What’s in the package?
Physical Comparison
To give you a feeling for the actual size of the TS-219P, I set it next to a couple of Windows Home Servers variants, the HP X510 Data Vault and my home-brewed machine. You will have to forgive the clutter; my “stuff” always seems to be in a constant state of turmoil. The shot on the right is a close up of the light show in action. Please note that while the status LED’s are easy to see, they are quite unobtrusive at the same time. Translation: you could have the TS-219P sitting in your bedroom and neither the lights or the sound (which is very soft) will keep you up.
Installation
Hardware-wise, there is a very little to setting up this NAS. Find a power outlet and an Ethernet port. Plug in and turn on. The device will give you a beep on startup and after a minute (or more) of internal checks, it will give you another beep. If all is well, you get the light show you see above.
QNAP does provide wifi support for some USB wireless adapters. It is not a huge list of supported devices, and it really does not make sense (to me) to setup a server with a wifi connection. But for those would need wifi, the list:
Then we come to the software side of installation. Actually, initial setup is quite painless. Pop the CD into your workstation or laptop, Go through the setup screens, as follows.
If all goes well on the install exit, the QNAP finder program will open. “Allow Access” (from a Windows 7 machine, and required only once)
and you will be presented with the following.
Highlight the QNAP server, and click on Connect. Your default browser will open and present you with the following screen.
Clicking on the administration icon will present you with an opportunity to enter your user name and password.
That is all that is required for initial installation and setup. Time to get from plugging in the power cord to the above screen? As usual, I am doing a bit of documentation as I am going through the process. I would have to say 5 minutes, perhaps 10 minutes tops, to get to the preceding screen.
But that is only the beginning…
20. November 2009 at 6:21 am
Would love to see some file transfer benchmarks and comparisons with the WHS machines. I'm on the fence about what kind of home server to get
20. November 2009 at 3:30 pm
hmm. I will have to check out disk benchmark programs for Linux. Regarding file transfer benchies (over a network), I do not read much into those simply because there are far too many variables to do apples to apples comparisons.
Unless one can help me "see the light" in how to do a good benchie…
20. November 2009 at 5:02 pm
I think any file transfer difference would be negligible in a fair comparison. What would a few extra Kbps do for your life.
24. November 2009 at 7:38 am
Nice review. For the performance you can refer to the link:
http://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Samba_FTP_Performance_T...