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QNAP Reveals TS 669 Pro Turbo 6-Bay NAS

Andy Salisbury — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:01:43 -0600

QNAP is a company that hasn’t had a release in some time, but it’s clear they weren’t up to nothing. Their latest release, the TS-639 Pro Turbo NAS has had plenty of time spent on it, evident by just how much has been packed under the hood.

What is the TS-639 Pro Turbo NAS, you ask? Well, in short, it’s network storage that packs six bays, a 1.6GHZ Intel CPU, 1GB of DDR RAM, gigabit Ethernet and support for just about every type of RAID under the sun (0/1/5/6/5+spare). Match all that up with built-in iSCSI target service with Thin Provisioning, and you’ve got one heck of a NAS.

Still, there’s no mention yet on pricing or availability.

Image Credit: QNAP

Qnap TS-209 Pro II

David Murphy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:08:40 -0500

Based on the name alone, one would expect Qnap’s TS-209 Pro II NAS box to offer more features than its predecessors—particularly our leader in this storage category, Qnap’s TS-109 Pro. And while the former does allow for increased capacity, it does not provide significant improvements in performance or offer more features than the TS-109 Pro, which has been out for more than a year.

The TS-209 Pro II differs from the TS-109 Pro in two fundamental ways: First, the TS-209 Pro II is a two-bay device that only requires you to remove a faceplate to access the hot-swap drive bays, a much simpler process than the disassembly required to stick a new drive in the single-bay TS-109 Pro. Second, the TS-209 Pro II sports 256MB of internal DDR II RAM, double the internal memory of the TS-109 Pro.

We assumed—perhaps incorrectly—that this additional memory would do something, anything, for the TS-209 Pro II’s benchmark performance. It does not. In fact, even after we added a speedy Velociraptor drive to the unit to eliminate any kind of hard drive bottleneck, the TS-209 Pro II was still unable to top the TS-109 Pro in any benchmark. The TS-209 Pro II took an extra 18 seconds to transfer 659MB (180 files) from our computer to our NAS in our small-file test. In our large-file test, the TS-209 Pro II took more than a minute longer than the TS-109 Pro to transfer a single 2.79-gigabyte file.

The TS-209 Pro II is fast when compared against the entire category of NAS devices. But it’s not faster than our speed champion, the TS-109 Pro. Nor do any compelling features push it above and beyond its predecessor. The latest firmware update to the TS-109 Pro gives that device the same features and options as the TS-209 Pro II, including a BitTorrent downloading application, a networked webcam surveillance application, and an iTunes streaming service. The TS-209 Pro II differs only in its RAID offerings, due to its support for two hard drives versus the TS-109 Pro’s one.

We dislike that the TS-209 Pro II drops the eSATA connection that was included with the TS-109 Pro. It’s not a mission-critical deletion, but we’d still much prefer to back up the contents of our NAS box over a speedy SATA connection rather than USB. It would also be nice to have a friendlier hot-swap setup in the front of the TS-209 Pro II. Removing the front bezel doesn’t pain us, but in a perfect world, we'd be able to insert drive without having to take anything off of the device first.

The TS-209 Pro II is a fast product with a bounty of features beyond what we typically see in NAS products, it’s just not among the speediest NAS devices we’ve tested. If you don’t need the increased storage that a second drive bay brings, you’re better off purchasing one of the company’s faster single-drive options—like the TS-109 Pro.

Qnap TS-409 Pro

David Murphy — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:50:09 -0500

Is bigger always better? Not necessarily. Qnap’s TS-409 Pro is packed with the same features as the company’s TS-109 Pro but includes twice as much memory and supports four hard drives rather than just one. And it rocks, but only if we compare it to similarly sized foes, such Buffalo’s four-drive TeraStation Live.

The TS-409 Pro doesn't include any additional connections over the TS-109 Pro. In fact, you lose an eSATA port.

The TS-409 Pro is the fastest multiple-drive NAS box we’ve tested, producing excellent scores in our read and write benchmarks. But the same can’t be said when we expand the field to include single-drive NAS devices.

Qnap’s own TS-109 Pro overtakes the TS-409 Pro in half of our transfer benchmarks. We didn’t expect this since the hardware in the two products is almost identical. If anything, the TS-409 Pro should trounce its predecessor, thanks to an additional 128MB of onboard DDR2 memory.

It’s no surprise that the devices’ administration software is also nearly identical. However, since it supports multiple drives, the TS-409 allows you to configure RAID levels; other additions include support for hard-drive SMART statistics and a new way to schedule backups to connected USB devices. We would have liked even more improvements, such as a more streamlined interface for easier use, a better downloading application, and a one-button approach for backing up one internal drive to another.

Qnap downgrades the NAS experience by stripping functionality out of the TS-109 Pro and packaging these features into external software applications for the TS-409 Pro. You now manage FTP, HTTP, and BitTorrent downloads using the QGet program. We’d much prefer a client with the functionality of Azureus or uTorrent—QGet lacks scheduling and tweaking options.

The included Netback Replicator is a great one-click backup application but a poor synchronization app since it goes only one way: You can’t sync a folder on the TS-409 Pro to your computer. The program only copies files you dump into a folder on your machine to a folder of your choice on the TS-409 Pro.

The TS-409 Pro is the best multi-drive NAS box we’ve tested, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Since Qnap is upgrading all of its other NAS devices, it might be worth waiting to see if the company spruces up this one as well.

QNAP TS-109 Pro

David Murphy — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:54:32 -0600

We’ll get the bad news out of the way first. QNAP’s TS-109 Pro NAS device is more an enclosure than a NAS box–the storage part of the equation is BYO. Thankfully, NAS devices’ speeds are primarily determined by the connection and the interface of the device itself–purchase a decent hard drive, you’ll be sticking it into one of the fastest NAS boxes we’ve tested.

That said, we’re impressed with the features packed in this enclosure. And boy, what a list! A veritable cornucopia of network-attached storage, the TS-109 functions as a file server, a backup server, a web server, a media server, and a download server. Throughout our testing, we found that each element was as easy to use and helpful as the others. In fact, some were downright awesome: The file downloading application is a great alternative to keeping a loud, energy-sucking computer on overnight. But that’s just a single example. There’s no poison apple in the TS-109’s bucket of features.

We did have a bit of trouble getting the included installation CD to work. But once the “find my NAS device” application installs, accessing the TS-109 isn’t too taxing a process. Again, we had trouble browsing to the device in our network, but after typing in the TS-109’s name in the address bar (\\test, in this case), it appeared without fuss.

It’s a minor deficit in an otherwise useful device. No, not just useful–extraordinary. We have yet to find a NAS box that’s as speedy and feature-packed as this one, so much so that it makes the lack of an accompanying hard drive quite forgivable.