qnap lcd panel manufacturer

Transcode Full HD videos on-the-fly or offline with QNAP’s unique transcoding technology and hardware transcoding engine*

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 3.40GHz CPU; DDR3 1600Hz 16GB; WD 1TB WD10EZEX; Intel Gigabit CT (MTU 1500); 10GbE with QNAP LAN-10G2T-X550 dual-port PCIe NIC (MTU 9000); Windows® 7 Professional 64bit SP1

Quickly and easily find documents, photos, videos, and music with Qsirch, QNAP’s new built-in NAS search application lets you find what you need by real-time, natural search. Simply type in as much as you know about what you are trying to find, including bits of the file name or even words/phrases in the document, and Qsirch will display a list of matches, complete with thumbnails, as you type. Qsirch even remembers your search history so you can quickly navigate to files you’ve previously searched for. Qsirch is a huge productivity boost – it greatly reduces the amount of time spent looking for files on the NAS so you can focus on other tasks.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 3.40GHz CPU; DDR3 1600Hz 16GB; WD 1TB WD10EZEX; Intel Gigabit CT (MTU 1500); 10GbE with QNAP LAN-10G2T-X550 dual-port PCIe NIC (MTU 9000); Windows® 7 Professional 64bit SP1

QNAP"s TVS-463 offers up to 5 year warranty for an optional purchase. All QNAP NAS devices come with at least a 2-year standard warranty while enterprise models come with 3-year standard warranty. If standard warranty is not enough, QNAP Extended Warranty Service coverage offers our customers up to 5 years of worry-free protection. Refer to this link for more information on QNAP"s extended warranty.

QNAP’s exclusive QvPC Technology consolidates a number of high-end technologies including VM integration, multimedia transcoding, HDMI output, cloud integration and NAS connection technologies, allowing users to operate the TVS-463 as a PC when they plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor. With QvPC Technology, the TVS-463 is transformed into a cost-effective device with PC functionalities for users to operate the system via "HybridDesk Station (HD Station)" on the screen to directly access stored data, run multiple applications using Windows/Linux/UNIX/Android-based VMs, surf the web on Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, watch Full HD videos with up to 7.1 channel audio with Kodi, and much more.

QNAP"s HD Station integrates the powerful Kodi media player and web browser. The splendid user interface and support for crystal-clear 7.1-surround sound passthrough* brings smooth playback of Full HD videos**, providing you with the perfect home theater experience. The TVS-463 features dual HDMI outputs, allowing you to connect to two monitors to play the same content with concurrent 1080p HDMI displays. You can even watch YouTube videos, surf the web and manage the Turbo NAS using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox with multilingual keyboard input. The HD Station supports multi-tasking and user authentication so only authorized users can access data stored on the TVS-463 via HDMI monitors.

It is convenient & easy to control the HD Station. Turn your mobile devices into remote controls by installing the Qremote app, or use the QNAP RM-IR002 remote control and MCE remote controls via the built-in IR receiver of the TVS-463.

QNAP NetBak Replicator supports real-time and scheduled data backup on Windows including Outlook email archiving. Apple Time Machine is also supported to provide Mac OS X users with a solution to effortlessly back up data to the TVS-463. The USB 3.2 Gen 1 port on the front panel of the TVS-463 features a one-touch-copy function for you to instantly back up data from external drives to the TVS-463 with just one click, or alternatively to back up data from the TVS-463 to external drives. A wide range of third-party backup software such as Acronis® True Image and Symantec® Backup Exec are also supported. Learn more: NetBak Replicator, Time Machine backup, External device backup, Third-party backup software compatibility

The TVS-463 supports VMware® and Citrix®, and is compatible with Microsoft® Hyper-V™ and Windows Server 2012, benefiting flexible deployment and management in the virtualization environments. The TVS-463 supports VMware VAAI and Microsoft ODX to increase performance by offloading server loading for ESXi server and Hyper-V respectively, and supports QNAP vSphere Client plug-in and QNAP SMI-S provider with enhanced operational efficiency and management in virtualization applications. Learn more: VMware® Ready™, Citrix® Ready™, Microsoft® Hyper-V™, VMware VAAI, Microsoft ODX, SMI-S provider for Microsoft SCVMM

QNAP"s flexible volume provides a more secure and flexible way to store NAS data. This next-generation volume offers powerful features such as storage pooling with multiple RAID group protection, thin provisioned volumes with space reclaim, block-level iSCSI LUN, and online capacity expansion. The QTS Storage Manager neatly presents tools and options for managing system storage which greatly simplifies the process of NAS capacity expansion and QNAP RAID expansion enclosure management.

The TVS-463 offers a high performance yet affordable storage solution to fulfill the needs of business in archiving rapidly-growing data & large files. The TVS-463 supports capacity expansion by connecting multiple QNAP expansion enclosure. With the QNAP scale-up solution, the raw storage capacity can be expanded on demand, making the TVS-463 an ideal file center for storage-intensive business applications such as video surveillance, data archiving, TV broadcast storage, and more.

The maximum number of drives available by connecting QNAP expansion enclosures: Turbo NAS Model QNAP Expansion Enclosure No. of RAID Expansion Enclosure Total HDD No.

You can flexibly choose different ways to set up the TVS-463, including using the Qfinder Pro utility for setting up without a CD, using cloud installation via setup portal start.qnap.com with a unique Cloud Key, using mobile devices to scan the QR code sticker on the TVS-463 to quickly go over the installation, configuring the setup through the LCD display, and even setting up your TVS-463 locally without a network connection: just connect a keyboard, mouse and HDMI monitor to the TVS-463, and the NAS installation process can be completed effortlessly. Learn more: Qfinder Pro, Cloud installation

Thanks to its x86 architecture, the TVS-463 can support more NAS Apps than ARM-based platforms. The built-in App Center provides various install-on-demand apps developed by QNAP and third-party developers, including tools for backup/sync, business, content management, communications, download, entertainment, and much more. It is also a centralized location for managing & updating installed apps. In addition, QNAP’s development platform embraces the open-source spirit to enable developers to create their own apps, adding potentially limitless potential for the TVS-463. Learn more: App Center

The TVS-463 is adorned with a box in gold color, offering an exceptional choice with impressive sophistication. Built with metal frame and parts, the sleek and sturdy TVS-463 also features a newly-crafted heat sink that can exhaust excessive heat with its passive cooling. The LCD display panel on the TVS-463 provides quick system information making system management even easier.

Weight: 0.30 (kg) QNAP QM2 series, 2 x PCIe 2280 M.2 SSD slots, PCIe Gen3 x 4 , 2 x Intel I225LM 2.5GbE NBASE-T port

Note: Use only QNAP memory modules to maintain system performance and stability. For NAS devices with more than one memory slot, use QNAP modules with identical specifications.

The device works fine except for the LCD problem, I have tried downgrading back to 4.0.2. I shall try 4.1. My next action will be to backup all the data and do a full factory reset. However I do not think that one should have to do this.

Chinese (Traditional & Simplified), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish myQNAPcloud Service

Testing Environment: 2 Client PC configuration: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU, 16GB DDR3 RAM, Windows 7 professional 64-bit, Dual-port Intel X520 10GbE Server Adapter, IOMeter sequential read and write. NAS configurations: TVS-471-i3, Plextor PX-256MPro SSDs with RAID 5 configuration, QNAP LAN-10G2T-X550 dual-port 10GBase-T network adapter*1

Snapshots are a must-have feature for modern storage systems. QNAP"s snapshots help protect your folders, files, and iSCSI LUNs. In the event of malware attacks or unwanted changes, your stored data can be quickly reverted and restored to a specific point in time to ensure continuity.

QRM+ is QNAP"s Centralized Management Solution, designed for IT teams, for networked computing devices. It provides a single-point solution to discover, map, monitor and manage all of the critical computing devices (including servers, PCs, and thin clients) in your network, and facilitates device discovery with the graphical topology diagram. QRM+ supports IPMI 2.0, provides remote KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) for certain IPMI devices, and supports tracking every action using KVM recording and playback. Simply install QRMAgent on your Windows® and Linux® devices and you will see their system status on the QRM+ management interface. With centralized management using QRM+ on the NAS, IT infrastructure and device security is enhanced while troubleshooting and network resource performance analysis is greatly simplified.

Quickly and easily find documents, photos, videos, and music with Qsirch, QNAP’s new built-in NAS search application lets you find what you need by real-time, natural search. Simply type in as much as you know about what you are trying to find, including bits of the file name or even words/phrases in the document, and Qsirch will display a list of matches, complete with thumbnails, as you type. Qsirch even remembers your search history so you can quickly navigate to files you’ve previously searched for. Qsirch is a huge productivity boost – it greatly reduces the amount of time spent looking for files on the NAS so you can focus on other tasks.

QNAP"s TVS-471 offers up to 5 year warranty for an optional purchase. All QNAP NAS devices come with at least a 2-year standard warranty while enterprise models come with 3-year standard warranty. If standard warranty is not enough, QNAP Extended Warranty Service coverage offers our customers up to 5 years of worry-free protection. Refer to this link for more information on QNAP"s extended warranty.

QNAP’s exclusive QvPC Technology consolidates a number of high-end technologies including VM integration, multimedia transcoding, HDMI output, cloud integration and NAS connection technologies, allowing users to operate the TVS-471 as a PC when they plug in a keyboard, mouse and monitor. With QvPC Technology, the TVS-471 is transformed into a cost-effective PC substitute for users to directly access stored data, run multiple applications using Windows/Linux/UNIX/Android-based VMs, surf the web on Google Chrome, enjoy 4K or 1080p videos with up to 7.1 channel audio with Kodi, monitor Surveillance Station in real time with local display, and much more.

QNAP’s full NAS encryption by volume-based technology effectively ensures data security by encrypting all of the files stored in the default shared folders on the TVS-471. Even if the TVS-471 is encrypted, all the files can still be accessible via Windows SMB/CIFS, iSCSI, and NFS protocols. Users without permission to access the TVS-471 will be unable to access the stored files, hence data security risks and privacy leaks can be avoided.

The QTS Storage Manager provides a secure and flexible way to manage volumes. This next-generation volume management offers powerful features such as storage pooling with multiple RAID group protection, thin provisioned volumes with Space Reclaim, block-level iSCSI LUN and online capacity expansion. The QTS Storage Manager neatly presents tools and options for managing system storage to simplify the process of NAS capacity expansion and QNAP storage expansion enclosure management.

The QNAP NetBak Replicator supports real-time and scheduled data backup on Windows including Outlook email archiving. Apple Time Machine is also supported to provide Mac OS X users with a solution to effortlessly back up data to the TVS-471. The USB 3.2 Gen 1 port on the front panel of the TVS-471 features a one-touch-copy function for you to instantly back up data on external drives to the TVS-471 with just one click, or alternatively to back up data from the TVS-471 to external drives. A wide range of third-party backup software such as Acronis® True Image and Symantec® Backup Exec are also supported. Learn more: NetBak Replicator, Time Machine backup, External device backup, Third-party backup software compatibility

The TVS-471 supports VMware® and Citrix®, and is compatible with Microsoft® Hyper-V™ and Windows Server 2012, benefiting flexible deployment and management in the virtualization environments. The TVS-471 supports VMware VAAI and Microsoft ODX to increase performance by offloading server loading for ESXi server and Hyper-V respectively, and supports QNAP vSphere Client plug-in and QNAP SMI-S provider with enhanced efficiency of operations and management in virtualization applications. Learn more: VMware® Ready™, Citrix® Ready™, Microsoft® Hyper-V™, VMware VAAI, Microsoft ODX, SMI-S provider for Microsoft SCVMM

The TVS-471 has a built-in App Center that provides over 100 install-on-demand apps developed by QNAP and third-party developers, including tools for backup/sync, business, content management, communications, download, entertainment, and much more. It is also a centralized location for managing & updating installed apps. In addition, QNAP’s development platform embraces the open-source spirit to enable developers to create their own apps, adding potentially limitless potential for the TVS-471. Learn more: App Center

The TVS-471 supports online capacity expansion by connecting multiple high-performance SAS-enabled QNAP RAID expansion enclosures or economical USB 3.2 Gen 1 expansion units to meet the needs of growing business data. With the QNAP scale-up solution, raw storage capacity can be gradually expanded. It is especially useful for large data applications, such as video surveillance, data archiving, and TV broadcast storage, and more.

Weight: 0.30 (kg) QNAP QM2 series, 2 x PCIe 2280 M.2 SSD slots, PCIe Gen3 x 4 , 2 x Intel I225LM 2.5GbE NBASE-T port

Note: This 40GbE QSFP+ network cable is designed for NAS models which are compatible with the QNAP 40GbE NIC LAN-40G2SF-MLX mini SAS cable (0.5M, SFF-8644-8088)

My first impression of the QNAP TVS-463 was it took a page out of Apple"s design book. Sure, the QNAP TS-463"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-470. However, instead of the standard black design, the TVS-463 is available in only gold. At least here in North America, gold colored devices have largely made way for black, silver, or chrome finishes since the late nineties. Why the resurgence? According to an article I have read recently, the gold iPhones and MacBooks were a result of demand driven by the mainland China market.

Other than that, from the angle of our photo above, the TVS-463 is your quintessential QNAP NAS, with its industrial/datacenter look beneath the gold paint. It is not going to win any living room beauty contests like the HS-210, and frankly, if it is going to sit front and center underneath my TV, I think a facelift will do wonders. Meanwhile, the quad-bay TVS-463 measures in at 18.0cm wide, 23.5cm deep, and 17.7cm tall according to specifications -- just like the TS-470 and everything that came before. 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. An infrared receiver is found above the fourth drive bay, used for MCE remote controls. 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 TVS-463.

QNAP"s embossed logo is finished in brushed dark colored metal, and placed near the top left corner; whereas a gold, 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 will sacrifice some usability. Both of the buttons protrudes slightly, so there is 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. Like the last few generations of QNAP business class network attached storage systems, the QNAP TVS-463 features an internal power supply rather than a power brick; we will cover that in detail in just a moment.

The QNAP TS-463"s display is identical to the TS-470. It is navigated by two simple buttons adjacent to it: The Enter key, and the Select key. There is more than sufficient room for more, especially something like a D-pad may greatly enhance navigation. Fortunately, this screen is not 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 clear 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 TVS-463 is constructed on a steel frame, its shell that covers three sides of the system is composed of brushed metal in gold, just like the rest of the NAS. It looks pretty good in my opinion, but it is nothing we have not seen before from the company. 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 do not think the TVS-463 will blend in too well with your home theater receiver and Blu-ray 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 function as a personal computer, rather than a simple network storage device as NAS devices are back in the days. It is not quite a TS-470, but the midrange TVS-463 still holds plenty of merit on its own. Not only can this system act as your media center computer. If you plug in a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, you can literally use it as your PC -- more on this later. Unfortunately, there is no S/PDIF output; the only way to get digital audio is via HDMI passthrough. The connection array is simple but standard; where you are provided four USB 3.0 ports for storage, up to three printers, or peripherals. Two HDMI 1.4a ports are present, but the second one is only used for mirroring the first. Also, while they do support 4K output, you cannot use it to play 4K videos, which is quite the bummer. Two integrated Gigabit LAN ports reside next to the USB ports. You can configure them for maximum performance, network redundancy, load balancing, and even multiple independent networks. If you add a 10GbE card, you can pull up to 1481MB/s in throughput, according to the company"s internal testing. Of course, this is under a very specific configuration. QNAP used a dual port LAN-10G2T-D 10GbE adapter on both the client and the server via a direct connection, and four Plextor PX-256M5Pro SSDs in RAID 5 in the NAS. IOMeter is set to transfer an 8GB file at 64KB block size.

A large single 120mm YS Tech FD121225LB 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 120mm fan is specified at 1800rpm, 73 CFM airflow, 2.6mm-H2O static pressure, and 34 dB 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 is 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 TVS-463"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 TVS-463"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 Marvell controller, connected to the AMD SoC 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. The disk trays are not labeled. Functionally, the installation order does not matter in a RAID system, but I think being able to discern which disk is which by a physical label can be very useful. Obviously, you can grab a permanent marker and mark them by hand, but labeling them "Disk 1" to "Disk 4" from the factory is probably not too hard. 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 TVS-463 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.

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.

As time goes by more and more of you ask me about my opinion surrounding NAS units and more specifically which ones i consider to offer the best bang for your buck. Things however are never black and white when we are talking about technology so in the end it all comes down to what your needs are and how much you are willing to spend on it. So if you just want to buy a NAS Server to use just as a download station then even the entry-level Qnap TS-119P II (review soon) will be more than enough for that purpose so there"s really no need for you to spend much. On the other hand if you want an NAS Server for multiple usages, for example use as a download station, media station, FTP server and webserver then you would do well to choose something more powerful like the Qnap TS-219P II. Performance however is only part of what makes a NAS server and so aside you deciding what use you need it for you also need to know how many drives bays you may require. Up until today we have mostly focused on 2 and 4 bay mid-end solutions but since many of you asked today we will be taking a look at the latest TurboNAS TS-469 Pro which as the name suggests is the latest high-end 4bay mid-end (SMB) solution from QNAP.

QNAP Systems, Inc. is a privately held company founded in 2004 and is dedicated to bringing world class NAS storage, professional NVR video surveillance, and network video players to consumer, small/medium business, and entry level enterprise market segments. QNAP leverages not only hardware design but also a growing core competency in software engineering that is precisely focused on bringing to market products that offer the highest available performance coupled with outstanding reliability, scalability, and ease of installation and use. QNAP is a multi-national company with headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, and subsidiary offices in China and the United States.

Appearance wise the QNAP TurboNAS TS-469 Pro is almost identical to the TS-419P II I had the chance to test a while back but that’s just about the end of their similarities since the TS-469 Pro packs a much more powerful punch, specs-wise. So this time over we see an dual core Atom processor running at 2.13GHz, 1GB DDR3 RAM running at 1333MHz (expandable to 3GB), 512MB of flash memory and SATA III (6Gb/s) connectivity for all 4 drive bays which can in turn be used in various configurations such as single, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 5 + Hot Spare, 6, 6 + Hot Spare, 10, and 10 + Hot Spare. SATA III connectivity is something I’ve wanted to see for a while with SMB solutions and finally QNAP did it.

Much like the most 4 bay solutions by QNAP the TS-469 Pro arrived inside a large cardboard box with a large product image at the front alongside with its main features, drive compatibility and the QNAP logo.

The usual welcome message by QNAP awaits you once you open the box, however this time over we also see a quick showcase of how you can use the front LCD display.

Just like the TS-419P II only the front fascia of the TS-469Pro is black (the rest is plain aluminum), something that used to be the case with the previous generation of NAS Servers by QNAP and also something i didn"t enjoy much.

All 4 bays are hot-swap so you can add/remove drives at will just like with any QNAP unit. That aside you can setup the drives either in JBOD array in which case you can share both drives as one, as a RAID 0 array splitting all data in both drives, RAID 1 with the second drive backing up the primary one, RAID 5 which is basically similar with RAID 0 but also ads a parity check bit to ensure that the system keeps going even if one of the drives fail, RAID 6 which is identical to RAID 5 but allows for up to two simultaneous disk failures (dual parity) and finally RAID 10 which combines the best of both RAID 0 and RAID 1 by writing data on half of the disk drives available while the other half mirror the data of the first set. QNAP has also added a Hot Spare feature in most of the above configurations for improved data safety.

Before you do anything it’s highly recommended that you head over to the official QNAP support page to download the latest software version. QNAP has a very high rate of updates so you will probably have an older version on the supplied software CD.

What really changed from the last time i tested a QNAP NAS is the layout of the PhotoStation which looks really better than the old one and also features Google maps geotagging.

As you can see you can use up to 4 IP Cameras with the TS-469 Pro. Unfortunately it worked fine with just one out of the two latest IP cams i am currently testing here (Airlive). This is due to the limited support by QNAP for IP Cameras and although you can use compatibility settings to support many models that are not officially supported still i consider this as the single largest drawback QNAP has currently.

Since some of the NAS servers/devices we have tested in the past are no longer in our possession (naturally) we will keep performing the exact same testing methodology we did in the past for as long as possible in order to provide accurate comparison results. So as always we used a single Seagate Constellation ES.2 3TB SATA III hard disk drive with the QNAP TurboNAS TS-469 Pro (just like with all of the NAS units) and performed upload/download tests with a single 10.9GB file. Tests were repeated a total of 4 times after which we recorded the average numbers (from the 4 peak ones) into our charts. Finally the network device used is the same Netgear DGN3500 Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem/Router we always use when performing tests on NAS servers.

The TurboNAS TS-469 Pro by QNAP is without doubt a wonderful piece of hardware which will certainly cover 99% of the users out there (especially pros) due to its excellent hardware and software specifications. The 2.13GHz dual Atom processor along with the 1GB of DDR3 RAM (expandable to 3GB) make for a fine combination since not even once did we notice any speed issues while the 4 available drive bays give you a total available capacity of up to 16TB (and even more as new drives get released). The Web Interface is still my favorite since it"s by far the most user friendly i have seen, that however is something that comes down to personal preference. Honestly i can"t seem to find anything bad with the TurboNAS TS-469 Pro with sole exception the lack of support for many IP camera models in the market currently (if not most), something which i hope will change soon.

As we speak the current retail price tag of around USD799 (Newegg) inside the USA and around 790Euros inside the EU for the TurboNAS TS-469 Pro by QNAP may seem a bit high at first but you need to understand that for people who actually need the incredible extra muscle, features and drive bays it"s actually not. On the other hand if you don"t really need the extra drive bays you can always choose the TurboNAS TS-259 Pro+ which is quite cheaper and is not much slower, specs-wise that is (although it lacks some of the features found with the 469 Pro). Personally i can live with just 2 bays so the TS-469 Pro seems just a bit overkill for my home/office requirements, still it works as advertised, it"s extremely fast and gives you up to 16TB of storage so what more can any professional ask for? Because of all of the above we are awarding the QNAP TurboNAS TS-469 Pro with our Platinum Award.

QNAP is a popular NAS vendor that provides a wide model line of network-attached storage (NAS) devices. There are many NAS models for home users, IT enthusiasts, small businesses, and enterprises. With many models available, choosing NAS that better meets your needs and budget is difficult. This blog post covers the classification of QNAP NAS devices and explains the main differences between them to help you select the right NAS. The article also contains a review of popular QNAP NAS models of different series to understand better what capabilities are provided by each.

Set-top design. These are tiny and affordable portable NAS devices for home usage. The most silent NAS device without fans (fanless), for example, is QNAP HS-453DX.

Before choosing the NAS model, pay attention to the number of disk bays, and check if the NAS model supports connecting an expansion unit (also called expansion chassis or expansion enclosure). If all drive bays of your NAS are full, connecting an expansion unit allows you to install more disk drives on your NAS system. Check also the maximum supported capacity of disk drives that can be added to the NAS device. QNAP NAS devices are supplied without disks. You choose and buy disks separately. Don’t use hard disk drives of the green series to avoid any issues.

USB ports are used to connect USB drives, printers, external network adapters, and other devices. Some QNAP NAS models support connecting a NAS device to a computer by using a USB 3.0 micro-B port, just like you would connect a USB HDD to a computer. However, there is a difference because you should use a network interface, not disk drives such as F:, G:, K:, which are usually used to access directly attached disk drives (in Windows for example). A virtual switch is used on a NAS device, and you can connect to your NAS by using the IP address of your NAS that is connected to your computer via USB. The name of this feature is USB QuickAccess.

The TVS series of QNAP NAS have more powerful specifications than the TS series, such as a more powerful CPU, additional PCIe slots, built-in transcoding engine, and so on.

PCIe slots are used to add a PCI adapter such as M.2 SSD without using a drive bay. Install a QNAP QM2 card, SSD drive, Ethernet adapter, Wi-Fi adapter, or a graphics card into a PCI Express slot to extend the functionalities of a QNAP NAS device.

An integrated audio controller has audio output and input ports (mini jack 3.5 mm). This option is especially useful for users who use NAS as a multimedia station at home to store and play media files, including video and audio. Connect headphones or speakers to your QNAP NAS, and listen to the audio content. Install Music Station on QNAP NAS from the App Center to play audio files. QNAP Video Station is software for watching and managing videos stored on NAS storage devices.

The number of RJ-45 ports for network connection. All modern QNAP NAS devices have at least one 1-Gbit Ethernet port (RJ-45). NAS models that have two or more Ethernet ports allow you to use port trunking (link aggregation) for better performance and higher bandwidth when multiple hosts are transferring data to/from NAS. With link aggregation, you can combine two physical links into one logical link. A switch must support IEEE 802.3ad.

As an alternative to dynamic link aggregation, you can configure multiple Ethernet ports on your QNAP NAS to use these modes: Balance-rr (Round-Robin), Active Backup, Balance XOR, Broadcast, Balance-tlb (Adaptive Transmit Load Balancing), and Balance-alb (Adaptive Load Balancing).

QNAP doesn’t provide a classification that allows you to see a NAS model name and easily identify the year of release and device class (unlike Synology). For this reason, a list of all currently supported QNAP NAS devices is provided below and is categorized by series. The first one or two digits usually mean the maximum number of disks that you can install into this NAS.

RAID (redundant array of independent disks). All QNAP NAS devices use software RAID for better compatibility and flexibility. You can recover data after connecting drives to a Linux machine and mounting them to the software RAID. A Marwell SATA controller is usually used for NAS devices with a SATA interface. Hardware RAID is not supported on QNAP NAS.

Supported RAID types: RAID 1, RAID 0, RAID 10, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 50, RAID 60, and hot spare configurations. You can expand a RAID group and change the RAID type of the RAID group without losing access to data. If you decide to buy a new QNAP NAS and move disk drives from your old QNAP NAS (disks worked in RAID) to the new one, the NAS into which you insert disks with data automatically determines that the disks should work in RAID. The NAS will also suggest you continue using these disks in RAID of the same type as previously used.

Supported file systems. QNAP NAS devices use only ext4 due to the high reliability of this file system. Use ext4 to format disk drives installed into NAS. Some NAS vendors allow you to use btrfs, but this file system is slower due to greater I/O latency and not ideal snapshot management (snapshots for block-based iSCSI LUN are not supported), which increases risks for operations and lowers efficiency (especially for 10 GbE connectivity).

Video Transcoding is the process of converting video files of different formats to a custom format, such as *.MP4, which is supported by most video players.On-the-fly transcoding tasks are used to convert and stream video in real-time while watching. In this case, more CPU resources are consumed. Background transcoding tasks are used to convert video in advance and decrease CPU usage, especially when multiple users want to watch video stored on NAS. Video files can be converted to different resolutions and saved in the @Transcode subfolder stored in the original folder with a source video file. Auto transcoding folder is used to convert the entire folder with video files. Select QNAP NAS devices with Intel or AMD 64-bit processors and at least 2 GB of memory to run transcoding. Use NAS as the Plex media server.

Qfinder Pro is a special utility that is installed on the client side and is used to search and manage QNAP NAS connected to the same network. This application can be installed on Windows, Linux, or macOS. When the search is completed, all QNAP devices found in the network are displayed in the interface of Qfinder Pro. This tool is useful to find NAS devices that are connected to the network but have not been configured yet and to obtain an IP address via DHCP. You can also use Qfinder Pro to update QNAP NAS firmware.

Support of installing Linux on NAS as a Linux Station package allows you to use Linux and run Linux applications on QNAP NAS with an x86-64 CPU. You can connect a monitor (to an HDMI port), keyboard, and mouse (into USB ports) to a QNAP NAS. You can also enable remote desktop connections and an SSH server on Linux. Container Station must be installed on NAS because Linux runs in a container.

Video Surveillance Station. QNAP NAS can be used as a surveillance station to record video from IP cameras to disks and view video from cameras in real time in a web browser. As an alternative, you can watch video from your cameras on a monitor connected to a QNAP NAS via HDMI. A Surveillance Station application must be installed. This feature is available for all Turbo NAS series (TS and TVS, for example, TS-128, TS-230, TS-231+, and TS-251.) Check the specifications of a particular QNAP NAS model to see whether this model supports QNAP features such as video surveillance. Different QNAP models provide a different number of free licenses for IP camera channels (2 to 8) and a maximum number of camera channels (8–80). You can buy more licenses for camera channels. See the full list of supported devices, the number of free IP camera channels, and the maximum number of supported IP camera channels on the official QNAP web page.

Now, when you know the main QNAP features and general NAS parameters, let’s review three popular QNAP NAS models of different classes and series to explore their features.

QNAP TS-231P3 is a two-bay NAS model positioned as a SOHO (small office/home office) solution. This NAS model is the successor of QNAP TS-231P and QNAP TS-231P2. QNAP TS-231P3 is affordable for most customers. This NAS is produced in a white chassis with the matte surface of the tower form-factor, and has two bays for 3.5" disks (2.5" disks can also be mounted, special holes are provided, SSD cache is supported). Disk drives are mounted with screws into bays with hot swapping and hot plugging. Disk trays are made of plastic. On the front panel, you can see the power button, one-touch copy button, one USB 3.0 port, and LED indicators. You can adjust the brightness of the LED light. A single 70-mm fan is used to cool NAS with disks. The fan speed can be adjusted. 19.2 db(A) is the reported level of noise, which is silent enough. Notice that hard disk drives make sounds that may increase the overall noise level of NAS.

QNAP TS-231P3 is based on the quad-core Annapurna Labs AL-214 1.7GHz processor, whose clock speed is 1.7 GHz (ARM-based). However, running LXC and Docker containers is supported on this NAS. Power consumption is extra low. Due to the ARM processor, this NAS model is not adapted for video transcoding.

External power supply is used to assemble NAS in a small chassis and simplifies the replacement of a power supply in case of failure. A connector for the 90W power supply is located on the rear panel. The weight of QNAP TS-231P3 without disks is just 1.46 kg.

Unlike many other NAS devices of this class, QNAP TS-231P3 has two RJ-45 ports (one Gigabit Ethernet port and one 2.5-Gbit Ethernet or 2.5GbE port), providing wide options for network connection, including link aggregation. Jumbo frames are supported.

NAS expansion enclosure models are supported. If you use two disks of maximum capacity in your QNAP TS-231P3, and you have insufficient disk space, connect QNAP NAS expansion enclosure (an expansion unit) with additional disk bays to your NAS, and install more disk drives into your NAS system. Here’s the list of supported QNAP expansion enclosure models that are connected via USB: TR-002, TR-004, TR-004U, UX-500P, and UX-800P.

If you like characteristics of QNAP TS-231P3, but NAS with two disk bays is not enough for you, consider buying a similar 4-bay model – QNAP TS-431P3.

QNAP TVS-473e is a 4-bay NAS device of the high-end series with powerful hardware, many different ports, and support of diverse QNAP features. This NAS is great for both home and office/business usage, and provides a wide set of capabilities. QNAP TVS-473e is an extended newer implementation of QNAP TVS-473. QNAP TVS-473e is manufactured in two modifications: TVS-473e-4G with 4 GB of RAM and TVS-473e-8G with 8GB of RAM (two 4-GB modules are installed). The maximum amount of memory is 64 GB. You can upgrade memory by installing SO-DIMM DDR4 RAM modules into four SO-DIMM DDR4 slots (4x16 GB). 512 MB DOM (Disk-On-Module) flash memory is used to store firmware. Two M.2 SSD slots are a useful option to install SSD drives without the need to occupy 3.5" SATA disk trays. I am reviewing QNAP TVS-473e-8G in this blog post.

QNAP TVS-473e is based on the powerful 64-bit AMD RC 421-BD quad-core processor (x86-64 architecture) with AMD Radeon R-7 graphics onboard. This NAS is manufactured in a grey chassis of the tower form factor with an internal power supply (ATX 250W) for better cooling with a fan.

On the front panel, there is one USB 3.0 type A port, one USB 3.0 micro-B port (for USB QuickAccess), LED indicators, power button, quick copy button (USB One Touch Copy), LCD display with Enter/Select buttons, and infrared receiver for remote control. QNAP remote control is sold separately (QNAP RM-IR004 remote control is compatible with QNAP TVS-473e).

On the rear panel, there are four RJ-45 ports, three USB 3.0 ports, two HDMI ports, and three 3.5 mm mini-jack audio ports (1 x line out, 2 x dynamic microphone). Don’t use the speakers and the line-out jack simultaneously because only one audio output can be used at the same time. There are four 1GbE network adapters with RJ-45 ports that support link aggregation (also known as NIC teaming). Jumbo frames and Wake on LAN are supported.

Dual PCI Express slots (PCIe Gen3 x4) can be used to install 10Gbe network cards, QM2 cards, or Wi-Fi network adapters into NAS. Install M.2 SSD cards for caching to boost the speed of copying data on NAS and don’t occupy 3.5" drive trays. QNAP provides the Qtier feature that automatically moves hot data to SSD drives and cold data (rarely accessed data) to lower-cost drives or drives with higher capacity to optimize performance, disk usage, and cost-efficiency. With a PCIe wireless network adapter, configure a Wi-Fi access point on your NAS. Be aware that M.2 SSD generates extensive heat, and ensure that M2 SSD modules are cooled.

Use two HDMI ports to connect a monitor or TV to watch media content in 4K resolution at 30 FPS without loading network. For better compatibility of external media players, run video transcoding tasks on QNAP TVS-473e to convert video files to a format that is supported by a player on your device (for example, TV). You can attach a keyboard and mouse to USB ports. These features transform your QNAP NAS into a smart video control system.

Surveillance station is supported. Use QNAP TVS-473e NAS to record videos from IP cameras and monitor them in real time.  Four free licenses are provided, but you can buy additional licenses for IP channels. Maximum 72 IP channels are supported. Running Docker and LXC containers is supported.

Many network protocols for sharing data are supported by QNAP TVS-473e. You can configure the iSCSI initiator and iSCSI target on this QNAP NAS. Block-based iSCSI LUN storage is a good choice for virtualization storage. Use your NAS to store VMware VM files by connecting an iSCSI target to an ESXi host as a datastore for virtual machines. Install fast disks and a 10GbE network adapter for maximum performance.

Hardware configuration allows you to do a lot of tasks by using this NAS. MacOS users will be pleased to find Apple Time Machine support and iTunes server, but the Thunderbolt port is missing. If NAS with four disk bays is not enough for you, consider buying NAS models with 6 or 8 bays of the x73e series. If you have already bought QNAP TVS-473e and all your storage space is full, consider buying a supported QNAP NAS expansion chassis.

You can do almost everything with QNAP TVS-473e. If you need a similar NAS with more drive bays, consider the other two QNAP NAS models of the TVS-x73e series: QNAP TVS-673e and QNAP TVS-873e with 6 and 8 drive bays respectively. The advantage of using the AMD processor in these NAS models is the absence of security bugs in CPU implementation. As you recall, security bugs were found in modern Intel processors (such as Meltdown and Spectre that were discovered at the beginning of 2018). Security patches may decrease CPU performance.

If the QNAP NAS devices explained above cannot provide enough capabilities for your business, consider buying QNAP TS-2483XU-RP, which is the ultimate enterprise solution for working with large amounts of data with high reliability. This NAS server is manufactured in the 4U rackmount chassis and has a powerful 64-bit Intel Xeon E-2136 6-core 3.3 GHz processor (x86-64 architecture). Frequency can burst up to 4.5 GHz during high loads. The advantage of a 4-unit case is the possibility to use full-height and full-length boards and cards. From the front panel, access drive bays, and all ports are located on the rear panel. Four 92-mm fans in the chassis are used to cool the components of this QNAP NAS server. The measured noise level is 28.7 db(A).

QNAP TS-2483XU-RP has 24 3.5-inch drive bays for SATA hard disk drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD). 2.5-inch drives can be mounted into 3.5-inch drive trays. Owners of this QNAP NAS server can build 384-GB storage with 16-TB hard disks nowadays. Hot spare of disks is supported.

By default, there are 16 GB of DDR4 ECC RAM (two 8-GB modules) in this QNAP server. ECC memory can detect and correct errors to prevent data loss and downtime for critical applications. The server has 4 Long-DIMM slots for RAM, and the maximum supported memory capacity is 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) for the highest performance.

Four built-in RJ-45 ports of 1GbE Ethernet adapters can be configured to work in the link aggregation mode for better network performance. The alternative option is to use the server as the network gateway. There is also a Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx network interface controller in this QNAP server that provides advanced features, such as analyzing network traffic without loading the CPU and direct memory access technology to transfer Ethernet frames. This network interface controller (NIC) is a smart network card with two 10GbE SFP+ ports and iSER support (including iSCSI extensions for RDMA protocol) to increase random access speed and decrease access time. This feature is useful for VMware virtualization storage. This NIC is pre-installed into the PCIe slot of the mainboard of the NAS server.

TS-2483XU-RP has 5 PCIe slots (Gen3 x4, Gen3 x8, three Gen2 x4 ports). You can install different expansion cards such as high-profile graphics cards, M.2 SSD cache cards, 40Gbe/25GbE/10GbE network cards, SAS expansion cards. QNAP provides universal 10GbE PCIe network cards with two SSD included and PCIe cards with four SSD drives for those who need only additional SSD storage without network adapters. The QTier feature is supported for disk arrays with SSD and HDD. Use a SAS expansion card to attach expansion enclosures such as REXP-1620U-RP, REXP-1220U-RP to install more disk drives into your storage system based on TS-2483XU-RP. Expansion modules for 16 disks are available. A graphics card can be used to run applications that use GPU. Read the compatibility list before buying a video card because not all PCIe video adapters are supported by the QNAP TS-2483XU-RP NAS server.

This QNAP NAS server is an ideal choice for a surveillance station because the device supports up to 128 monitoring channels (8 free licenses for IP channels are included). Over 5,000 IP cameras are supported. Running containers is supported, but there is no USB QuickAccess.

TS-2483XU-RP is best suited for these purposes: video surveillance and recording, a file server (storing and sharing files), hosting VM files by using block-based iSCSI LUN, video transcoding, storing backups. This QNAP NAS server cannot be used to run heavy virtual machines/many virtual machines, perform artificial intelligence tasks, or as a Python computer node. Flexible capabilities to use SSD are provided – you can install SSD as a PCIe card, M.2 card, and 2.5-inch SATA drives.

QNAP storage is ideal for storing backups. This is important for data protection and operational continuity. QNAP NAS devices support installing different applications including backup software. NAKIVO Backup & Replication can be installed on many QNAP NAS devices to back up data regularly to QNAP storage and other destination locations, such as Amazon S3. NAKIVO Backup & Replication supports backup of VMware VMs, Hyper-V VMs, Amazon EC2 instances, physical Linux machines, Windows machines, Oracle databases, and Microsoft 365. I recommend that you choose QNAP NAS with x86-64 based processor for better performance and compatibility.

QNAP (Quality Network Appliance Provider) Systems Inc. is a corporation whose main specialization is producing network-attached storage (NAS) appliances. QNAP was founded in 2004.

Use the web interface provided by your QNAP NAS. Enter the IP address of your NAS in a web browser. If you don’t know the QNAP NAS IP address, use the Qfinder Pro tool on the client machine. Then, configure SSH access on your NAS if you prefer the command-line interface.

Yes, you can. If your QNAP NAS model has a USB port for QuickAccess, you can connect your NAS to a computer with a USB cable. In this case, a virtual network connection is created, and disks of NAS cannot be accessed as disk volumes such as F:, G:, or H:, as it is usually done for traditional external USB disks in Windows. The idea is the same for Linux and macOS.

It depends on what you need the NAS for. As for QNAP NAS devices explained in this blog post, QNAP TVS-473e is a better choice for the home user. If you need to use more disks, consider NAS devices with a higher number of drive bays from these series. If, for any reason, NAS devices that were reviewed in this blog post don’t meet your requirements, check the full NAS model catalog on the QNAP website to choose the best NAS for you.

QNAP is one of the leading NAS vendors producing many NAS models of different classes for different consumers. This blog post has covered QNAP features to help you choose QNAP storage that better meets your needs. Define how much storage space you need, how scalable your NAS should be, which additional features and CPU performance you need, and your price range to choose a suitable NAS with an optimal set of QNAP features. Using QNAP NAS as network backup storage is common. Opt for a QNAP NAS with 64-bit Intel or AMD processors and use NAKIVO Backup & Replication to back up your data to a NAS device.

The QNAP TS-877 is the 8-bay model from the company’s TS-x77 line, which is touted as the industry’s first Ryzen-based NAS and designed specifically for video editing and other high-demand multi-threaded applications. Announced back in November 2017, the TS-877 features up to 8-cores/16-threads (Turbo Core up to 3.7 GHz), SSD caching and is specifically designed to perform well under resource-intensive workloads such as with VDI, server virtualization, private cloud and 4K use cases. It features USB 3.1 Gen2 10Gbps Type-A and Type-C ports, and three PCIe expansion slots, the latter which supports PCIe devices such as graphics cards, 10GbE/40GbE NICs, PCIe NVMe SSD, USB 3.1 expansion cards, and QM2 cards.

The TS-877 also comes equipped with two 2.5-inch SSD slots used specifically for caching. Coupling this with Qtier technology, you should be able to noticeably improve IOPS performance. As such, QNAP quotes their 8-bay NAS to reach 2,344MB/s read and 1,761MB/s write via 2 x 10GbE Sequential Transfer, while Encrypted Sequential Transfer is expected to hit 2,301MB/s read and 1,739MB/s write. The TS-877 also features four DDR4 UDIMM slots, which that support up to a hefty 64GB of memory

Like all QNAP NAS solutions, the TS-877 is powered by QTS, QNAP’s operating system that features a range of applications and functions to improve management efficiency, personal productivity, multimedia, and other entertainment and workflow use cases. QTS is highlighted by its built-in App Center with hundreds of install-on-demand apps.

The TS-877 is a rugged yet nice-looking tower form factor NAS, keeping with the same look and feel as previous models including QNAP’s usual gold finish and company branding at the top right. This front-accessible NAS has 6 hotswappable drive bays below while the twin stacked SSD bays are located at the top left of the NAS. Each bay features a locking mechanism and status LEDs.

QNAP’s updated LCD display panel resides next to the two SSD cache bays, providing users with an easy way to restart and power off the NAS, configured the LCD password, edit and view network settings and get a quick glance of what’s up with the system, physical hard drives and volumes. QNAP makes it pretty seamless to do all these actions via their enter and Select buttons.  At the bottom right is the power button, USB One-Touch Copy port/button are stacked neatly at the bottom right.

The back of the TS-877 is home to all its connectivity as well as QNAP’s heat sink. At the top left are the 2 PCIe slots (and their covers). Moving down are their 3.5 mm line-out and dynamic microphone jacks, console port, 1x USB 3.0 and 2x 3.1 gen 2 10Gps Type-A ports, 4x Gigabit Ethernet (RJ45) ports, three more USB 3.0 ports and the power input and switch. A large portion of the back panel also shows two large fans to exhaust the heat.

Both PCIe 3.0 x4 slots and the DIMMs are accessed via the right panel. You will have to completely remove the cover to access these components by removing the screws the secure the cover and then simply pulling the civer off. The PCI 3.0 x8 slot is accessed on the left panel.

Overall the AMD-powered QNAP TS-877 offered plenty of punch in regards to performance, has lots expansion options and gave users a drive layout to offer caching capabilities if desired. For users in the market for a small-office or branch-office NAS, the TS-877 is a worthy offering with consideration.