Dusting off my review hat to bring you another review. This time it isn't a motherboard, CPU or graphics card, but a NAS drive.
What is a NAS drive you guys may be asking? It's a device that has the same components of a personal computer (CPU/MB/VGA/RAM, etc) but its sole purpose is to manage data - whether it is images, video, games or audio. NAS stands for, Network Attached Storage, basically a storage device that can be accessed on the computer network. Due to this specific purpose of use, the hardware is much less powerful (and sometimes niche) compared to the everyday PC hardware brands & models.
Although there are other ways to share data on the network like; file server, external drive on the network, or even just via SAMBA. What a NAS brings to the table is the total size of the device, the extensive functions that can be found on a NAS, (different RAID configurations, DLNA/streaming to compliant devices, FTP, download manager, & other services) and also the carbon footprint. QNAP's TS-412 is a NAS device targeted towards home & SOHO users. The main purpose for my purchase of the QNAP TS-412 NAS device was to provide a backup strategy for my photography & invaluable data.
The Australian RRP of the TS-412 is $499 but you can find the devices around $450 if you shop around. The 3TB Hitachi K3000 hard drives are $399 RRP each but again, you can find them for about $185 if you shop around. So the initial cost of a configuration like mine is about $1200 if you shop around in Australia.
Hardware Specifications
There is another similar model called the TS-419+ which has a faster processor, more memory & a handy LCD screen, but is a few hundred more dollars dearer.
My QNAP TS-412 has a 1.2GHz processor powering QNAP's Linux-based Firmware 3.50 for NAS devices. Storage comes in form of up to four internal hard drives which are hot swappable. Six extra drives can also be attached externally via the four USB 2.0 ports (Front x1 Back x3) & eSATA ports at the back of the device if more space is needed. Keep in mind that individual hard drives do not come bundled by default with the TS-412, this decision means I can choose my hard drive configuration & save on the cost with the omission of a hard drive.
Size of the device isn't that big, it's certainly noticeable though. The image below compares the device to a optical disc + my mouse.
You can also watch my quick unboxing video here:
Software Specifications
Access to the TS-412 can be achieved through the latest Microsoft Windows, Apple's Mac OSX, Linux & Unix operating systems. To access the web interface which controls the NAS device, the usual list of Internet browsers can be used to access the AJAX-based User Interface which is stored on the 16MB flash memory.
Applications of the NAS drive include the following:
* Print Server,
* Web File Manager,
* Multimedia Station,
* Download Station,
* Surveillance Station,
* iTunes Server,
* Apache Web Server, and
* MySQL Server
A more comprehensive list of software specifications can be found on QNAP's website here.
Software Interface
Instead of sharing images and words with you about how great the web interface is, the video below summaries perfectly. That being said, QNAP's Management Software is really simple and laid out very well, it only takes a few clicks to get where you want to be.
This is the "front door" to get into the web interface - dragging your mouse cursor allows the user to cycle through various menus
QNAP has developed a program called QNAP Finder, which basically finds all QNAP devices on the network - for those who may have more than 1 device or is cannot remember the IP address of the devices;
Reasoning of a NAS purchase
I did think first of rummaging around my house for a spare mITX motherboard & its components, but decided against it because of the total weight when filled with hard drives, the heat & noise, & also the cost of the case + a decent RAID card from Areca or Adaptec. In the end, i wanted a device that will be an addition to my computer and not another computer.
I purchased the QNAP TS-412 along with four Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 3TB 7200RPM hard drives with the intension of putting 4 of these hard drives in a RAID6 configuration With this configuration, usable space on the RAID6 configuration became 6TB; ((3TB + 3TB) + 3TB +3TB for parity).
RAID6
It took about 24 hours to make a 6TB RAID6 partition from my 4x 3TB hard drives.
To test the speeds, I will transfer one large file & several smaller files (RAW files from my DSLR) to test the speeds, these were done via FTP.
Writing several 20MB files equaling about 2.04GB from PC >> NAS (gigabit connection) - used an SSD to remove any potential HDD bottleneck
Reading several 20MB files equaling about 2.04GB from NAS >> PC (gigabit connection) - used an SSD to remove any potential HDD bottleneck
Writing 1x 2GB file from PC >> NAS (gigabit connection) - used an SSD to remove any potential HDD
Reading 1x 2GB file from NAS >> PC (gigabit connection) - used an SSD to remove any potential HDD bottleneck
Assuming that you need at least 6Mbps to steam 1080P H.264 content & 36 Mbps to stream full Blu-Ray rips, the speeds are adequate enough @ around 80Mbps. As you can see, the speeds for read/write are averaging about 10MBps, the reasoning is the hard drives are the bottleneck in this setup, being in RAID6.
Noise levels & temperatures
This setup will be located in the same room as my bedroom, so obviously the operating temperatures & noise levels is a very important factor. Keep in mind I don't have a sound tester so I can't give you a "dB number" but if I am sitting 30cm away from the NAS (where my keyboard is) I cannot hear it on idle. When it is being accessed, the hard drives make a notable level amount of noise - but my mechanical keyboard (Blue cherry) dwarfs it in "annoyingness"). On 100% load (creating the RAID6 partition), the hard drives do get very noisy but I couldn't hear it once I put my headphones on. Operating temperatures are 29 degrees on idle and about 33 degrees load (performing SMART scan) according to the System Information section of the NAS. The surface temperature was 20 degrees, room temperature was 20 degrees when doing this measurements.
Conclusion
Obviously not all of us need a 4 bay device to store terabytes of data, but if you require the services & the feature set that a NAS device provides, there are other NAS devices in the market with 1 or 2 slots for hard drives. However, if you just need something to store your non-critical data, I do recommend at least getting an external hard drive to backup any of your data. You can even backup your data on the Internet, aka Cloud backup, services like Dropbox for various filetypes, Flickr to backup your images or even sending some of your important data to your email address to keep a copy in the cloud, Gmail is a good way of doing this, I think they have about 7GB+ of storage for your emails & files. however ~ remember to read the terms & conditions of these services along with securing with a strong password to make sure your precious data does not get lost or stolen.
But for me, I'll sleep a bit easier at night knowing my precious data is safe and sound :)
I'll be updating this blog with more content when I get into the nitty-gritty of the device.
