Digital storage in the home is a hot topic and I’d be willing to bet that you already know somebody whose suffered from “digital loss”.
Remember just a few short years ago when we took rolls and rolls of film to the store for processing? Now we use our digital cameras to snap hundreds, perhaps thousands of photos each year. Many of these photos will never be printed. They’ll be imported to a computer and that’s where they stay, until we move them somewhere else, delete them, or lose them to a hard disk failure.
As a semi-professional photographer with tens of thousands of photos in my library and an equally large library of movies and television shows, I’m always thinking about data loss.
My Criteria for a Network Attached Storage Unit at Home
Before I talk about the QNAP TS-419P+ Turbo NAS, it might be helpful to tell you what I was looking for in a NAS device.
- I wanted a storage solution that would work for both Mac and PCs in my home.
- the solution must have some form of redundancy, meaning that if something bad happened, I could recover my data with relative ease.
- support UPNP DLNA streaming to my PS3 and Western Digital media streaming devices.
- Affordability is key, in addition to ease of use.
- It must be expandable.
Before I upgraded to the QNAP, I had two DNS-323 NAS units from DLINK. Each unit had two hard drives with 2TB capacity and were configured with mirroring (RAID 1). In this configuration, any data written to the unit would write to both drives simultaneously. So if one drive failed, I could power the unit down, insert a new hard disk of the same capacity, and the unit would rebuild itself by copying data from one drive to the other.
So I had one DNS-323 for my Photo Library and User files and a second DNS-323 for movies, TV shows and music files. It worked fine, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for in a NAS solution.
Why I Switched from D-LINK DNS-323 to the QNAP TS-419P+
Although the dual DNS-323 setup worked fine, I never really felt like I had a comprehensive digital storage backup plan and policy in place for my home.
- The QNAP TS-419P+ is really fast. For example, it’s noticeably punchier when I watch a movie from the NAS in my bedroom.
- More efficient use of space. I had 4TB of usable space with my DLINK setup, but because 2TB was assigned to a “Movies NAS” and the other 2TB were assigned to my “Photo Library NAS”, I’d have to think of something else if either NAS hit the 2TB limit.
- Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) Support and Wireless Time Machine backups. As long as I’m on my home network, my MacBook pro is being backed up.
- Reporting and Insights. As you can see in the configuration and setup below, the QNAP has tons of options that help me troubleshoot potential future problems. Bandwidth metering, running processes, and disk usage at a glance could be very useful things to know when troubleshooting transfer-related issues.
- Everything is in one place. I can now manage all of my digital assets in one place.
Why Not Just Use a PC as a NAS Replacement?
I almost built a Linux server as my next NAS and I gave it a lot of thought. I even talked to some really smart folks at the office and one of my colleagues has a dedicated PC, running Linux along with a high-end RAID controller as his system. The challenge (for me), is that I don’t want to manage a separate Linux server via command line. The TS-419P+ comes in at a comparable price point to that of a low end PC, in a simple to configured and manage package.
What about DROBO instead of QNAP?
Actually, a NAS from DROBO was my first choice, but I’ve also heard very good things about QNAP. So when I saw the model I was interested in at Canada Computers this weekend, I snapped it up. their return policy is decent too. If I absolutely hated the QNAP TS-419P+, I could return it if I paid a 5% restocking fee.
If you have a similar experience with a 4 disk DROBO unit, I’d love to hear what your experience has been.
TS-419P+ Turbo NAS Administration Screenshots
I purchased the TS-419P+ on Saturday, and was serving data from it that evening. The RAID5 rebuild took some time, but this all happened in the background. As of this writing, I have completed a backup of my movies to an external eSATA volume that will go someplace safe. I’ve included a few screenshots, including the full menu tree to give you an idea of the powerful features of the TS-419P+.
Running Processes Screenshot
Main Overview Screen
Bandwidth Usage Screenshot
Disk Usage Screenshot
Volume Management Screenshot
File Manager Screenshot
Top Features of the TS-419P+ Turbo NAS
There are so many features crammed into this device that I’m only going to focus on the features that factored into my purchasing decision.
- Native support of Apple Time Machine network backups. With the exception of the Time Machine deficiency noted below, having native support of Time Machine backups for my two MacBook Pros was a big plus.
- Ability to expand with no downtime or loss of data. When I migrated my data to the TS-419P+, I started with a single drive in the unit. I gradually added hard disks as I copied data over, and grew the system from a single volume, to a full 4 disk, RAID 5 set. I have 4 x 2TB drives in the unit right now. As drive prices drop, I’ll be able to swap the 2TB drives for 3TB or 4TB drives, without loss of data.
- Clean, easy to understand interface. From the moment I turned the unit on, the entire experience was very positive. The inline help was great and I never found myself confused about a feature, or option.
- Backup to / from the TS-419P+ using external volumes. The TS-419P+ supports copying data to and from external volumes mounted on eSATA and USB ports.
- Support for EXT3 and EXT4 volumes. Migration from my two volume, DLINK 323 NAS was a snap. All I had to do was break the mirror in the DNS-323, connect it via eSATA and copy from the hard disk to the TS-419P+.
- Network shares are only shown to users with the correct permission. On my other NAS, when logging in via SMB, users would see ALL the network shares, and not just the shares they had access to. I’m very happy the QNAP shows the correct shares to the appropriate users.
- RSYNC copying to external servers. Having a RAID5 NAS like the QNAP doesn’t make me impervious to data loss. Bad things could still happen to my data, so it’s important that QNAP designed the TS-419P+ to support synchronization to external servers.
Deficiencies of the TS-419P+ Turbo NAS
I can’t say there are any deficiencies in the hardware itself. The improvements I’d like to see are firmware related, which is great news since it means that QNAP could improve upon these shortcomings in future releases of the TS-419P+ software.
- Time Machine backups can’t be made to external volumes. It don’t need my MacBook Pro Time Machine backup to be on the internal RAID 5 set. I’d like to see QNAP enable Apple Time Machine support to be enabled for external USB and/or eSATA hard disks.
- FTP access can’t be disabled / enabled on a per user, or per group basis. I have users I want to create on the NAS with weak passwords. Weak passwords poses a problem since all users have access to FTP, and the QNAP is available on the public Internet. This problem goes away if I could turn off services per user / group.
I should also point out that I’ve only owned the NAS for a few days now, so I bet as time wears on, I’ll have some more features I’d like to see. I’ll probably just add them to the list above whenever I think of something.
Is the QNAP TS-419P+ Turbo NAS Worth the Money?
With the exception of my very small list of shortcomings, which I hope QNAP will address in a future firmware update, I’m very happy with the performance, reliability and management provided by the TS-419P+ Turbo NAS. If you currently have a DNS-323, or other NAS and thinking about where to go next, I’d recommend giving it a try.
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