qnap lcd panel price

This is a well-documented A125 board. There are multiple scripts and programs on the web to read the buttons and control the LCD display. See eg. the implementation for qcontrol: a125.c.

I just set up my TS-563 and I assumed that the LCD panel on the unit comes on and displays info automatically, but mine hasn"t displayed anything since I brought it online yesterday. Is there a setting I"m missing?

EDIT: So, after doing some research, it would appear that the 563 does NOT have a front LCD panel...weird. Oh well, at least now I don"t have to go through the hassle to RMA it

the only thing I like about the brand new units qnap just released, is the tiny oled display ...I think displays are useful (no hunting for ip address etc)

I have a TS-563 for my backup/development platform I think it is awesome value for money. Only time I have ever used displays is when the unit boots, but even then I dont look at it. So for me paying a premium for a pretty screen wasn"t even in my list of requirements when purchasing the 563. I also have a TVS-882 which has a screen, but I never look at it. The TS-563 for the price has great perfomance, takes the latest QTS, and also fits the new QM2 cards, including 10Gb... what"s not to like. If your requirements include a screen, no issues, there are plenty of QNAP models with them.

For my NAS, the only difference I can remember between the "Pro" and non-"Pro" models is the LCD screen. So, I made sure I purchased the "Pro" versions. But the non-"Pro" looks almost identical.

OneCD wrote:For my NAS, the only difference I can remember between the "Pro" and non-"Pro" models is the LCD screen. The "Pro" designation does no longer exist.

Not a secret, the non-Pro used to be "simplified" versions with some stripped-off hardware. Similar, the TS-563 was specified as an basic NAS, non-GPU, five-bay, encryption capable system. QNAP preferred the AMD over the then new Atom C2000 platform, and introduced a 10 GbE option in this market. And then, the competition was to be expected without a display, so in the aim of keeping the costs down, there is none. So there is no "huge LCD panel", never was.

I am amazed this thread is still going. I mean seriously, it"s not like QNAP is being fraudulent, the specs of each QNAP model is clearly detailed on their website. I chose the TS-563 because it was excellent value, and performs beyond my expectations. And for my circumstances part of my decision was to choose a model without a screen. My advice, read the specifications, make an informed choice, and move on.

The QNAP TS-470"s external design is practically identical everything in the same line of products we have reviewed from company in the past. This means it carries a strong family resemblance to everything ranging from the QNAP TS-439 Pro to the TS-559 Pro II. From the angle of our photo above, the only thing that has changed is an infrared receiver above the fourth drive bay, used for MCE remote controls. This can be a pretty useful feature, especially considering QNAP wants to move their NAS into your living room as a media center system. On the other hand, if QNAP wants to be taken seriously as an entertainment device, I think its industrial/datacenter appearance will need a makeover -- it looks too businessy for home users. I am sure there is a way to please both groups.

The quad-bay TS-470 measures in at 18.0cm wide, 23.5cm deep, and 17.7cm tall according to specifications -- just like the TS-439 Pro and everything that came in between. Like the last few generations of QNAP network attached storage systems, the QNAP TS-470 features an internal power supply rather than a power brick; we will cover that in detail in just a moment. The current QNAP NAS design is focused on a more industrial/datacenter look than preceding models such as the QNAP TS-409 from 2008. It features four prominent and easily accessible vertically mounted disk trays, and a small, dual-line LCD display placed near the top for the user"s convenience. As always, each disk tray is individually lockable, but they all use the same provided key (Actually, you can use the same key for all QNAP products, haha). Drive number order is reiterated by a diagram sticker placed at the top of the unit. The ventilated disk trays provide excellent airflow over the hard drives driven by the rear mounted cooling fan inside the QNAP TS-470. QNAP"s embossed logo is finished in brushed silver-colored metal, and placed near the top left corner; whereas a black, textured hard plastic surface occupies the rest of the front face. Two cleanly finished buttons are placed at the bottom left corner -- where one is a power button, and under it is another button labeled "Copy". This is to be used with the USB 3.0 port placed neatly in the middle of the Copy button for quick backup processes. Having the USB port in the middle of the button looks pretty cool, but you"ll sacrifice some usability. Both of the buttons protrudes slightly, so there"s a slight chance that someone may accidentally knock the power button. Fortunately, the system will prompt you on the LCD screen to initiate the shutdown procedure after depressing the power button, so it is not really an issue with regards to accidentally powering off the machine.

The QNAP TS-470"s LCD display is navigated by two simple buttons adjacent to it: The Enter key, and the Select key. There"s more than sufficient room for more, especially something like a D-pad may greatly enhance navigation. Fortunately, this screen isn"t necessarily used all the time. When on, its LCD screen features a blue backlight; and displays large, clear text in white to contrast with its background. The LCD display allows the user to monitor quick information as well as easily perform some configuration and maintenance tasks. An array of LEDs can be seen under it to indicate system status, USB status, as well as LAN status, respectively. The system status LED will turn off when the hard disks are on standby. Each independent hard drive has its own status LED as well, which are cleverly placed on the system itself, on the black strip near the top of each hard drive tray. This can be seen if you look carefully at the photo above. The drive status LEDs flashes when there is disk activity, and remains on when it is idling. It turns red if the system determines the corresponding hard drive is in trouble. The easy to access drive bays in conjunction with convenience added by the simple LCD screen really added to the overall usage experience of these excellent network appliances on my network. By retaining its excellent design, there is absolutely no learning curve for users who are familiar with using QNAP NAS systems -- it is all plug and play.

While the QNAP TS-470 is constructed on a steel frame, its shell that covers three sides of the system is composed of brushed aluminum in gunmetal with a black overtone. This not only improves heat dissipation due to thermal properties of aluminum, but also makes it look incredibly attractive in my opinion. For most business users, the NAS will be placed in a room where no one will bother spending time admiring your equipment. But for others, this may end up being in their living room, so appearance is important, although I still don"t think the TS-470 will blend in too well with your home theater receiver and Bluray player. At the top, a label is there to show the user how to quickly get myQNAPcloud up and running quickly. A key unique to your specific box is provided to streamline to the setup process.

What we have at the back of the system are enough ports to more or less resemble a real computer, rather than a simple network storage device as NAS devices are back in the days. This is quite an upgrade from previous QNAP devices. The reason is because the TS-470 can serve as a media center computer -- the HDMI port at the bottom right corner and 3.5mm audio at the top right corner should tell you quite a bit. Unfortunately, there is no S/PDIF output; the only way to get digital audio is via HDMI passthrough. The rest of the connection array is quite standard; where you are provided with ports for two eSATA devices, plus two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports for storage or up to three USB printers. Two integrated Gigabit LAN ports reside next to the USB ports, and two more modular ones reside at the top. You can configure them for maximum performance, network redundancy, load balancing, and even multiple independent networks. If you replace the non-integrated solution with a 10GbE card, you can pull up to 450MB/s read and 423MB/s write, according to the company"s internal testing. Of course, this is under a very specific configuration. QNAP used a dual port Intel X520-SR2 10GbE server adapter on the client side, and an Intel X-520-DA2 + 802.3ad trunking mode with Intel 510 SSDs in RAID 5 on the server side.

A single 92mm YS Tech FD129225LB exhaust fan pulls heat out of your NAS server, with its exhaust vents cut into the steel panel. A proper fan grille would be better for airflow in my opinion. The 92mm fan is specified at 1900rpm, 40.2 CFM airflow, 1.7mm-H2O static pressure, and 25.0dB noise. A small opening at the top provides ventilation for its internal power supply"s 40mm fan. A vertically oriented power input male connector is logically placed at the top left corner. Since the power supply unit automatically selects input voltage, there"s no need for the old fashioned voltage selector switch.

The shell is attached by three screws. Removing it may require some prying; more on this later. Notably missing as shown in our photo above is the dreaded warranty seal we have all come to hate, because with the promised user upgradeable network interface card, you are now given limited access to the QNAP TS-470"s interior (We will show you where the seal went in just a moment). Additionally, you are also no longer forced to void your warranty if you need to open the unit just to clean out some dust off its fan.

There is nothing particularly exciting at the bottom of the QNAP TS-470"s chassis; what you will see here are four large legs affixed on top of its steel frame panel. As always, they are installed to reduce vibration noise, increase grip, and prevent surface scratching. The left side of the network attached storage system features a neat array of small openings on its brushed aluminum shell. It is placed right next to where the motherboard is inside, to make sure hot air does not get congested within.

Removing its vertically mounted 3.5" SATA disk trays reveals the connector backpanel. The SATA backplane ports are powered by an external controller, connected to the motherboard on the PCIe bus. Since this is a SATA system, all hard drives are hot swappable. Removing the hard drive tray is very simple -- just pull on a lever at the top, and it is out. All recent QNAP devices in the past few years have each hard disk tray is labeled "Disk 1" to "Disk 4" consecutively, so you will not mix up which one is which when you have a bunch of them disconnected. For some reason, the TS-470 went back a step, and the included trays are no longer labeled. Obviously, you can grab a permanent marker and mark them by hand, but you get my point. Each tray can accommodate a 2.5" or 3.5" drive, along with a maximum amount of ventilation openings at the bottom for improved heat dissipation. The latest trays are inner lined with a clear plastic layer to prevent short circuiting. The QNAP TS-470 supports single disk, RAID 0 (Disk Striping), RAID 1 (Disk Mirroring), RAID 5, RAID 5 plus spare, RAID 6, RAID 10, and JBOD (Linear Disk Volume). If you want to encrypt your data, you have the option to enable its FIPS 140-2 validated AES 256-bit volume-based encryption.

While the new QNAP TS-439 Pro is slightly wider and longer than its predecessor at 18.0cm wide and 23.5cm deep, it is actually slightly shorter at 17.7cm (Based on its published dimensions). One of the reasons why the new NAS is larger is because the power supply is not located inside the chassis. The new design also features a more industrial/datacenter look than the QNAP TS-409 -- QNAP"s new TS-439 Pro now features four prominent and easily accessible vertically mounted disk trays, and a small, dual-line LCD display placed near the top. As always, each disk tray is individually lockable, but they all use the same provided key. Drive number order is reiterated by a diagram sticker placed at the top of the unit. Meanwhile, the dust accumulating mesh door seen on the TS-409 has been deleted to improve drive accessibility -- and to be honest, it is not really necessary anyway haha. QNAP"s embossed logo is finished in brushed silver-colored metal, and placed near the top left corner; whereas a black, textured hard plastic surface occupies the rest of the front face. Two cleanly finished buttons are placed at the bottom left corner -- where one is a power button, and under it is another button labeled "Copy". This is to be used with an USB port placed neatly in the middle of the Copy button for quick backup processes. Having the USB port in the middle of the button looks pretty cool, but you"ll sacrifice some usability. Both of the buttons protrudes slightly, so there"s a slight chance that someone may accidentally knock the power button. Fortunately, the system will prompt you on the LCD screen to initiate the shutdown procedure after depressing the power button, so it is not really an issue with regards to accidentally powering off the machine.

The QNAP TS-439 LCD display is navigated by two simple buttons adjacent to it: The Enter key, and the Select key. There"s more than sufficient room for more, especially something like a D-pad may greatly enhance navigation. Fortunately, this screen isn"t necessarily used all the time. When on, its LCD screen features a blue backlight; and displays large, clear text in white to contrast with its background. The LCD display allows the user to monitor quick information as well as easily perform some configuration and maintenance tasks. An array of LEDs can be seen under it to indicate system status, LAN status, USB status, as well as eSATA status, respectively. Each independent hard drive has its own status LED as well, which are cleverly placed on the system itself, on the black strip near the top of each hard drive tray. This can be seen if you look carefully at the photo above.

At first, I felt that the QNAP TS-439 Pro is a step back in terms of aesthetics compared to the QNAP TS-409. It has really grown on me in the past few weeks; and to be honest, I actually like the new one a lot more. But whether you like the design or not, it"s a network storage server, it"s all about function over form, right?

While the QNAP TS-439 Pro is constructed on a steel frame, its shell that covers three sides of the system is composed of brushed aluminum in gunmetal with a black overtone. This not only improves heat dissipation due to thermal properties of aluminum, but also makes it look incredibly attractive in my opinion!

Interestingly, the back of the system now has enough ports to more or less resemble a real computer, rather than a simple network storage device as NAS devices are back in the days. You can now connect two eSATA devices, and has four USB ports for storage. It can even accommodate up to three printers! Two Gigabit LAN ports reside between the eSATA and USB ports that you can configure for network redundancy, load balancing, and even two independent networks. A VGA connector is also present if you want to just plug in a monitor, and an USB keyboard, to fire up its standard American Megatrends BIOS (And before you ask, no, there are no overclocking functions haha) and Linux console. Of course, most tasks can be done with QNAP"s excellent new web interface.

An 92mm single exhaust fan pulls heat out of your NAS server, with its exhaust vents cut into the steel panel. A small opening at the top provides ventilation for its internal power supply; there"s a very small 20mm ball-bearing fan at the other side of the PSU. Its vertically oriented power input male connector is logically placed at the top left corner. Since the power supply unit automatically selects input voltage, there"s no need for the old fashioned voltage selector switch stuff haha.

There"s nothing particularly exciting at the bottom of the QNAP TS-439 Pro"s chassis; what you"ll see here are four large legs affixed on top of its steel frame panel. As always, they"re installed to reduce vibration noise, increase grip, and prevent surface scratching. The left side of the network attached storage system features a neat array of small openings on its brushed aluminum shell. It is placed right next to where the motherboard is inside, to make sure hot air doesn"t get congested inside.

Removing its vertically mounted 3.5" SATA disk trays reveals the connector backpanel. The SATA backplane ports are powered by an external Marvell 88SX7042 controller, connected to the motherboard on the PCIe bus. Because of this, it should be noted that these drives are not boot configurable in the BIOS. If you plan to hack your system later on, you"ll need an USB or eSATA drive. We"ll go over the exciting details on Page 5.

The QNAP TS-439 Pro supports single disk, RAID 0 (Disk Striping), RAID 1 (Disk Mirroring), RAID 5, RAID 5 plus spare, RAID 6, and JBOD (Linear Disk Volume). If you want to encrypt your data, you have the option to enable its AES 256-bit volume-based encryption.

The left side of the system opposes the side where its motherboard is mounted. In the photo above, we can see the LCD controller module at the front, its four 3.5" drive bays occupying majority of the area, as well as the power supply located right above the drive bays. A few centimeters of clearance room can be seen between the rear 92mm fan, and the quad hard drive bays. Again, this allows some space between components to reduce heat congestion. Its well placed rear exhaust fan can then easily take out the warm air, and allow cooler air to flow over the mounted hard drives with minimal turbulence noise. It is pretty packed inside the QNAP TS-439 Pro, but everything is neatly placed and cabled to maximize cooling efficiency.

On the other side of the box is the motherboard mounted vertically. The back of the motherboard is covered entirely by a piece of clear plastic, just in case in makes contact with the shell and short circuits. As aforementioned, the QNAP TS-439 Pro Turbo NAS has an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor installed, with 1GB of DDR2 SODIMM memory. I would say that it would offer significantly improved performance in a larger user environment if it was equipped with a dual core Atom processor instead. Its embedded Linux based operating system is installed on an Apacer ADM II IDE44 128MB flash memory chip, which can be easily removed by the user. There are three heatsinks on the motherboard, one for each of its Atom N270 processor, memory controller hub, and I/O controller hub. The Intel 945GSE chipset consists of the 82945GSE Northbridge and NH82801GBM (Commonly referred to as the ICH7M) Southbridge.

The ICH7M provides service to its USB ports, as well as the rear eSATA ports -- leaving an external Marvell controller to feed its four main drive bays, as aforementioned. Intel"s 82574 Gigabit LAN controller powers its two Gigabit ethernet ports at the back. All of these mentioned ports are soldered directly to the motherboard. Generally speaking, it is safe to say the QNAP TS-439 Pro is nearly a full-featured standard x86 system.

I"ve read reports on the QNAP TS-439 Pro featuring a Seasonic SS-259SU 250W power supply. When I opened my particular unit, I found a Fortron Source FSP220-60LE 250W power supply. Fortron is both a large power supply OEM, and self-branded manufacturer under the same brand. The Fortron FSP220-60LE is rated at 250W @ 25c and 220W @ 50c. It is technically a 220W power supply, which Fortron specifies as well -- you can even see this in their model number -- but QNAP prefers to advertise it as a 250W power supply under their own specifications. Realistically, no power supplies can operate at an internal temperature of 25c under normal working environments, therefore 220W is a much more accurate rating. It can output up to 14.0A @ +3.3V, 16.0A @ +5V, 16.0A @ +12V1, and 10.0A @ +12V2 with two +12V rails. The Fortron FSP220-60LE features Active PFC, and is a 80 Plus certified power supply.

Scrolling through QNAP’s extensive listing of NASes, you can find a product to meet just about any need. Our more recent QNAP reviews have included “SMB” class products, including the high-end TVS-471Turbo NAS and mid-class TVS-463 Golden Cloud Turbo NAS.

This review will focus on the TS-563-8G Turbo NAS. As QNAP’s only 5-bay NAS and AMD-powered, it’s a unique box. The TS-563-8G is the 8 GB SKU; it’s also available with just 2 GB of RAM (TS-563-2G). Both models have a single PCI-E expansion port and five USB 3.0 ports, but lack a front panel LCD screen, HDMI port and locking disk trays.

All three of these NASes have at least one PCI-E slot and support optional 10 GbE NICs. So we’ve tested all three using both our standard Gigabit and optional 10GbE connections. Since the cost of the 10 GbE adapter adds significantly to the total cost of the NAS, we will be doing separate Gigabit and 10GbE competitive comparisons. I’ve chosen a slightly different mix of products to compare using our standard single client Gigabit tests: the ASUSTOR AS7004T and QNAP TVS-463 Golden Cloud Turbo NAS.

The callouts below show the front and rear panels of the TS-563-8G. There’s a single USB 3.0 port on the front panel located just below the One Touch Copy button. The rear panel has two Gigabit Ethernet ports and four USB 3.0 ports.

Like some other QNAP NASes, the TS-563 proved to be difficult to disassemble, so I don’t have a PCB photo. The photo below shows an inside shot showing the optional 10 GbE NIC installed.

Like all QNAP NASes, the TS-563-8G runs QNAP’s QTS NAS OS. Recently, QNAP released an updated version, QTS 4.2. New features include a revamped user interface, updated multimedia features, optimized storage management and backup and data protection with 2-step verification. You can download a brochure detailing the features of QTS 4.2 here.

For competitive comparison, I’ve created a composite image showing benchmark summaries for the QNAP TS-563-8G, QNAP TVS-463 and ASUSTOR AS7004T. Note: The Performance bars on the ASUSTOR 7004T are longer than the corresponding bars for the two QNAP NASes. This is because the QNAP NASes were also tested with 10 GbE, so the Gigabit results were scaled. The ASUSTOR NAS doesn’t support 10 GbE. Though the scale of the two charts differ, the numerical results are accurate.

All three products turned in very similar results for most tests. That’s not too surprising as all three products are ranked in the top four products for RAID5 NASes. For both QNAP NASes, there were no results reported for USB 2.0 backup or eSATA backup, as both lack those ports. The TS-563-8G performed very well on the USB 3.0 FAT backup, but trailed the other two NASes for USB3 backup for both EXT3 and NTFS backup. Both QNAP NASes trailed the ASUSTOR AS7004T for Network backup as well as iSCSI Write and Read performance.

It’s worth noting again the Performance Ranking takes into account only Gigabit Ethernet performance. For this review, I filtered for RAID5 class NASes and Revision 5 Test Method. The QNAP TS-563-8G is in a tie for the #4 ranking with the QNAP TS-453 and its six and eight bay siblings, the TS-653 and TS-853. The TVS-463 Golden Cloud edged out the TV-563-8G for the # 3 ranking. The more expensive TVS-471-i3-4G ranked #2, and the ASUSTOR AS7004T remains the #1 ranked RAID 5 NAS for performance.

The composite chart below shows the ranker performance summaries for the QNAP TS-563-8G, QNAP TVS-463 and ASUSTOR AS7004T. The TS-563-8G had its best category ranking (#2) for Video where it tied with the top-ranked AS7004T. The relatively slow Rsync backup pulled down the total NAS scores for both QNAPs.

Since the TS-563’s performance is clearly limited by the single Gigabit connection, we need to switch to 10GbE to see its real performance. I replaced the ASUSTOR AS7004T used in the comparison above with the QNAP TVS-471-i3-4G because the ASUSTOR NAS lacks a 10 GbE option.

For File Copy Write, the QNAP TS-563-8G came in third for RAID 0 behind the chart-topping NETGEAR ReadyNAS 716 and the QNAP TVS-471-i3-4G. For RAID 5, it dropped to fourth behind its two siblings and the Synology DS2015xs. For RAID10, it was also in fourth place, but this time, behind the NETGEAR, Synology and the QNAP TVS-471-i3-4G.

The QNAP TS-563-8G is a fairly unique NAS. It is the only 5 Bay NAS in QNAP’s product line and one of only two 5 Bay NASes in our NAS Charts. So direct comparisons are limited. The other 5 Bay NAS is the #16 ranked Thecus N5810 Pro, which I reviewed in June. Since the Thecus was more expensive and had a significantly lower NAS score, I excluded it from our performance comparisons.

For this class of NAS, you really need 10 GbE to access its full performance from a single client. 10 GbE definitely adds to the price of not only your storage solution, but also your network infrastructure. To upgrade the NAS, QNAP sells a Dual-port 10 Gigabit 10GBASE-T card for $429. A Single port 10 Gigabit 10 GBASE-T card sells for $220. At minimum, you’ll need a single port Intel X540T1 or dual port Intel X540T2 copper 10GbE NIC for your PC, which will run $410 or $300, respectively. You don’t need a switch; you can connect the NAS and PC directly and assign static IP addresses.

In the end, it comes down to performance and features that are important to you. The chart above shows that the TS-563-8G has the fastest 10 GbE File Copy Read performance that we’ve see for all RAID level. The other two 10 GbE QNAP NASes used in our 10 GbE performance comparisons had very similar read performance, but trailed the TS-563-8G significantly.

The handy LCD display on the NAS provides a speedy and easy approach for IT administrators to initialize the NAS and set up the RAID configuration without using any computer. The system information and settings are also displayed for easy management. The schedule power on/off feature is available on the NAS for IT administrators to flexibly manage the NAS server"s up time according to the working hours. Also, the smart Wake on LAN is supported for convenient remote wakeup of the NAS in the local network.

The test results show that TS-639 Pro delivers superior performance (over 300Mbps when serving 16 clients), under single disk configuration. The throughput of other NAS brands of the same level only reaches a half or less than that of QNAP TS-639 Pro. It reflects the TS-639 Pro"s capability as the best file server solution in a business environment.

The unique "Virtual Disk Drive" adds flexibility to expand the capacity of NAS. By using the built-in iSCSI initiator, the NAS can connect to other iSCSI targets on the network and turn them into virtual disks, which become multiple single volumes on the NAS. Up to 8 virtual disks can be stacked. The NAS serves as the storage stack chaining master. The user only needs to connect to this single entry (QNAP NAS) and is able to reach and use all the iSCSI target storages on the network.

You can use the handy LCD to finish the first time installation in 3 simple steps. The NAS will automatically complete the hard disk formatting and RAID building.

QNAP has built NAS units for years and we are finally getting to take a look at a NAS unit from a category we have not covered for the company. Specifically, while we have looked at both rackmount and low-end desktop NAS units from QNAP, the QNAP TVS-h1288X we are reviewing here is best described as a mix of many different concepts. It is bigger than the company’s 2-bay, 4-bay, and similar units, but it is still a desktop form factor. It has twelve drive bays, and that is before one gets to the internal storage options. It is a QNAP NAS, but that now includes ZFS.

Realistically, the overarching thought is that QNAP has built the edge server many STH readers have been trying to build for over a decade. That is a bit of a bold statement, but upon reflecting on what you will soon read, it will make a lot of sense if one starts to read this review with that contextual model.

The unit itself is 9.24 × 14.56 × 12.59 inches and is designed to be a large desktop chassis. While there are some NASes on the market designed to be compact 2-4 bay models and others that are designed to be rack-mounted, this is firmly a unit designed to be used in a SMB/ home office setting. There are simple features such as a LCD status display and a front USB port to make data importing easier that we often do not see on rackmount units.

One of the nice features here is that the unit has tool-less vibration mitigating drive trays. When we reviewed the QNAP GM-1002 3U Dual ZFS NAS, we noted how drives with screws take longer to service. Here, we have drive trays that use simple snap-in pegs to secure drives. There is a recommended option for adding screws for shipping security as well. One can see the blue vibration dampeners that help further isolate vibrations to and from the drives.

One item that you may not immediately notice is that QNAP has a system of vents around the drives to keep cool air flowing. This is a small touch, but it is one that we sometimes see self-build chassis lack. Between the venting and the front/ rear airflow, this keeps drives cool.

We did want to show the LCD display and one other key feature. QNAP has LED status lights that are green for functioning drives and red for drives with errors. Here we have two drives that are marked as having errors to let us show this. One can also see the status screen. This has the basic status that the system is shutting down, but can also show alerts for drive failures, IP addresses, and other important information.

This is one of those features that separates this NAS from lower-end units and many self-built offerings. The motherboard has specific headers to drive the LCD and QNAP’s QuTS hero software helps display relevant information.

Perhaps the biggest rear feature is around the networking. There are four RJ45 ports that are common in this class of NAS. Instead of these being 1GbE ports as companies like Synology generally use, QNAP has four 2.5GbE ports that can run at the lower 1GbE speeds as well. We are seeing more 2.5GbE gear so it is nice that QNAP is using a more modern standard. Not everyone will use this, but it only adds a few dollars to a BOM cost and offers 2.5x the performance of the older standards.

We use a lot of SFP+ and know many of our readers do as well. Still, one can use a SFP+ to 10Gbase-T Adapter Module and convert the interfaces. Also as a PCIe card, it seems like this is something that QNAP could offer a different option on very easily. In this class of NAS, we are just thankful that QNAP added a higher-speed network option. The Synology DiskStation DS3617xs is perhaps this unit’s closest competitor at the same price point and only has 4x 1GbE while QNAP is offering 2x 10GbE and 4x 2.5GbE. There is a massive delta on the networking side.

The TVS-463 is a NAS solution designed for home to business applications with the ability to expand the total raw storage capacity up to 160TB using the UX-800P QNAP expansion enclosure. In addition, the TVS-463 is 10GbE-ready when using the optional PCI-E network expansion, which allows for high performance and persistent throughput.  The TVS-463 comes equipped with a AMD 2.4GHz quad-core x86 processor with 4GB DDR3L-1600 RAM (upgradable to 16GB) as well as five USB 3.0 ports, two HDMI ports, and two Gigabit LAN Ports. This functionality allows the TVS-463 to be used as a PC via its QvPC Technology; users simply plug in a monitor, keyboard and mouse and they are now able to operate the NAS using HybridDesk Station on the screen. Users can also run multiple Windows, Linux, Android-based virtual machines with the Virtualization Station.

QNAP quotes their new NAS upwards of 425MB/s for both read and write activity using four GbE port configuration, and up to 1,481MB/s using the 10GbE configuration. The TVS-463 also uses a hardware-accelerated encryption engine, allowing them to quote some pretty good encryption performance (up to 686MB/s with AES-256 bit full NAS volume encryption), a feature the is very important SMBs . In addition, the TVS-463 is equipped with next-gen AMD Radeon HD graphics with hardware-accelerated transcoding performance and HD video editing and sharing as well as HD playback via its two HDMI ports. The QNAP NAS also has an optional Wi-Fi 802.11ac USB network adapter.

The TVS-463 is also compatible with the latest version of QNAP’s QTS Smart NAS Operating System (4.1), which offers a user-friendly interface for system operations of the NAS. The QTS OS provides users with multimedia applications for photos, music, and videos as well as the ability to create desktop shortcuts or group shortcuts, monitor important system information on a real-time basis, and open multiple application windows to run multiple tasks concurrently.

The QNAP TVS-463 is available in two configurations: the TVS-463-4G (4GB DRAM) and the TVS-463-8G (8GB RAM), which are available for roughly $799 and $859 respectively. We will be looking at the TVS-463-8G unit.

The sleek looking QNAP TVS-463 is built with a metal frame and metal parts, and is very sturdy and rugged when handled.  Branded with the company logo at the top left, the TVS-463 is comprised of a tower form factor with a silver/white plastic chassis cover. The front of the NAS is host to four hotswappable drive bays, each of which have a locking mechanism as well as the LCD display panel, providing users with quick system information using the Enter and Select button to the right. The Status, USB, and LAN LED indicators are located just below.

Also located on the front panel is a Power button, USB 3.0 port and the One Touch Copy button, the latter which backs up data from the front USB drive to the NAS or vice versa.

When looking at the rear-side panel, you will immediately notice QNAP’s newly-designed heat sink, which exhausts excessive heat. To the right of the fan are two HDMI, four USB 3.0, abd two Gigabit LAN ports, as well as the Kensington Security slot for increases physical security.  The Power Connector, Console port, PCIe Expansion slot, and Password and Network Setting reset button are all located along the top of the device.

We tested both SMB and iSCSI performance using RAID 10 configurations of the WD Red NASware 3.0 6TB and Samsung SM863 drives, which we will be comparing it to QNAP’s TVS-871 NAS solution using the same drives.

Our standard StorageReview Enterprise Test Lab regimen runs the device through its paces with a battery of varying performance levels and throughput activity workloads. For the QNAP TVS-463, the following profiles were utilized to compare performance between different RAID configurations and different networking standard protocols (SMB and iSCSI):

The QNAP TVS-463 is a 4-bay tower form factor NAS that is powered by an AMD 2.4GHz quad-core x86 processor with Radeon graphics and 8GB of DDR3L-1600, which is expandable up to 16GB.  Its total raw storage capacity is capable of reaching up to a 160TB of data using the UX-800P QNAP expansion enclosure and is 10GbE-ready with the optional PCI-E network expansion. This allows the QNAP NAS to achieve high performance I/O and throughput. It is also equipped with a plethora of connectivity, with five USB 3.0 ports, two HDMI ports, and two Gigabit LAN Ports, giving users the ability to use the NAS as a PC through its QvPC Technology. All you have to do is simply plug in a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and you can operate the NAS using HybridDesk Station. This is certainly a very versatile NAS.

The QNAP TVS-463 is a versatile 4-bay NAS that offers excellent performance for prosumers that demand high throughput and expansive storage potential from their NAS.

The QNAP TS-419P+ is targeted towards prosumers and features 4 hot-swappable drive bays, a Marvell 6282 1.6 GHZ processor, 512 MB DDR2 memory, dual gigabit ethernet ports, 4 USB ports, 2 eSATA ports and a whole lot of mojo. Did you notice the eSATA and dual ethernet ports? That"s what gives the TS-419P+ the advantage over the other NAS devices we"ve reviewed over the past 3 days.

At the front, it sports the 4 aforementioned drive bays, a USB port and a corresponding backup button for easy one-touch backup, a LCD panel and 2 control buttons. The LCD panel allows you to check its status, IP address, and administer the system -- either power it down or perform a restart. It sports a brushed aluminium body, which is very classy indeed.

At the back, is where the magic happens. You"ll find 2 eSATA ports, which was not available on the other 3 NAS devices we reviewed. Plus, it"s got 1 more USB port than the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4. Along with that, and perhaps the most interesting part of the QNAP is the dual ethernet interface, which supports network teaming. We spoke about network teaming yesterday in the Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 review (where sadly, it is not supported) but in case you missed it, here"s a quick recap. Teaming or trunking is the ability to combine 2 network interfaces together, resulting in a single, faster connection to the router. There are various modes of network teaming and here"s what the TS-419P+ supports:

Like all NAS devices, the QNAP TS-419P+ comes with its own dashboard/detection application on a CD called QNAP Finder which is cross platform. Once the application is installed, it will automatically detect any QNAP NAS devices on your network and assist you in logging into the web-based GUI.

Logging into the administration web-based AJAX GUI is simple if you know the device"s IP address. Open a browser of your choice and type in its IP address. If not, use the QNAP Finder to locate your device, then click on Connect.

Like the Synology, QNAP"s web interface is pretty good although it doesn"t support multi-tasking. The GUI is easy to manoeuvre and quite responsive. It also provides an easy, one-touch solution to enable various functions like Apple Time Machine support, a file server, web server, backup server, iTunes server, print server, media centre, torrent download centre, webcam surveillance support, the list goes on.