FYI - New NAS coming with extraordinary capabilities.

[Paul R]

Is it a NAS or a computer? Wow...

 

As usual, this is just FYI, I have no financial or other interest in this product.

 

[h=1]QNAP Releases High-Value Quad-Core NAS TS-251+ and TS-451+, Supporting Virtualisation, Encryption, Transcoding and HDMI Output[/h]

TAIPEI, Taiwan, November 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

 

 

QNAP® Systems, Inc. announced the release of the 2-bay TS-251+ and 4-bay TS-451+ NAS that provide an uncompromising high-performance and scalable storage solution for small offices and workgroup users with appealing affordability. The new models feature Virtualisation Station, Container Station, advanced backup solutions, real-time & offline video transcoding, QvPC Technology, HDMI video playback with an included remote control and many more functions that are beneficial for businesses and SOHO users to build a cost-efficient and modern storage solution.

 

 

The TS-251+ and TS-451+ are powered by a 22nm 64-bit quad-core Intel® Celeron® 2.0GHz processor (burst up to 2.42GHz) with 2GB/8GB energy-efficient DDR3L RAM. They also include dual Gigabit LAN ports and can deliver up to 225 MB/s throughput and up to 205 MB/s transfer speeds with AES 256-bit volume & folder encryption.

 

 

"The TS-251+ & TS-451+ are ideal choices for those who demand the superior performance of a quad-core x86-based NAS without breaking the budget," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP. "Both NAS are speedy, versatile and provide future-proof scalability."

 

 

The new NAS series runs QTS 4.2, a smart NAS operating system that comes with a variety of features to empower offices and home applications. Users can run multiple applications using Windows®, Linux®, UNIX® and Android™ based virtual machines on the NAS with the Virtualisation Station and operate multiple isolated Linux systems on the NAS. The Container Station integrates LXC and Docker® lightweight virtualisation technologies and allows apps to be downloaded from the built-in Docker Hub Registry®.

 

 

Not limited to high-end models, the TS-x51+ includes the highly-anticipated snapshot function (a minimum of 4GB RAM is required). The QTS Storage Manager can easily create snapshots within seconds for both volumes and LUN, and users can also carry out snapshot replica and cloning tasks. The NAS series also offers flexible backup solutions for Windows and Mac® and disaster recovery solutions with Real-Time Remote Replication (RTRR), rsync and cloud storage backup.

 

 

Users can easily operate the TS-251+ and TS-451+ as a PC with QvPC Technology. By simply plugging in a keyboard, mouse and HDMI display, users can directly access stored data, run multiple virtual machines, surf the web, enjoy 1080p videos with the included remote control and up to 7.1 HD audio with Kodi™, monitor live feeds on Surveillance Station and much more. The NAS also supports excellent real-time and offline transcoding capabilities as well as streaming photos, music and videos to different rooms from a single device using Bluetooth®, USB devices, HDMI, DLNA®, Apple TV® and Chromecast™ as a multi-zone control system.

 

 

The TS-x51+ is ideal for organisations to build a secure private cloud with numerous offerings, including cross-platform file sharing for Windows, Mac, Linux and UNIX users; support for Windows® AD, LDAP directory services and Windows® ACL; VPN server with L2TP/IPsec, OpenVPN and PPTP support; 2-step verification; encrypted access and more.

 

 

Today's businesses are also demanding economical solutions that provide flexible storage scalability for rapid data growth. The TS-x51+'s scalable design supports online capacity expansion by connecting a QNAP 8-bay UX-800P or 5-bay UX-500P expansion enclosure to provide a total capacity of up to 96TB.

 

 

Key specifications of new models

 

• TS-251+: 2-bay tower model
  
• TS-451+: 4-bay tower model
  
• Quad-core Intel® Celeron® 2.0GHz processor (burst up to 2.42GHz), 2GB or 8GB DDR3L RAM (expandable up to 8GB); hot-swappable 3.5"/2.5" SATA 6Gbps HDD/SSD; 2 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0; 2 x Gigabit LAN ports; 1 x HDMI output.
  

 

Availability

The new TS-251+ and TS-451+ NAS are now available. For more information of these new products and the full QNAP Turbo NAS line up, including [redacted], please visit http://www.qnap.com.

 

 

About QNAP System Inc.

QNAP Systems, Inc., as its brand promise "Quality Network Appliance Provider", aims to deliver comprehensive offerings of cutting edge network attached storage (NAS) and network video recorder (NVR) solutions featured with ease-of-use, robust operation, large storage capacity and trustworthy reliability. QNAP integrates technologies and designs to bring forth quality products that effectively improve business efficiency on file sharing, virtualisation applications, storage management and surveillance in the business environments, as well as enrich entertainment life for home users with the offering of a fun multimedia centre experience. Headquartered in Taipei, QNAP delivers its solutions to the global market with nonstop innovation and passion.

 

 

[Cebolla]

Never thought of a NAS as anything other than a computer or more genearally, the equivalent of a Raspberry Pi type computer with some storage drives, turnkey software and in a nice box!

[Paul R]

Never thought of a NAS as anything other than a computer or more genearally, the equivalent of a Raspberry Pi type computer with some storage drives, turnkey software and in a nice box!

 

Yep me too, but this one seems to be a storage that drags along the computer for the ride. Virtualized with Windows, Linux, Android and UNIX VMs? Run multiple Vms with Linux? Transcoding Video? 256 AES encryption? This thing sounds like it ate the kitchen sink for breakfast...

[CatManDo]

Never thought of a NAS as anything other than a computer or more genearally, the equivalent of a Raspberry Pi type computer with some storage drives, turnkey software and in a nice box!

 

Yes, that's the reason I haven't bought a NAS so far, since it's just a computer with limited functionalities, dedicated to storage and server functions. But unlike computer hardware it can hardly be upgraded, extended or reused with a different function, and it's quite expensive given the limited purpose.

 

Blu-ray players, TVs etc have also increasingly become computers, with more and more functions based on software solutions.

[Dan Gravell]

Yep me too, but this one seems to be a storage that drags along the computer for the ride. Virtualized with Windows, Linux, Android and UNIX VMs? Run multiple Vms with Linux? Transcoding Video? 256 AES encryption? This thing sounds like it ate the kitchen sink for breakfast...

A requirement for virtualisation is one reason I've always built my own NAS/home server. Maybe these devices may convince me to make the jump...

[lmitche]

Last week I managed to get Win 10 PXE boot working from my fanless QNAP HS-251-2gb with QTS4.2 and Iscsi. The PC and Qnap are galvanically isolated with hospital grade transformers. Removing the SSD from the player computer and disabling the sata ports makes a nice improvement in SQ!

[lmitche]

I wonder if Qnap will do a HS-251+ fanless version!

[Dan Gravell]

I have to say I've always found PXE booting a pain to manage - having to maintain the DHCP server too. Most low power devices don't allow configuration of this (my router doesn't) so I end up having the aforementioned home server doing it, which idles at 40W (I'm also an energy efficiency geek, although not so much as to buy new hardware just to lower power draw).

 

Do you not find booting from SD card gives you equivalent SQ?

[lmitche]

PXE booting Windows via Iscsi is a steep learning curve, but the SQ improvement is worth it. Once done, it is simple to maintain. The trick was to get Windows 10 working and properly activated. In the end that was solved by a clean install onto local media and then moving the image to the Iscsi drive. The rest is pretty straight forward. I found a version of DNSMASQ for the Qnap that works well. TFTP and ISCSI is natively supported.

 

I should say that the PXE booting guides on the web are full of misinformation that can waste a lot of time.

[Paul R]

I have to say I've always found PXE booting a pain to manage - having to maintain the DHCP server too. Most low power devices don't allow configuration of this (my router doesn't) so I end up having the aforementioned home server doing it, which idles at 40W (I'm also an energy efficiency geek, although not so much as to buy new hardware just to lower power draw).

 

Do you not find booting from SD card gives you equivalent SQ?

 

Well, if you really want to avoid that with iSCSI, you need to purchase an iSCSI adapter, which will present the drive to you are a SAS or SATA drive, allowing normal boots without any issues.

 

But the cheap way is of course, to just to use a small / cheap local drive to boot from initially - for example a 64M SSD or something along those lines.

 

Using iSCSI for music storage only makes those issues go away of course.

 

-Paul

[Dan Gravell]

I've not used iSCSI before, thanks.

 

It's not so much that PXE is a steep learning curve - it's a bit finicky, but nothing hard to understand. It's the maintenance that's the problem in a small home network scenario; having to keep a server on, adding DHCP and TFTP to the list-of-things-to-maintain, and so on.

 

For provisioning in data centres etc, where I learnt about PXE, it's ok.

 

Got tired of it after a while and just booted from SD card, into memory with small Linux distro.

[lmitche]

Gee guys, sorry I mentioned it.

[Paul R]

Gee guys, sorry I mentioned it.

 

Why? Just techie chatter... And your DNS find for QNAP seems to be a very good answer.

[lmitche]

Why? Just techie chatter... And your DNS find for QNAP seems to be a very good answer.

 

Yes, properly configured, the Qnap DNSMASQ package serves both as a PXE server and tftp server booting Windows 10 with ISCSI and serving both the C drive (64 gb) and D drive (4tb) of music, all in about ten lines of script.

 

The bare boot motherboard sounds analog with all unused devices disabled and no USB or Sata devices, except the USB cable to the DAC, and the network cable of course. Everything is powered by three 12 volt LPSes, with the third device being a Netgear GS105 switch isolated from the router by an UTP isolation transformer.

 

I am thrilled with this configuration. This is the elusive sound quality I've have been hoping to achieve. What a relief from finally get there.