QNAP's family of NAS drives arrives at CeBIT: eyes-on
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 5th 2009 11:09PM
posted Mar 5th 2009 11:09PM
posted Mar 5th 2009 11:09PM
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gay...
totally.
As in "happy"? Yeah!
The Acer one does indeed look nicer, but both seem like a good choice. Do want smthg like this.
I actually like the Hot-Swappable HDDs. Nice Feature.
I want a NAS that allows for expansion...ie...buy another unit and have it work. Only crappy overpriced Drobo does this..
I wish there were DIY cases like this out. Would make an awesome project. And yes I agree the Slowbo is one of my regrettable purchase decisions.
YES! ANTEC, MAKE SOME DAM NAS BOXES...RAAAWW
A nice breakdown of all the QNAP devices and their features:
http://www.qnap.com/images/products/comparison/Comparison_NAS.html
And honestly, I would pick QNAP over other vendors because of their forums:
http://forum.qnap.com/index.php
Lots of users helping users, and QNAP staff answering questions.
Same. QNAP has some of the most feature rich NAS's out there. not sure why all these people are complaining so much.
BT Client
Media Server (uPnP)
Print Server
Expansion using eSATA
Can Capture IPCam/NetCam streams/stills and use the NAS like a Camera DVR
Web Server
FT Server
AD Support
iSCSI Target on the Pro models
SMS and eMail alerts
Dynamic DNS client
etc
etc
@casper
because the "entry models" (labelled "pro") such as the 409pro have write speed of maximum 12,9 MB / sec via Gbit LAN and JumboPackets turned on. readspeed is around 35 MB/sec. Creation of a RAID 5 Array took nearly 2 Days for formatting and syncing.
And this is all for 399 € excluding any harddisks.
I sent mine back and built a WHS with P45 Mainboard, Dual Core Intel CPU (5400) and 4 GB Ram for 350 €. Leaving the WHS license out of the equation (Qnap is running linux which is technically free) I've got now 65,5 MB / sec read/write speeds over Gbit LAN for 50 € less.
And the array creation didn't took 2 Days, more like 5 secs with quick format :D
Too. Much. Information.
I'll just get my 2 year old to point to the prettiest one.
badbob... does Apple's time capsule even work with PC's? ;)
I always like to lock 3 out of 4 of my drives. Just cuz im risky like that. Why would they have separate locks?
So when you want to remove one, and you unlock it, you cannot accidentally remove the others.
If you had a single lock, in theory, you could dislodge a drive you didnt mean to while removing a failed drive.
In the case of RAID 5 this is disastrous.
This comment made my day!!!
"just cause I am risky like that"
My biggest fear with all these consumer storage arrays (Qnap, Drobo, etc.) is that one day the RAID controller will fail and the company may no longer produce a replacement controller. In that case all your "tax documents" would be gone for good. That is unless you're running RAID 1.
With a BSD or Linux software RAID your array is hardware independent.
the solution to that problem may come as a shock to you
it's called having a backup
Unless you're using *this* as a backup... thicko.
giuliop: "Unless you're using *this* as a backup"
Then you use your original and replace the backup.
Because *surely* you weren't trying to use a single array for the original and backup simultaneously. That would just be too stupid to accuse someone of doing.
Whether you're using this as your backup or main storage, the point is that these devices have hardware dependence which creates a potentially unrecoverable single point of failure for the array. There is no such hardware dependence using software raid as found in BSD, Linux etc.
I can't think of any single point of array failure in a software raid setup that does not exist in these hardware appliances as well.
"I want a NAS that allows for expansion...ie...buy another unit and have it work. Only crappy overpriced Drobo does this.."
Sadly you are ill-informed. The QNAP, as well as most other higher-end NAS devices do this easily. Not only can the Qnap back up to another unit, you can also add disks and it will use them automatically. Only thing it doesn't do is utilize multiple sized disks, like real RAID it will use the smallest size disk.
Not that that's a big problem to overcome, just buy all 1TB drives and away you go.
These devices have many features the consumer wouldn't even be aware of, they're aimed at businesses and or professionals / technical folk who understand the need for thse options.
- D
How do these compare to the ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer? I currently have a ReadyNAS Duo, which is made by Netgear who bought out/merged with infrant, the original makers of ReadyNAS.
The new TS-439 interests me because I've been wanting a Four Disk Solution, an upgrade from my current Duo. The ReadyNAS interface is very simple and it just works. I'm asking those who has had any experience with both the QNAP and ReadyNAS products. Any help with this is greatly appreciated.
@Risto T - I agree 100%!! As great as technology gets, I never rely on one thing for my data. In fact, I have a Qnap 209 Pro NAS, and I regularly back up its data to an external device even though the drives are Raid1. No such thing as being too careful when it comes to computers and data!
DIY NAS is OTW!
http://www.pcdesignlab.com/smf/index.php?topic=367.0
I can't think of any single point of array failure in a software raid setup that does not exist in these hardware appliances as well. http://www.vxcb.com Too. Much. Information.