QNAP gets official with TS-409 Pro Turbo NAS

Believe us, we know just how foggy things get when trying to remember back to the 13th day of December 2007, but sure enough, it was on that fateful Thursday that we received our first sneak peek at QNAP's (then) forthcoming TS-409. Today, however, we're looking at the official product: a 4-bay, hot-swappable NAS that supports such beautiful features as online RAID capacity expansion and RAID level migration. Reportedly filled with "disaster-proof enhancements," this unit also includes an HDD S.M.A.R.T. function that provides complete hard drive information including temperature and overall "health." No concrete word on price, but a quick scan of the intarweb pegs it right around $600.

[Ty @ Jan 30th 2008 12:10PM]

Oh baby. Hold on to my media and don't let go.

[bruceS @ Jan 30th 2008 12:16PM]

I really like the hardware Qnap makes, the only problem is that as soon as they release a newer version of the hardware, they drop development of any new firmware on the previous version. I bought a TS-201 about 2 months before the 209 came out and my 201 feels like a red-headed stepchild.

[ChillyWilly @ Jan 30th 2008 12:44PM]

Mac compatible, but reading what file systems it supports, I don't see HFS+ on the list from the following link:
http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_software.asp?p_id=86

EXT3 (Internal/ external HDD)
FAT (External HDD)
NTFS (External HDD, read-only)

For a starting price of $600, it beats the ReadyNAS+ entry level system.

[Jose Hebron @ Jan 30th 2008 1:04PM]

10 gigabit ethernet would have been nice.

[Fezman @ Jan 30th 2008 1:47PM]

Instead of setting up another NAS at my office (we have an intel one already) we just put together a cheap box (Celeron Core Solo chip, 512MB Ram) and threw Ubuntu 7.1 Server on it, and loaded it up with 500GB hard drives.

That sucker chews through files like nobody's business. The transfer rates we get are many times faster than the Intel NAS (both on Gigabit), and small files are copied blindingly fast, compared to sluggishly on the Intel.

I think we ended up spening $800 including 4 x 500GB WD Drives, so we had ~1.5TB of RAID5 redundant storage :)

[Randy @ Jan 30th 2008 1:55PM]

Looking for Reviews.... this may be a winner if I can learn more about it. The ReadyNAS and the Drobo are just too much money.

[Leo @ Jan 30th 2008 2:17PM]

Hmm decisions decisions.... this / pro or the TS-209 / pro

Guestimating by the warm reception of the TS-209 (and the fact that this is it's newer brother), I'd say it could be a winner.

Can't find whether or not the new Samsung 1TB (HD103UJ) babies will be flawless or not (I asked Qnap on Skype and they said that they haven't tested it but that some users have found it works... sounds shady to me)

+ as of the the end of 2007, there are now 4 manufacturers distributing 1TB HDD models, where the hell are the price drops? bummer to wait for the higher capacity drives to push down prices... hope we get cuts beforehand.

[atrain @ Jan 30th 2008 2:18PM]

Build your own! I don't see why people would even consider buying these. $600, doesn't include the drives...

OS: $0 http://www.freenas.org/
Main system: $50 Pentium 3 box off craigslist
SATA controller: $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124020

Or, if you
Use the original harddrive to run FreeNAS, pop in 4 big SATA drives for the data, you have yourself a $75 system.

[atrain @ Jan 30th 2008 2:21PM]

woops, that got a little messed.
Ignore the "Or, if you "

If your one of those people who are crazy about power consumption, you can do this with a laptop and usb harddrives. (eSATA if you really care about speed, but then you need external controllers, and probably a gigabit NIC).

[Leo @ Jan 30th 2008 3:23PM]

I want reliability, I DONT TRUST PCs for reliability... I don't want to start a pathetic mac vs pc debate (I still got love for PC's especially for gaming) - I realise there's A LOT of satisfied PC users out there but from my personal experience, I'm not one of them - I'd rather pay a little over the odds for a dedicated unit that I can trust to look after my data and give me as minimum downtime as possible if the proverbial crap hits the proverbial fan

[Joshua Walters @ Jan 30th 2008 6:32PM]

Anyone have personal experience with one of these?

Ive been looking at one for a while now (probably two bay) but I havent had a chance to hear how a real consumer liked it.

Reviews are nice, but they often dont cover everything I want to know.

Im looking into FreeNAS or UHS also, but UHS is FAR from done, and FreeNAS isnt exactly super easy to set up (from what I hear)

[TKWarrior @ Jan 30th 2008 8:11PM]

I was in the market for the 209-Pro after doing the research on various NAS. The only gripe I had was that it was only 2 drives. Now if only the price of 1TB drives was lower....

[Ron @ Jan 30th 2008 10:14PM]

Check here. The first review from Holland.

http://www.mpcclub.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=472

[Scott @ Jan 31st 2008 12:47AM]

I hope it's fast, I had never used a NAS before, but was planning on getting one, then borrowed my buddy's Linksys 2-bay (the one with the silver top). I damn near through it out the window, it was slow, like 56k modem slow, it was 3 feet from the router with CAT 5, and my wifi B laptop in the other room was 5 times as fast with transfers, it also would just drop out for no reason.

[Bigboysg @ Jan 31st 2008 1:51AM]

WIth a Marvell 5281 500MHz CPU and only 256MB of ram, the performance will definitely take a hit as compared to DIY NAS or the likes of Thecus 5200pro or Infrant NV+. I wish they had used a better cpu. Even the PentiumM 1.6MHZ used in other QNAP products would be better.

[Ken Love @ Jan 31st 2008 11:54PM]

While the specs look great, I question it's power management system. The rear photo shows a laptop-style power port which suggests a power brick. While the power management software may be able to sleep the unit when not in use, the power brick is dumb hardware that eats kilowatts even when not in use.