A quality 5 bay NAS with two built-in 10GbE SFP+ ports is what you’re after?
And for well under 800 Aussie bucks?
Let us show you what QNAP recently announced and how we fared in our hands-on review…
First Impression
Looking at the specs on the box I was quite impressed that an entry level model had such potential. Amazon’s Annapurna Labs Alpine AL-341 quad-core 1.4 GHz processor partnered with 10GB provisioning for such a small price point in the market is somewhat unheard of.
Exterior is black/silver in colour which is nice to match it with the original family.
The TS-531X is a tower design and build quality is great. Most of the chassis is made from metal including the caddy drives themselves besides the handles which is the only part that’s plastic.
Front panel consists of 1x USB 3.0 One Touch Copy button.
Rear panel sports 2x USB 3.0 Ports, 2x Gigabit RJ45 NICs standard and 2 x 10 Gigabit SFP+ LAN Ports.
Talk about bang for buck! Purchasing a 10GB NIC will cost you at least around the $400 alone so you can see how great value this unit is.
In Action
Boot up was nice and quick and the initial installation and configuration was seamless.
QTS is developing into quite a mature custom Linux build that sets QNAP apart.
QNAP simplifies the setup of their devices quite well with the use of informative wizards. Plugged in the drives, plugged in network, booted it up and could find the device by using QFinder. QNAP initially was on a DHCP address and I could access the web interface. I ran through the wizards, configured the storage pool and away we went.
Network throughput was maxed out at 116mbps which is what I expected out of a gigabit connection. I teamed all the NICs together and have multiple machines transferring and reaching peak speeds without a problem. As expected I saturated the link and was quite happy.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get my hands on some compatible SFPs to test out the 10 Gigabit ports. I’m a huge fan of 10GB! With a decent CPU, SSD and a 10GBE link there’s nothing left to complain about.
I ran my tests with 2x Samsung 850 EVO SSDs and a HP Procurve 10GBE switch.
Gripes
There’s nothing that comes to mind really. You always get what you pay for in a NAS but in this case I personally think you’re getting more.
Build quality is great and nothing I could suggest to improve the device’s looks or performance.
The only way you could be let down by this NAS is by installing mechanical hard disks in it. SSD is a must.
Conclusion
NAS units are getting more and more common in everyday homes with end users’ expectation of performance increasing all the time. Not only are the files getting larger but we’re also becoming more and more impatient and demanding faster speed.
The TS-531X is focusing on the small business market by delivering power efficiently with low energy consuming CPU whilst giving customers the ability to reach performance by installing SSD hard disks with a 10GBE or dual gigabit network interface.
With the ability to purchase the device in a 2GB or 8GB RAM model what, more would an everyday small business want out of a network storage device?
We’ve seen the 2GB unit priced between the 700-800 mark at online retailers here in Oz.
Highly recommended!
