Recently, I became interested in learning more about Networked Attached Storage (NAS) devices. In many ways, a Windows Home Server and a NAS device share many of the same characteristics, so it only natural that WeGotServed should “serve up” some NAS reviews.
Some of you may ask, what is NAS? Terry wrote up a very nice introduction to NAS on a NAS device he reviewed recently. So nice, I thought it deserved to be repeated here:
A Brief Primer on NAS
Network Attached Storage devices have been around for a good few years (well before Windows Home Server hit the market), and is classed as a dedicated storage device which exists on a network to provide storage support for other devices on that network. Much like WHS, they’re designed to run headless (without keyboard, mouse or monitor) and can be simple, single disk devices or multi-drive devices, the latter providing additional storage and data duplication(generally through a hardware-RAID configuration – Windows Home Server has it’s own proprietary solution for data duplication).
NAS devices run on a range of operating systems, but they’ll generally be open-source (FreeNAS or Linux) which, as they’re free, often leads to a NAS device working out cheaper than a Windows Home Server based system. Whilst NAS devices have traditionally been positioned for the business sector (and indeed to a large degree, still are), there has been growth in consumer-oriented NAS devices from a wide-range of hardware manufacturers over the past few years. At CES last January I was surprised to see just how many NAS devices were on show from manufacturers like Netgear, Lacie, Iomega, D-Link, Maxtor, Synology and many others, offering features non too far away from WHS’ remote access capabilities and a lot more. My hunch is we’ll see even more devices at CES this January. So, whilst it’ll be interesting to compare the two systems, we’ll mainly focus this review on how WHS and NAS could work together in your home.
Check out Wikipedia’s Entry on NAS for the full low-down.
The Windows Home Server team recently published a useful comparison between WHS and generic NAS devices – whilst it clearly showcases the features that WHS delivers over NAS (they’re selling a product, after all!), it’s a useful guide which clarifies the strengths of Windows Home Server over a network attached storage device. Such strengths include automated backup of multiple computers, simple, image-based restore of computers, easy to manage storage capabilities and (relatively) easy remote access setup of the home server. That said, many NAS devices have a few of their own tricks too, so it’s going to be fun to dig into the CS407 and see what’s on offer.
In order to learn bout NAS devices, I set about contacting several of the NAS manufacturers around the world. Getting responses is always a hit-and-miss proposition when one makes blind web “calls”. Some you never hear from, some you do hear from.
Anyway…
Tuesday was a red-letter day for me. Or perhaps one might call it a UPS-letter day. As in the UPS dude dropped off a couple of packages. Inside were (4) NAS devices. One came from Synology and three came from QNAP. It is going to take me awhile to take a good look at these storage devices. From what I have seen so far, these machines are a lot more then just “storage” devices.
Over the next few days (or more), I will opening up the boxes to take a quick look-thru of what I got myself into! You might ask what models did I get to review? You will have to return over the next several days to see. In the meantime, what I have for you today is the
QNAP TS-219P Turbo NAS server
As can be seen in the following picture, the TS-219P is a 2-drive device.
The following picture has a huge list of all the hardware and software specifications, plus the device features. As one can see, it is a long list in very fine print!
QNAP is most definitely an international company that has gone the extra distance to support the international community. The following view is a small indication of the languages that are included in the Quick Installation Guide. If I counted correctly, the QIG is printed in 17 languages. Wow!
And the back of the box, which highlights many of the hardware and software features of the TS-219P.
Finally, we get a bit closer to the contents, which are all packaged quite nicely.
The peripheral items
and finally, the prize! On the front of the unit are the power button, one-touch USB copy button, the disk caddies, status lights and one USB port. On the back are the reset button, LAN port, two more USB ports, and 2 eSATA ports. Also on the back is an exhaust fan and power cord connection.
Normally, the TS-219P does not come with harddrives, but QNAP provided a pair of WD 750GB Black drives for the review. 1.5TB’s of potential storage capacity in one very compact package. As can be seen in the second picture, the caddies are labeled, which facilitates the order of installation in the machine if you were take both drives out the same time.
In a nutshell, there is the QNAP TS-219P Turbo NAS server. As I indicated above, this is a very compact unit, and the fit and finish of the TS-219P is flawless. Pretty outsides, however, does not guarantee a great feature set and/or great performance, so I have some work to do to see if the business side lives up the cosmetic side. In a few posts from now…
So what else did I get? Like I said at the very beginning, you will have to check back. In the mean time, I will be setting this one up and unboxing the other NAS devices for their turn in the review circle.
So stay tuned!
