raspbmc 1.0 is based on the recently finished XMBC 12 Final and supports DTS decoding in software. This is in addition to many other codecs supported in software and you can purchase licenses from the Raspberry Pi Store for MPEG-2 and VC-1 hardware decoding for just a few bucks. A good move, since hardware decoding of today’s most popular video codecs is almost certainly a requirement for any proper XBMC setup. Now, if the Raspbmc team would release their own custom case for the RPi then everyone would know what’s going on just by looking under your TV.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
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