QNAP TS-659 Pro II NAS Server Review

Manufacturer: QNAP Systems, Inc.
Product Name: QNAP TS-659 Pro II NAS Server
Model Number: TS-659 Pro II
Price As Tested: Available from NewEgg for $1249.99

Full disclosure: The product used in this review was supplied by QNAAP Systems

Network storage is a concept that many people use without a second thought in corporate environments, but what about at home? In addition, a larger number of people are beginning to utilize cloud services, and most of those services include some storage capability. What if you could implement both, easily and with one device? All that and much more is readily available in a Network Attached Storage server from industry stalwart, QNAP. The TS-659 Pro II uses a powerful and energy-efficient 1.8 GHz Intel Atom D525 processor with 1GB of DDR3 system memory to eliminate any potential bottlenecks in the device itself. Dual Gigabit Ethernet network interfaces allow failover safety and teaming, while six SATA 6Gb/s drive bays offer single disk, JBOD, and RAID 0/1/5/6/10 configurations. Benchmark Reviews recently examined the QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS in detail and compared its performance against other network attached storage servers.

The TS-659 Pro II NAS server is a larger unit than many other NAS devices, but it's not the biggest. It fits into the middle ground where most small businesses operate. If you need both capacity and redundancy, you need to implement RAID 5 at a minimum, and that means at least three disks. If you want to go to RAID 6 or RAID 10, you need a minimum of four disks. With two spindles completely occupied by providing multiple levels of redundancy for your data, you're left with only two drive bays worth of storage capacity if you go with the minimum size of four drives. The TS-659 Pro II may look like it has a lot of "extra" space, but it's actually in the sweet spot for a high availability NAS appliance.

Three features dominate the discussion of network storage hardware: data capacity, data security, and data transfer speed. In the last couple of years there has been a growing emphasis on the software side, and the current crop of NAS devices offer a dizzying array of applications to help manage and distribute the data, and provide several new ways of accessing that data. In the past, this level of control and communication has been limited to the corporate world, because you needed an MSCSE to figure them out. QNAP has always aimed for the high end of the NAS server market with performance and features such as dual Gigabit Ethernet with failover, a full range of RAID functionality, and a diverse, feature-rich user interface. Now, they've upgraded the software suite with some outstanding new features, and we'll look at both its capabilities and ease of use.

Benchmark Reviews has tested a number of QNAP products: the QNAP TS-119 NAS single-disk offering made for home users, and the Goliath QNAP TS-809 Pro 8-Bay NAS for the storage needs of large businesses. Most recently we tested a 4-bay QNAP TS-459 Pro Turbo-NAS. Let's see how this six-bay device compares to its big brothers and little sisters.

QNAP v3.4 New Software Features

When QNAP launched the v3 Graphical User Interface on their Turbo NAS servers, they set a new standard for this market. A year or two later on, and the latest iteration offers a wide variety of enhancements that keep it at the forefront of modern networking applications. Overall, the feature set is a mix of elements that are broadly targeted at either the home user, a small/medium business, or a full fledged enterprise situation. NAS products have gained in popularity to the point where network administrators consider them mainstream appliances, small businesses consider them a lifesaver, and they are gaining traction in the home market. It's important to meet the needs of each one of those potential customers if you want to be the market leader, and that is clearly QNAP's intention.

The first thing you see when you connect to the NAS is a new Administration logon screen. It seems like old hat now with version 3.4, but the QNAP v3 User Interface features a very attractive rounded GUI design made popular by Apple, and if I had an all-in-one computer with a touch screen the similarity would be further enhanced.

There are an overwhelming amount of features available to manage the QNAP Turbo NAS, as the huge list in the previous Software Features section demonstrates. In this section of the review, we will focus on some of the enhancements that were added recently with version 3.4.

RAID 10 - RAID 10 combines the advantages of RAID 0 and RAID 1. This configuration allows for one disk failure from each RAID 1 pair and offers better write performance for some database applications. There's a bigger penalty in array capacity for the redundancy that you get, compared to RAID 5, but for some it's definitely worth it. RAID 6 can withstand ANY two drives failing at the same time, whereas RAID 10 is only stable if one drive in different RAID 1 pairs fails. It's an extra chance you take for the increased performance. That's why they invented RAID 50 and RAID 60, for those enterprise-class needs.

Real-time Remote Replication - Allows real-time remote replication of one NAS to another over the Internet for maximum data redundancy. This feature is applicable to Intel-based NAS units from QNAP, so the lower-end units can't play. Fortunately, there are a wide variety of Atom-based Turbo NAS models to choose from if this is a needed feature. Don't think of this as a business only feature, it's just as relevant for home users who want to have an advanced remote backup capability, but don't want to pay a monthly fee. Just convince a family member or close, reliable friend who lives across town or across the country to join in a NAS sharing scheme. You can each back the other person's data up in real time. For most home users this is going to be overkill, but if you both have fiber running through your neighborhood, why not?

Advanced Folder Permissions - Enables you to configure access control to folders and subfolders for efficient management and better security. This is primarily aimed at business applications, but if you've got a house full of users, it makes sense to put some restrictions in place, and set up some safe areas where no one else has access. Kids and credit card data don't mix well, for example.

ElephantDrive Cloud Storage - Lets users save backups in cloud based storage in addition to their Turbo NAS for an off-site storage with continuous data protection. This is going to be a very popular option for home users. Just as Carbonite has established a nice market for their data protection services, ElephantDrive will work very well for NAS users who have consolidated storage. It's not as complex as setting up your own private cloud, and doesn't offer all the capabilities you get by doing that, but it's ideally suited for users or groups who are interested in off-line storage. Most of us should be interested, because the truth is 90% of home users are vulnerable to a wide variety of disaster scenarios.

Download Station V2 - Now easier to use with a new AJAX interface, broadcatching support (RSS download), and enhanced overall performance. For those of us intent on drinking from the fire hose, this new interface makes it easier to set up your various data feeds.

Advanced Print Server - Now supports Internet printing with permission control as well as Bonjour printing for Mac. Who doesn't have a printer in the house, that doesn't have an Ethernet interface, and you have it hooked to one of the desktop systems, and are using printer sharing to allow others on the network to access it? Well, as more and more of us are migrating to laptops, it seems wasteful to keep one desktop running, just for a printer server. Got a Turbo NAS, problem solved?

MyCloudNAS Remote Access - MyCloudNAS is a free built-in DNS service provided for users to register a unique domain name for their NAS. It further reduces the hassle of complicated Internet registration and allows users to quickly access their NAS through the Internet. This is the thing people have been waiting for, I think. When you hear discussions about Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud, this is what they're talking about. While some of the other remote access apps give you limited control of the NAS for specific tasks, MyCloudNAS gives you full access from anywhere in the world. Pretty cool, even if I'm going to want to read a couple dozen tech articles on network security before I try it. I'm chicken that way!

USB Wi-Fi Network Adapter Support - Allows you to deploy the NAS wirelessly. I can see this being worthwhile for smaller NAS units, but my old-school brain says I want this plugged directly into my router or into a Gigabit switch that connects to my primary workstations.

Two more features are included with the new version 3.4, but they're both for business-class IT environments, so I won't dwell on them here. They're more applicable to the high-end rack mount units that QNAP sells to the corporate world.

System Management Features - Import/export of users, host-based permissions control, enhanced Virtual Disk support, and direct file viewing via Google Doc

Virtual LAN Support - You can integrate the NAS into an existing VLAN on a virtualization infrastructure and configure the NAS as the storage system for other VLAN devices. This feature is applicable to Intel-based NAS

You can see that v3.4 was a major release in terms of new functionality. QNAP offers a huge selection of FAQs and how-to guides on their website that go into much more detail. It's one of the most informative sites I've seen, in any industry. They not only show what each feature does, they show you how to do it, with screen shots and real-world examples. As I said in the beginning of this section, QNAP clearly wants to stay on top, as the market leader in this segment. The high level of support that they offer for each user and each product is another example of how they intend to do that.

Closer Look: QNAP TS-659 Pro II

The QNAP TS-659 Pro II has more capacity than most NAS units in the market. Six bays can theoretically hold 18TB of data, in JBOD mode. Very few people with that much data are going to want to live without it for any length of time, so some sort of RAID configuration is called for. With six active drive bays, the main choices are going to be RAID 5, 6, or 10, depending on what type of data is primarily stored on the device. Despite its popularity, RAID 5 suffers from severe write performance limitations in large multi-user databases applications. RAID 10 eliminates this problem, at the expense of capacity, but for some uses it's a much better solution. RAID 6 offers some additional redundancy, allowing for continued operation even with two simultaneous drive failures, with no significant performance hit and only one additional drive. This option is very popular because if one individual drive fails in a RAID 5 implementation, the array instantly starts operating as a RAID 0 configuration, which has NO redundancy. It stays in that vulnerable state until the array is rebuilt, which is generally a very slow process.

The bottom line with any high performance storage solution is that the number of drive spindles in play is more important than almost any other factor, assuming that everything else is based on reasonably modern technology. When you combine the higher level of performance with the greater flexibility for online RAID capacity expansion & online RAID level migration, the additional cost of the extra drive bays looks like a bargain instead of conspicuous consumption. What initially looks like overkill in a NAS system might just be the very thing that saves the day some years down the road. With 2 Terabyte drives both affordable and readily available in performance and Green versions, six bays will most likely house all the files that 2-3 people can create in the span of 3-5 years. That's the average planned life cycle for modern IT equipment, at least for primary use. It may get re-purposed, or upgraded or passed down because it still has life left in it, but in five years almost every piece of IT hardware you own now will have evolved to the point where the new capabilities and features are too tempting to pass up.

The QNAP TS-659 Pro II shares the same basic technology platform as all the TS-x59 Pro II models, but the chunky profile sets it apart from the smaller units. It also weighs a bit more, especially with all six drives bays filled. The empty TS-259 Pro NAS unit weighs about 11.5 lbs, and adding six 2 TB hard drives piles on another 10 lbs to that. At 20+ pounds, it's never going to pass for a portable device, but it's still easier to pick up and move around than most any PC case that can hold six HDDs. Never mind one that supports six external drive bays, in addition to one more internal bay for the HDD with the operating system on it. If I had to describe it visually to someone who knew nothing about NAS devices, I'd tell them it looks like a big, restaurant toaster with a smart, German design. Oh, and the toast slides in from the front. Clever, eh?

Multiple SATA 6Gb/s drives can be installed as a single disk, RAID 0 (Disk Striping), RAID 1 (Disk Mirroring), RAID 5 (Block-level striping with distributed parity), RAID 6 (Block-level striping with double distributed parity), RAID 10 (AKA RAID 1+0, a stripe of mirrors), and JBOD (Linear Disk Volume). Each drive can be formatted using FAT, NTFS, EXT3, or EXT4 file systems, and also offers AES 256-bit encryption. Our tests utilize EXT4-formatted disks without encryption. QNAP uses a steel-framed tray with black plastic latches for each drive bay on the TS-659 Pro II, which is a common part across a large part of the product line. Each tray stands on edge, slides smoothly into the NAS and locks firmly into place. If additional security is desired, the barrel locks can secure the drives in place; they are keyed alike, and two duplicate keys are provided. The drive trays easily accommodate 2.5" drives without any additional hardware; QNAP does not recommend mixing 3.5" and 2.5" drives in the same enclosure. They do offer some small form factor units that are specifically designed for 2.5" drives, and those models are less expensive than the full size units. It's worth investigating them if handling 2.5" SATA drives is a requirement for you.

QNAP adds a few extra features on the front face of the Pro II models with an LCD screen and indicator lights on the bezel above each drive bay. A single power button and USB 3.0 copy button and port are located on the lower left corner of the Turbo NAS. The older models had status indicator lights built into the buttons; on the newer Pro II versions, all the status lights are grouped together just above the first two drive bays. There are four status lights which indicate System Status, LAN activity, USB activity, and the presence of an eSATA device connected on the back panel. Above each drive bay, behind a solid strip of acrylic are indicators with bi-color LEDs to show the status of each HDD. Red means the system is checking the drive bay or there is an error reading or writing to the drive, green means the drive is present and OK, flashing green means the drive is being accessed. To the far left on this acrylic strip is the power indicator, which is green when the unit is on.

There's a single strip of ventilation holes on the left side of the QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS. This is the primary entry point for cool air to the dual-core Intel Atom processor, as the system board is located on this side of the unit. Fresh air also enters through the drive trays, passes over the HDDs and is then exhausted out through two 90mm cooling fan on the rear of the unit.

The QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS server is equipped with an Intel Atom-D525 dual-core processor, which is clocked to 1.8 GHz, and there is 1GB of DDR2 system memory installed at the factory. This is near the top-of-the-line spec for CPU and memory in QNAP NAS servers, and it should provide good performance in a six-bay unit. There are two-bay units in the product line with the same CPU and DRAM specs, and they clearly vanquish any potential processing bottlenecks. In the 8 and 12-bay units the CPU gets a big bump, up to Intel Core i3 Dual Core (3.30 GHz) and Intel Xeon Quad Core (3.10 GHz), giving a solid clue to the real computing requirements for a full featured, high performance NAS. Those inexpensive, shiny boxes that use port replication hardware fall flat on their faces when asked to pull anything more than light duty. QNAP employs a dual-redundant 512MB Disk-on-Module (DOM) flash drive to store firmware and applications on the TS-269 Pro II motherboard. This acts like the system drive, yet it takes up very little space and uses almost no power. Plus, there's a built-in backup drive in case of data corruption on the primary module. Just the sort of thing you need for a high-availability system. Notice, I didn't say high reliability; I'll tackle the differences in my Final Thoughts.

Starting at the top, the big news for this new model is the inclusion of USB 3.0 ports, on both the front and rear of the NAS. Finally, there is an easy and inexpensive way to connect portable drive enclosures for making copies of your data. I always like to have a full set of backups stored at an alternate location. Now, that's easy, fast and cheap. The capability has been there for some time, on most of the QNAP NAS units, in the form of twin eSATA expansion ports, but eSATA has never been as cheap or easy to implement as USB. Dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports are provided, which can be configured in a variety of load balancing configurations, or as two separate adapters with independent MAC addresses. Each port is powered by an Intel 82574 Ethernet Controller, which offers a full set of features to take full advantage of whatever network environment the server is placed in. The IEEE 802.3ab standard (1000Base-T) interface enables Gigabit Ethernet to run over Category 5 copper cable and can be readily used in most 10/100 Ethernet networks without changing cables. The TS-259 Pro supports 4074, 7418, and 9000 bytes for MTU when Jumbo Frames are enabled. Note that Jumbo Frames are only available in a Gigabit network environment. Four Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports are positioned beside the Ethernet ports, and the system Reset button is below that, recessed inside the case to prevent accidental actuation. Two levels of reset capability are provided, Basic System Reset (hold for 3 sec), and Advanced System Reset (hold for 10 sec). A Kensington lock hole along the bottom edge allows administrators to securely tether the enclosure.

The drives get installed in removable drive trays, which some people call drive caddies, but I prefer the term "tray". The four bottom mounting holes on each HDD are utilized, and that's the only option. Because the tray and drive need to solidly engage the SATA connectors on the backplane, there is no realistic way to include shock mounting for the drives. Of course, in a couple of years someone like Lian Li will do just that, and prove me wrong.... The tray is made from carbon steel and then plated for corrosion resistance. The latching mechanism is a combination of steel and plastic, and each tray is labeled with the slot number. They are all physically identical and you can mix and match them all you want, until you build a drive array and then you had better remember which one goes where, if you ever take them out. Seriously, keep them in the same, sequential order they ship in - creativity and imagination are completely out of place in this one instance.

Now that we've had a thorough tour of the exterior, let's do a tear-down and see what the insides look like. The next section covers Insider Details.

Insider Details: QNAP TS-659 Pro II

The first inner workings of a TS-659 Pro II that you're likely to see is the opening of the drive bay, which is rather substantial, but not quite as large as some of the monster drive arrays that are available, with 8 and 12 bays. The metal guide rails can be seen along the bottom here, and the PCIe extender card that carries the six SATA power and data connectors is right where it should be. It's firmly held in place by ten screws fastening it directly to the metal frame and the PCIe connector on the left, where it terminates on the motherboard. The two 90mm fans have pretty much an unobstructed path to the drive bay, so any heat being generated by the drives can easily be pulled out the back of the enclosure.

At first look into the drive bays, there were two ICs that were rather prominent; let's have a closer look. They are Marvell SATA 6Gb/s and PATA Host Controllers, Model No. 88SE9125. Each host controller supports two 6 Gb/s SATA interface ports and a one-lane 5.0 Gb/s PCIe host interface back to the motherboard. There are three controllers in total, these two ICs control drive bays 3-4 and 5-6. There is a whole family of parts in this series, and this one is optimized for use with a central RAID controller on the system board. The Marvell 88SE9123 chip shows up most often on motherboards that lack native SATA 6Gb/s support on their chipset, and its performance capabilities has been challenged by the last two generations of hyper-fast SSDs. I anticipate the primary usage of the TS-659 Pro II as being paired with traditional 3.5" HDDS, none of which operate anywhere near the full capabilities of the new SATA 6Gb/s interface. QNAP makes some Turbo NAS units that are specifically designed for 2.5" drives, but indications are that they are not keeping pace with the rapid increases in R/W speeds of the latest SSDs. The official compatibility list only lists 25 SSD models, and most of them are two generations behind the current state-of-the-art designs. In defense of QNAP, the name of the game in their market space is reliability, so keeping a respectable distance from the bleeding edge is probably desirable. Case in point: Corsair's recent recall of their Force 3 (CSSD-F120GBG3-BK) SSDs.

Once the brushed steel top and side cover is removed, you can see the main server board installed along the left side of the chassis, parallel to the drive bays. The back side of the board faces the exterior, and only a few components are mounted on the back of the PC Board. All of the rear panel connectors are mounted directly to the board, for a reliable and secure connection. There is a full size clear, flexible plastic shield attached to the board, to prevent the metallic side cover from shorting out any circuits in the event of some extreme rough handling. This is as far as you need to disassemble the TS-659 Pro II to access the empty SO-DIMM slot and upgrade the memory from the standard 1GB to 2GB or 3GB.

Taking a closer look at the board, the DIMM slot is more obvious, and also you can see where the plastic insulating sheet has been slit to create an access flap and allow easy access to the memory slot. To the left and below the memory, are the 98 pins for the x8 PCI Express connector that serves up multiple PCIe 2.0 lanes to the three Marvell SATA host controllers.

1GB of DDR3 memory is installed on one standard SODIMM DRAM module, inserted in a typical memory slot with locking tabs on each side. The chips in my sample were supplied by Hynix and were rated for DDR3-1333 with timings of 9-9-9 for CL-tRCD-tRP. Specifications for the additional memory that can be added to the TS-659 Pro II were incomplete in the QNAP documentation. The hardware manual says, "QNAP provides 1GB DDR3 RAM module (optional purchase) for you to upgrade the memory of Turbo NAS.", but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere. In this day and age of DRAM as a lowest-common-denominator commodity, it's hard to imagine anyone not browsing over to Newegg and buying it direct. FWIW, the manual depicts an ADATA module being installed, and pictures of the ADATA SO-DIMMs show very similar Hynix chips on them. To the right is the connection for the front panel USB 3.0 port. The bandwidth of USB 3.0 must be pushing the limits, because all the internal cabling I've seen so far has been beefy, heavily shielded cable with dedicated connections. No basic header pins in sight for USB 3.0, and the QNAP system follows this trend.

The power supply is sourced from Delta Electronics, and is rated for 250 Watts. Anyone remember what a 250W PSU looked like in the IBM AT days...? There is one 40mm dia x 20 mm thick fan included, spinning at 7600 RPM and pulling ~8 CFM through the PSU and exhausting out the back of the TS-659 Pro II. You might think that anything spinning at 7600 RPMs would be insanely annoying, but I never noticed it. Overall, noise levels were never an issue with the whole unit. I never had any reason to pay attention to the sound coming from it, even when it was formatting disks or rebuilding an array. Of course, I live in an urban setting and it's summer, so the A/C is on and the ambient noise is fairly high. If you live in a cabin in Montana, you will hear it, but then I have to ask, who needs 10TB of storage if they're living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere?

To measure isolated NAS power consumption, Benchmark Reviews uses the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter made by P3 International. In idle standby mode the QNAP TS-659 Pro II consumed 23 watts of electricity, which is on-par with the 22W specified for sleep mode. With four 750GB hard drives installed, building a RAID 5 cluster during initial system setup, the TS-659 Pro II NAS drew 58W. Obviously, power consumption is going to depend heavily on the number and type of drives that are installed. The drives don't take up the whole depth of the unit, leaving a fairly open area in front of the two system fans. This helps bring cool air past the motherboard and cools the CPU via a large aluminum heat sink.

We've seen the ins and outs of the hardware and the software; now let's dive into the testing phase.

QNAP Turbo NAS Features

The TS-259 Pro is a powerful 2-bay network attached storage (NAS ) server, which is designed to provide an affordable and easy-to-management solution with iSCSI service for virtualized and clustered environment. The TS-259 Pro also offers versatile business applications to maximize the efficiency of the data center in a small-scale business environment.

The Most Affordable and Flexible Virtualization Solution

The TS-259 Pro is certified as compatible with VMware vSphere4 (ESX 4.0 and above) virtualization platform. The NAS can be utilized as the networked shared storage of VMware virtualization environments and Windows cluster servers. Comparing with traditional SAN (Storage Area Network), the Turbo NAS is a competitive alternative with much lower setup and maintenance costs in an IP SAN.

The Feature-rich and Integrated Applications for Business

The NAS supports file sharing across Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX platforms. Versatile business applications such as file server, FTP server, printer server, web server, and Windows AD support are provided. The dominant features, such as WebDAV, Share Folder Aggregation (also known as DFS), IPv6 and IPv4 dual-stack, Wake on LAN, schedule power on/ off, HDD S.M.A.R.T, comprehensive log systems, and policy-based unauthorized IP blocking are all included features of a QNAP NAS server.

iSCSI for Virtualization Deployments
The Turbo NAS provides flexible and secure storage server deployment with the following enhanced iSCSI features:

* NAS + iSCSI storage solution
The Turbo NAS can serve as a NAS for file sharing and iSCSI storage concurrently.
* Flexible multiple LUNs management
The NAS supports multiple LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers) and iSCSI targets. The LUNs can be flexibly mapped to, unmapped from, and switched among different iSCSI targets.
* Secure IP SAN environment deployment
Designed with CHAP authentication and LUN masking, the advanced ACL (Access Control List) offers you the capability to block unauthorized access from the initiators.
* Designed for virtualized and clustered environments
Comparing with the high cost of Fibre Channel SAN, the Turbo NAS is an affordable system that can be deployed as a storage center for virtualized and clustered server environments, such as VMware and Microsoft Windows Failover Cluster.

Advanced RAID Management with Hot-swap Design
The NAS offers advanced RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, Single, and JBOD disk configurations. It also supports hot-swap design that a failed drive can be replaced by hot swapping without turning off the server. Besides, the best-in-class RAID on the NAS brings users a higher level of data security by allowing one more hard drive failure than other NAS of the same level.

Online RAID Capacity Expansion
The storage capacity of a RAID configuration can be expanded by replacing the hard drives with larger ones. All the data will be kept and seamlessly moved to the newly installed hard drives. There is no need to turn off the server during the process.

Online RAID Level Migration
You can upgrade the disk configuration to higher RAID level with the data retained. There is no need to turn off the server during the process.

Virtual Disk Drive (VDD) adds flexibility to storage expansion along with ease of management
The unique "Virtual Disk Drive" adds flexibility to expand the capacity of NAS. By using the built-in iSCSI initiator, the NAS can connect to other iSCSI targets on the network and turn them into virtual disks, which become multiple single volumes on the NAS. Up to 8 virtual disks can be stacked. The NAS serves as the storage stack chaining master. The user only needs to connect to this single entry (QNAP NAS) and is able to reach and use all the iSCSI target storages on the network.

Built-in iSCSI Target Service
The TS-259 Pro can act as a NAS and iSCSI target server at the same time. It provides a cost-efficient iSCSI solution to set up an IP-SAN. You can make use of the built-in iSCSI target service to add up to 8 iSCSI devices. Different iSCSI Target LUNs (Logical Unit Number) can be defined as storage expansion or backup destination of the existing application servers, such as database servers and mail servers.

Furthermore, the "Virtual Space Allocation" (Thin Provisioning) feature is provided which allows you to flexibly allocate the capacity of iSCSI LUN (Logical Unit Number). When the physical storage capacity of the volume is going to be full, you can easily expand the storage capacity by "Online RAID Capacity Expansion", or adjust/ remove the current unused volume space according to the demands.

S.M.A.R.T & Advanced HDD Health Scanning (HHS) The NAS supports Hard Disk Drive S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) for monitoring the hard drive status. Moreover, the NAS is embedded with HHS Technology which supports disk checking and bad blocks scanning.

UPS Support
The NAS supports the majority of USB UPS devices (usbhid-ups supported) which enables the users to store the data in time and avoid critical data loss when power outage occurs during data transfer.

QNAP Backup Software - NetBak Replicator
The backup software, NetBak Replicator, is provided for the NAS users to perform real-time synchronization or schedule backup from multiple PCs to the NAS.

3rd Party Backup Software Ready
The NAS works well with other backup software, e.g. Acronis True Image, CA BrightStor ARCserve Backup, EMC Retrospect, Symantec Backup Exec, and LaCie Silverkeeper.

Encrypted Remote Replication
The data on the NAS can be backed up to or from another Turbo NAS over the network securely.

One Touch USB Auto Copy
The one touch button can be configured to trigger instant data backup from the external USB device to the NAS or the other way round (applies to the USB device connected to the front USB port of the NAS only).

Sharing Files across Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX
The NAS is designed for users to share the files across Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX environment.

Support Windows Active Directory
The Windows AD feature enables server manager to import user accounts from AD domain to NAS to reduce the time and effort for account setup, and users can use the same set of login name and password.

Web File Manager The NAS provides Web File Manager for you to easily download, upload, and manage the files on the server by web browser.

Ease of User and Share Folder Management
The NAS supports batch creation of users and share folders to save the time and effort of the server manager in account and folder creation. For the security of Windows network environment, server managers can hide or show network share folders.

Hard Disk Standby
You can configure the hard disks to enter standby mode if there is no disk access within the specified period.

Schedule Power on/ off
The flexible schedule power on/off feature is now provided on the NAS for IT administrators to manage the NAS server's up time according to the working hours. You can set the time for automatic system power on, power off, or restart on any days of the week.

Secure data storage, access, and sharing

• Comprehensive event logs: Detailed logs of file-level data access to the NAS via samba, FTP, AFP, HTTP, HTTPS, Telnet, and SSH, and networking services accessed by online users are all recorded.
• SSL security (HTTPS): The NAS can be accessed and configured by web browser securely.
• Remote login to the NAS by SSH (secure shell) or Telnet connection is supported.
• Secure FTP: The data can be transmitted with SSL/TLS (explicit) encryption. Passive FTP port range setup is also supported.
• Write-only access right on FTP server: The third party partners are allowed to upload data to the NAS but not able to read or edit the data on FTP server.

Policy-based Automatic IP Blocking
To prevent the NAS from malicious attacks, the server manager can create an IP filter policy to allow, deny, or auto-block the IP address or network domain which attempts to connect to the NAS via SSH/ Telnet/ HTTP(S)/ FTP/ samba/ AFP.

The most comprehensive support for numerous brands of IP cameras
The Surveillance Station of QNAP NAS supports all the leading network camera brands such as AXIS, D-Link, IPUX, LevelOne, Linksys, Panasonic and Vivotek etc. By using particular models, users can use two-way video and audio monitoring and recording, and smart PTZ control to control the monitoring direction via the web interface. Each of the supported cameras has been put through stringent tests with the NAS series in QNAP's laboratory to guarantee 100% compatibility and reliability with all these camera brands.

QNAP TS-659 Pro II NAS Hardware Specifications

QNAP TS-659 Pro II Software Specifications

Software Specifications

Operating System

• Embedded Linux

Supported Operating System

• Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista (32/ 64 bit), Windows 7 (32/ 64 bit), Server 2003/ 2008
• Apple Mac OS X
• Linux & Unix

Supported Web Browsers

• Internet Explorer 7 & 8 or later
• Firefox 3 or later
• Safari 3 & 4 or later
• Google Chrome

Multilingual Support

• Chinese (Traditional & Simplified), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.

File System

• Internal HDD: EXT3, EXT4
• External HDD: EXT3, EXT4, NTFS, FAT32, HFS+

Networking

• TCP/IP (IPv4 & IPv6: Dual Stack)
• Dual Gigabit LAN with Jumbo Frame
• Multi-IP Settings, Port Trunking/NIC Teaming (Modes: Balance-rr, Active Backup, Balance XOR, Broadcast, IEEE 802.3ad/Link Aggregation, Balance-tlb and Balance-alb)
• DHCP Client, DHCP Server
• Protocols: CIFS/SMB, AFP (3.1), NFS, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, Telnet, SSH, iSCSI and SNMP.
• Network Service Discovery (UPnP, Bonjour)
• Virtual LAN Support
• USB Wi-Fi 802.11n Adapter Support (Optional Purchase)

Network File Sharing

• CIFS/SMB (Plus DFS Support)
• AFP
• NFS
• FTP
• WebDAV

Backup Solution

• Real-time Remote Replication (RTRR)
  • Work as Both RTRR Server & Client
  • Supports Real-time & Scheduled Backup
  • Supports Encryption, Compression, and File Filter
• USB One Touch Backup (Import/Export)
• Apple Time Machine Support with Backup Management
• Block-level Remote Replication
  • Work as Both Rsync Server & Client
  • Supports Encrypted Replication between QNAP NAS Servers
• Back up to External Storage Device
• Back up to Cloud Storage (Amazon S3 & ElephantDrive)

Security

• IP Filter & Policy-based Automatic IP Blocking
• Network Access Protection with Auto-blocking
• Encrypted Access: HTTPS, FTP with SSL/TLS (Explicit), SSH/SFTP (admin only), Encrypted Remote Replication (Rsync over SSH)
• CIFS Host Access Control for Shared Folders
• AES 256-bit Volume-based Encryption
• Importable SSL Certificate
• Instant Alert via Email, SMS, and LCD

Disk Management

• Single Disk, JBOD, RAID 0 / 1 / 5 / 5+Hot Spare / 6 / 6+ Hot Spare, 10, 10+Hot Spare
• Online RAID Capacity Expansion & Online RAID Level Migration
• Bad Block Scan & HDD S.M.A.R.T
• Global Spare Drive
• AES 256-bit Volume-based Encryption
• RAID Recovery
• Bitmap Support
• Supports ISO Mounting (via Web File Manager)

iSCSI (IP SAN)

• iSCSI Target
  • Multi-LUNs per Target
  • Up to 256 LUNs
  • Supports LUN Mapping & Masking
  • Supports SPC-3 Persistent Reservation
  • Supports MPIO & MC/S
• Virtual Disk Drive (via iSCSI Initiator)
  • Stack Chaining Master
  • Max. Virtual Disk Drives: 8

Server Virtualization & Clustering

• Supports VMware vSphere (ESX/ESXi 4.x)
• Supports Citrix XenServer (5.6)
• Supports Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V & Failover Clustering

Power Management

• Wake on LAN
• Scheduled Power on/off (Max 15 settings)
• Automatic Power on after Power Recovery

Access Right Management

• Max User Accounts: 4,096
• Max Groups: 512
• Max. Share Folder: 512
• Batch Creating Users
• Import/Export Users
• User Quota Management
• Subfolder Permissions Support

Windows AD Support

• Domain Users Login via CIFS/SMB, AFP, FTP and Web File Manager
• Supports NTLMv2 Authentication

Web Administration

• AJAX-based User Interface
• HTTP/HTTPS Connections
• Alert Notification (Email & SMS)
• Smart Fan Control
• DDNS & MyCloudNAS Remote Access
• SNMP (v2 & v3)
• UPS Support with SNMP Management (USB)
• Supports Network UPS
• Resource Monitor
• Network Recycle Bin for CIFS/SMB and AFP
• Comprehensive Logs (Events & Connection)
• Real-time Online User List
• Syslog Client
• Firmware Update with Live Update Notification
• Backup and Restore System Settings
• Restore to Factory Default

Applications

• Web File Manager
• Multimedia Station
• Download Station
• Surveillance Station
• iTunes Server
• UPnP Media Server
• Apache Web Server
• MySQL Server

QMobile App

• QMobile for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android devices
• Third Party UPnP Media Player

QPKG

• Web Applications
  • Joomla!
  • phpMyAdmin
  • WordPress
  • AjaXplorer
  • vtigerCRM
  • GLPI
  • Magento
• P2P Applications
  • MLDonkey (eMule)
  • SABnzbd+
  • NZBGet
  • Transmission
• Server Applications
  • Squeezebox Server
  • Tomcat
  • Asterisk
  • XDove (Mail Server)
  • OpenLDAP
  • eyeOS
• Media Server
  • PS3 Media Server
  • IceStation
• Misc.
  • Optware IPKG
  • Python
  • Java Runtime Environment
  • Mono
  • iStat

Powerful All-in-one server

File Server

• File Sharing across Windows, Mac, and Linux/UNIX
• Protocols: CIFS/SMB, AFP(3.2), NFS, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS
• QNAP Web File Manager
  • Supports ISO Mounting
  • Direct File Viewing via Google Doc

FTP Server

• FTP over SSL/TLS (Explicit)
• Max Concurrent Connections: 256
• FXP Supported
• Passive FTP Port Range Control
• FTP Bandwidth & Connection Control
• Unicode Support

Web Server

• HTTP/ HTTPS Connections
• Supports WebDAV Connection
• Support Virtual Host
• Importable SSL Certificate

Database Server

• Built-in MySQL Server
• Web-based Management via phpMyAdmin (QPKG)

Backup Server

• Remote Replication Server (over Rsync)
• Real-time Remote Replication Server
• Apple Time Machine Support
• QNAP Client Backup Application-NetBak Replicator
• 3rd Party Backup Software Support: Acronis True Image, CA BrightStor, ARCserve Backup, EMC Retrospect, Symantec Backup Exec, LaCie SilverKeeper

iTunes Server

• Audio and Video Sharing
• Smart Playlist for iTunes Client (Windows & Mac OS)

UPnP Media Server

• Built-in TwonkyMedia Server
• Real-time & Background Photo Transcoding
• Supports UPnP Media Player
  • Game Console: PlayStation 3, PSP and Xbox 360
  • Digital Media Adapter/Player
  • Mobile Device (e.g. iPhone, iPod touch with UPnP Applications)
• Supported Formats:
  • ASF - Windows Media Video (Codecs: WMV video and WMA audio)
  • BMP - Bitmap Image
  • FLV, F1V, F4V - Standard Quality YouTube Video (Codec: Flash, Video: Sorenson Spark H.263 Video Codec & MP3 Audio Codec)
  • GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
  • JPG, JPEG, JPE - Joint Photographic Experts Group Image
  • MP3 - MPEG Audio Layer 3 (Codec: MPEG Audio)
  • MP4 - High Quality YouTube Video (Codecs: MP4: H.264 Video & HE-AAC audio)
  • MP4 - MPEG-4 Video (Codecs: Microsoft MPEG-4 v1, Microsoft MPEG-4 v2, Microsoft MPEG-4 v3 & ISO MPEG-4 v1)
  • MPEG, .MPG, .MLV - MPEG-1 (Codecs: MPEG-1 Video & MP2 Audio)
  • PNG - Portable Network Graphics
  • WAV - Linear Audio (Codecs: Uncompressed PCM-encoded & ADPCM-encoded)

Printer Server

• Network Printer Sharing (USB)
• Max Printers: 3
• Supports Internet Printing Protocol
• Supports Apple Bonjour Printing
• Advanced Printer Management
  • Print Jobs Display and Management
  • Access Right Control (IP & Domain Names)

Multimedia Station

• Supports Photo, Audio and Video
• Image Slide Show and Rotation
• Automatic & Schedule Thumbnail Generation for Easy Browsing
• Display Photo Details from EXIF: Date, Exposure Time, Aperture, etc.
• Display Audio Details from ID3 Tag: Album Cover, Title, Artist, Album, etc.
• Access Authority Management
• Multimedia (Video & Audio) Streaming
• Supports Cooliris
• Supports Web Publishing (Facebook, MySpace, MSN Live, Twitter, Plurk, Blogger)
• Share Photos by Email
• Supported Formats:
  • Photo - JPG/JPEG, GIF, PNG
  • Audio - MP3
  • Video
    • Playback: FLV, MPEG-4 Video (H.264 + AAC)
    • Transcode: AVI, M4V, MPG/MPEG, RM/RMVB, WMV
• QNAP Exclusive iPhone & Android App - QMobile

Download Station

• PC-less BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP Download (up to 500 Tasks)
• BitTorrent Download
  • Supports TCP/ UDP Tracker Protocol
  • Schedule Download
  • Configurable Port Range
  • Bandwidth Control
  • UPnP NAT Port Forwarding
  • Subscribe to RSS Feeds
  • RSS Download (Broadcatching)
  • Selectable Download Files
• HTTP/ FTP Download
  • Configurable Saving Directory
  • Bulk Download with Wildcard Setting
  • RapidShare Download Support
• QNAP Download Management Software: QGet
  • For Both Windows & Mac OS
  • Manage the Download Tasks of Multiple QNAP NAS Remotely over LAN or WAN

Surveillance Station

• Supports 4 IP Cameras (Optional Purchase) for Network Surveillance

QPKG Center Software Expansion

Explore the Unlimited Possibilities of Your NAS with QPKG

The Network Attached Storage (NAS) used to refer to a basic network storage device for simple data sharing but now with the high performance SoC and the advantage in power-saving design, it is redefined as a powerful embedded system that allows the possibilities of offering numerous fascinating applications. Over the past years, QNAP has successfully developed a series of All-in-One NAS servers for power users and business users providing a wide variety of software applications. Besides those QNAP provides, many other software packages are also developed in Linux open source community that power users are able to install them on their NAS to further enrich the functions. However, this is only limited to those advanced users or software developers who are more familiar with Linux systems. In order to let majority of general QNAP NAS users to also utilize their NAS servers with those software packages already developed by the open source community, QPKG platform and development framework is then introduced by QNAP.

Inspired from the powerful software package management system in Linux (yum, dpkg, etc.), but unlike those running in the modern PCs today, QPKG is designed and fine-tuned for running on Linux embedded systems like NAS along with many popular software packages ready for install. Besides, in order to publish your software in our official repository all the software packages will be verified by QNAP to prevent from others to embed malicious codes for system intrusion or potential risks of data damage. Therefore QNAP NAS users may enjoy these software packages developed by the community in a safe way through an installation method as easy as firmware update just like you would install/uninstall software in the Windows environment without the need to go through the complicated process.

QNAP has introduced some popular QPKG software packages as the demonstration purpose. Below are the quick introductions on each of them:

MLDonkey (eMule)
MLDonkey (eMule) is a door to the 'donkey' network, a decentralized network used to exchange big files on the Internet and present most features of the basic Windows donkey client. (e.g., eMule)

Slim Server on Turbo Station (with SqueezeCenter 7)
Squeeze Center is the server software from Slim Device that manages common digital audio formats (.mp3, .flac, .ogg, etc.) and streams them to its players. Slim Server On Turbo Station (SSOTS) developed by flipflip is an add-on to the Turbo Station's firmware which provides the environment to run Squeeze Center 7 on it.

Optware Ipkg (Itsy Package Management System)
Ipkg, or the Itsy Package Management System, is a lightweight package management system designed for embedded devices. It is used in the Unslung operating system for the Linksys NSLU2, in OpenWRT, OpenMoko, Gumstix, iPAQ and now on QNAP NAS too.

SABnzbd+
SABnzbd+ is a multi-platform binary newsgroup downloader written in Python language. The program works in the background and simplifies the downloading, verifying and extracting of files from Usenet. SABnzbd+ does not search for files, instead NZB files (similar to .torrent files, but for Usenet) are fed to SABnzbd+ from sites like newzbin.com, binsearch.info and tvnzb.com (Requires prior installation of Python)

Python
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes programmer productivity and code readability.

WordPress
WordPress is a free, open-source personal publishing system that allows you to easily create a complex blog, or web log, on your site. Written in PHP and supported by a MySQL database, WordPress offers intuitive administrative tools and sophisticated design features that make it easy to develop and integrate a personal or professional blog on your site.

Joomla CMS
Joomla! is a free, open source content management system for publishing content on the world wide web and intranets. The system includes features such as page caching to improve performance, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, polls, website searching, and language internationalization. Benchmark Reviews is built from the Joomla! CMS.

phpMyAdmin
phpMyAdmin is an open source tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Internet. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, and manage keys on fields.

xDove Email Server
XDove named after XMail & Dovecot the 2 open source offerings that are combined to provide a complete set of Email server functionalities which is one-click installable on your QNAP NAS. XDove not only provides SMTP, POP3 and IMAP services, it also comes with a variety of features like multiple virtual domains and accounts, AJAX webmail with extended functionalities including personal folders, address book, calendar and real-time chat among users under the same mail domain. Besides the mail services XDove offers scheduled backup and restore of your mailboxes from multiple domains which gives you an extra protection on the top of your RAID data redundancy.

AjaXplorer
AjaXplorer is a file explorer for remotely managing files on a web server or operation as a simple file-sharing system. Its rich layout and actions make it easily accessible to virtually any end-user. The AJAX based interface, providing streamlined and intuitive functionalities, similar to that of a standard file-system explorer on any operating system.

Software Expansion via QPKG Platform
The QPKG software package platform enables the users to maximize the usage of Turbo NAS by installing additional software packages developed from the users and community worldwide. This can be done by simple "download & install" clicking without going through any complicated process.

Network Terminology

Benchmark Reviews primarily uses metric data measurement for testing storage products, for anyone who is interested in learning the relevant history of this sore spot in the industry, I've added a small explanation below:

The basic unit data measurement is called a bit (one single binary digit). Computers use these bits, which are composed of ones and zeros, to communicate their contents. All files are stored as binary files, and translated into working files by the Operating System. This two number system is called a "binary number system". In comparison, the decimal number system has ten unique digits consisting of zero through nine. Essentially it boils down to differences between binary and metric measurements, because testing is deeply impacted without carefully separating the two. For example, the difference between the transfer time of a one-Gigabyte (1000 Megabytes) file is going to be significantly better than a true binary Gigabyte (referred to as a Gibibyte) that contains 1024 Megabytes. The larger the file used for data transfer, the bigger the difference will be.

Have you ever wondered why your 500 GB hard drive only has about 488 GB once it has been formatted? Most Operating Systems utilize the binary number system to express file data size, however the prefixes for the multiples are based on the metric system. So even though a metric "Kilo" equals 1,000, a binary "Kilo" equals 1,024. Are you confused yet? Don't be surprised, because even the most tech savvy people often mistake the two. Plainly put, the Kilobyte is expressed as 1000 bytes, but it is really comprised of 1,024 bytes.

Most network engineers are not fully aware that the IEC changed the way we calculate and name data chunks when they published the new International Standards back in December 1998. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) removed the old metric prefixes for multiples in binary code with new prefixes for binary multiples made up of only the first two letters of the metric prefixes and adding the first two letters of the word "binary". For example, instead of Megabyte (MB) or Gigabyte (GB), the new terms would be Mebibyte (MiB) or Gibibyte (GiB). While this is the new official IEC International Standard, it has not been widely adopted yet because it is either still unknown by institutions or not commonly used.

NAS Testing Methodology

All the NAS devices we test cannot accommodate all the different disk configurations, so our current test protocol has been based on two of the most popular setups: a basic (single) disk and RAID-5 configurations. Since this six-bay device easily supports RAID 5, I tested both disk modes this time. Each NAS device was upgraded to the very latest firmware by flashing the DOM with binary files downloaded from the QNAP website. The recommended firmware was the same for all the devices under test: v3.4.3-0520T

Connected directly to the Realtek 8112L Gigabit LAN controller in the test-bench system by a ten-foot CAT6 patch cable, the NAS product receives one test transfer followed by at least three timed transfers. Each test file was sent to the Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB (WD7502AAEX) hard drives installed in the NAS for a timed write test, and that same file was sent back to a Western Digital VelociRaptor 150GB 10,000 RPM (WD1500HLFS) hard drive in the test system to perform a read test. Each test was repeated several times, the high and low values were discarded and the remaining results were recorded and charted.

This is the start of NAS testing where we are going to exclusively use Windows 7 as the testing platform for the host system. The performance differences between Win7 and XP are huge, as we documented in our QNAP TS-259 Pro review. The adoption rate for Win 7 has been very high, and Benchmark Reviews has been using Win 7 in all of our other testing for some time now. It's definitely time to make the jump for NAS products.

The two transfer tests: read and write, were conducted on each NAS appliance using the 1 GB file and then a 10 GB file. Additionally, a second set of tests were conducted with Jumbo Frame enabled, i.e. the MTU value for the Ethernet controllers was increased from 1500 to 9000. All the NAS products tested to date in the Windows 7 environment have supported the Jumbo Frame configuration. I also include a baseline of sorts, which is the internal file transfer from the Corsair P64 SSD to the Western Digital 150GB VelociRaptor installed on the Intel P55 motherboard SATA connections, where the Intel P55 chipset provides the SATA 3Gb/s interface, and a Marvell 88SE9123 controller provides two ports of SATA 6Gb/s connections.

NAS Comparison Products

• QNAP TS-219P+ Gigabit 2-Bay SATA NAS server
• QNAP TS-259 Pro Gigabit 2-Bay SATA NAS server
• QNAP TS-659 Pro II Gigabit 6-Bay SATA NAS server

Support Equipment

• (4) Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6Gb/s 3.5"
• 10-Foot Category-6 Solid Copper Shielded Twisted Pair Patch Cable
• 1 metric Gigabyte Test File (1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes)
• 10 metric Gigabyte Test File (10 GB = 10,000,000,000 bytes)
  

Test System

• Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E Pro (1002 BIOS)
• System Memory: 2x 2GB GSKILL Ripjaws DDR3 1600MHz (7-8-7-24)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-750 (OC @ 4.0 GHz)
• CPU Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems (Delta AFB1212SHE PWM Fan)
• Video: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 8.840.3.0)
• Drive 1: Corsair P64 SSD, 64GB
• Drive 2: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3Gb/s 3.5"
• Optical Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7190A-OB 20X DVD Burner
• Enclosure: CM STORM Sniper Gaming Case
• PSU: Corsair CMPSU-750TX ATX12V V2.2 750Watt
• Monitor: SOYO 24"; Widescreen LCD Monitor (DYLM24E6) 1920X1200
• Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate Version 6.1 (Build 7600)
  

1GB Single-Disk Test Results

The bottom line for any storage device is the combination of capacity and transfer speed. For a network attached storage server, the differences are all about the infrastructure that is placed around the basic HDD array. Since capacity is something that's easy to define and measure, the real question for any NAS product is how fast will it Read and Write data. For this reason, Benchmark Reviews measures NAS performance as the bandwidth achieved during a file transfer test. The first tests we perform utilize a single 1GB (1000 megabytes / 1,000,000,000 bytes) file in a transfer to and from the NAS.
Since we started testing NAS units exclusively with Win 7, there aren't as many prior test results to compare with. We'll try and build up the NAS testing as best we can in the next year. In the meantime, we can compare several units from QNAP that we have on hand now. Even with all the NAS units operating in single disk mode, the TS-659 Pro II comes in slightly ahead on the 1 GB Read tests. The combination of faster CPU, more memory, DDR3 memory, SATA 6Gb/s, and a 64MB cache on the latest WD Caviar Black drives gives it a minor win. It doesn't look like much, but with all the new features that QNAP has included with each new release of their software, it's good to see that performance still takes the front seat.

Moving on to the 1 GB write bandwidth test, our results suggest that while it may sometimes be faster to read files from a hard drive than it is to write files onto it, the opposite is true more often than not in a NAS appliance. The most notable result here is the degraded performance when writing to the QNAP TS-259 Pro with the standard MTU of 1500. The other thing that impresses me is how close the NAS results get compared to the internal transfer speed between an SSD and the 150 GB VelociRaptor, running directly off the motherboard chipset. Yes, they are slower, and the speed goes up with price, but for anyone who is used to USB 2.0 transfer speeds, or multi-drive towers using SATA port replication, these results are a revelation.

Next up is 10 GB (1000 metric megabytes / 10,000,000,000 bytes) file transfer testing. Using the single-disk configuration in each NAS, and a single Gigabit connection, network throughput will be put to the test, and the effect of any system or hardware caches will be minimized.

10GB Single-Disk Test Results

Examining 10GB basic file transfer speeds, the QNAP TS-659 Pro II delivers better read performance than the smaller units, with improvements of 17-21%. These are some of the best transfer speeds we encountered during our testing and are fully comparable to the RAID 5 results. Of course, you get none of the advantages of redundancy with a single disk or JBOD, so most NAS users will go for one of the RAID configurations. The TS-219P+ shows a small advantage over the older TS-259 Pro, but don't forget that several of the more advanced NAS applications are only compatible with Intel-based units and the TS-219P+ runs a Marvell CPU.

In our 10GB write performance tests, the performance equals out a bit between the top two units, and it's also interesting to note that the MTU settings have absolutely no effect on the TS-659 Pro II unit in this test scenario. The TS-219P+ loses some ground in the write test, so any backup tasks are going to run a little slower on the lower priced unit - about half the internal SATA transfer rate.

Next we're going to look at RAID 5 performance, but since the QNAP TS-259 Pro and 219P+ don't support the RAID5 configuration that we normally use to test the large format NAS products, we won't be able to offer much of a comparison.

NAS Comparison Products

• QNAP TS-219P+ Gigabit 2-Bay SATA NAS server
• QNAP TS-259 Pro Gigabit 2-Bay SATA NAS server
• QNAP TS-659 Pro II Gigabit 6-Bay SATA NAS server

1GB RAID 5 Test Results

If you've got more than three HDD spindle to put in play, it makes sense to use one of the more advanced RAID configurations. RAID 5 is one of the most popular setups, primarily due to the balance it exhibits between capacity and redundancy. Not surprisingly, most NAS units that can support more than three HDDs also support RAID 5, so it makes sense to use it for test purposes.
The results for RAID 5 read testing are very similar to single disk testing, which is not a bad thing. Given all the behind-the-scenes processing that goes on to calculate and distribute parity bits and then parse the data to four separate drives, these results show that the QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS has all the necessary power under the hood to keep the drives performing at their highest potential.

The 1 GB RAID 5 disk write test is also roughly on par with the single disk results. This is excellent, as RAID 5 write performance can be a weak point, with all the computation overhead involved and the extra parity bits that need to be calculated and written to each of the drives..

10GB RAID 5 Test Results

Looking at read tests with a single 10GB file, the TS-659 Pro II really gets in the groove, breaking the 100 MB/s barrier. Indeed, it gets within striking distance of the results for internal data transfers, between the SSD and VelociRaptor drives running directly off the Intel P55 chipset. The internal drive architecture lost speed when going from 1GB transfers to 10 GB, but the TS-659 Pro II improved its performance when transferring large files, which I thought was interesting. It shows how this unit is built to carry the heavier data loads.

Looking at write tests with a single 10GB file, the TS-659 Pro II suffers from the typical RAID 5 write penalties due to the computing overhead required to deal with the parity bits. The various caches built into the system help out on the smaller file transfers, but they get filled up and lose their effectiveness when dealing with large files like this.

All in all, my impression of the test results is that the QNAP TS-659 Pro II puts in a solid performance, especially considering the added flexibility it offers in terms of advanced RAID support.

NAS Comparison Products

• QNAP TS-219P+ Gigabit 2-Bay SATA NAS server
• QNAP TS-259 Pro Gigabit 2-Bay SATA NAS server
• QNAP TS-659 Pro II Gigabit 6-Bay SATA NAS server

NAS Server Final Thoughts

My first and solemn duty is to remind everyone that relying on a collection of drives in any RAID configuration for data backup purposes is a huge error. RAID systems provide protection against loss of services, not loss of data. Several examples will illustrate the problem, I hope:

• the drive controller goes bad and corrupts the data on all the drives in the array
• the entire storage device is physically or electrically damaged by external forces
• the entire storage device is lost, stolen, or destroyed
• a single drive in a RAID 5 cluster dies and during the rebuild process, which puts higher stress on the remaining drives, a second drive fails
• floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc.

All these points lead to the inescapable conclusion that multiple drives in a common system, in a single location do not provide effective and reliable data backup. Throughout this review I've talked about high-availability systems, and the QNAP TS-659 fits that description, especially when employed in a RAID 6 configuration. Even with two concurrent drive failures, your data is still available and accessible. The NAS device stays online the entire time while the failed drives are replaced and the array is rebuilt. That's what RAID systems are designed to do. The inherent redundancy is not meant to serve as a backup file set.

I guess I was an early adopter, or at least I was in the early majority. I bought my first NAS in 2005, after my wife's Dell desktop shredded the first of several hard drives. While my NAS from the past has been sitting in one spot for most of those six years, the world of NAS products has not. New products available today offer so much more functionality and additional features that it boggles the mind. Most of the advances have been in the area of software, but the hardware has also kept pace. PATA became SATA; 10Mbps became dual Gigabit NICs with failover; "locked-in-a-box" (AKA: The Brick) became hot-swap RAID clusters; one button & one light became 4-line LCD displays. However you look at it, the range of capabilities available today looms high over what we had to choose from in the not too distant past.

I'm writing this article from a much different perspective than our Executive Editor. He runs an IT company and I support a small network for a home office. That being said, we both recognize the intrinsic value of network attached storage products. I bought my first one six years ago and it does automatic backups every night at midnight and 1:00 AM for the two primary workstations in the house. When I hear it light off at midnight, I know it's time to either finish my article or go to bed. Then the snooze alarm kicks off an hour later, if I'm still up. It performs well and looks stylish even today, if a bit outsized. It looks like this:

All of the QNAP TS series product in this article offer so much more capability than my old, simple NAS. Just as our small business has evolved, so too have the tools available. We're looking at creating a website and a blog to go along with it, and maybe a forum. All these can be hosted from one of these new versatile NAS devices, acting as a server. This kind of capability goes far beyond the simple remote access tools provided by Windows Home Server. Quite frankly, unless you are getting Windows Home Server for free from your MSDN account and you can repurpose an old computer that's sitting in the corner unused, all these NAS systems reviewed here on Benchmark Reviews are a much better value. If your Windows based server is only going to be used for serving out files, sharing printers and managing backups, one inexpensive NAS does all this at less than half the cost.

When you add in the new features that QNAP has added recently, like RAID 10, Real-time Remote Replication, ElephantDrive Cloud Storage, Download Station V2, MyCloudNAS Remote Access, and USB Wi-Fi Network Adapter Support, it's obvious that you get so much more with this solution package. The fact that you can get access to all these capabilities with an IT department is icing on the cake. The very fact that Microsoft offers four version of Windows Storage Server tells me that most end-users would be foolish to try and implement any of the MS solutions without professional services getting involved, at least for a portion of the selection and integration process.

So, what conclusions can we draw, particularly about this high performance, six-bay TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS server. Click NEXT to find out, and discuss...

QNAP TS-659 Pro II Conclusion

Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating for the sample received which may differ from retail versions.

The performance of the QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS server was very solid. The beefed up Intel® Atom D525 1.8GHz Dual-Core processor and 1GB DDR3 DRAM made all the difference in performance, especially compared to the Marvell-based TS-219P+. The two newest features that QNAP has implemented here: SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 have wildly different impacts. The newer and faster SATA interface has little practical impact on performance with traditional hard drives. Further testing will be needed to see how well various SSDs perform in this challenging environment and with the Marvell host controllers - stay tuned. The USB 3.0 performance was a much needed shot in the arm for interfacing with portable devices, USB 2.0 was such a bottleneck and eSATA was more expensive and difficult to implement for portable use.

The best read performance for the TS-659 Pro II was 106 MB/s, and the best write speed was 99 MB/s, which are both outstanding. The additional load encountered with RAID 5 operation was handled easily, and the top results in RAID 5 were basically equivalent to the single disk results. Unless you just need to provide basic backup and/or file server capability, I would advise getting one of these Intel-based NAS units, as some of the newer, more advanced software features are only supported by those models. Depending upon how many different services are being implemented on the server side, the added 2 GB of DRAM will come in handy and it's easy to install, if needed. Basic file transfer tasks don't benefit much, but there are many potential services that could be running in the foreground, if you take advantage of the full capability offered by this unit.

The larger, six-bay form factor of the QNAP TS-659 Pro II allows for the use of a display on the front of the unit, which was handy for quick adjustments and for out-of-the-box setup before connecting it to the network. The status LEDs for activity on: HDD1-6, LAN, USB and eSATA were helpful to verify what was going on with the unit. Ditto for the flashing indicators and audible status alarms, they were mostly intuitive and I needed just a brief look at the manual to make sure I understood the signals correctly. The exposed portion of the drive trays are nicely finished and blend well with the remainder of the front panel. Three different shades and textures of black can look busy if arranged poorly, but this NAS looks the business. The side and top panel is a one-piece titanium colored section with a fine grained brush finish. The brighter finish adds a bit of elegance to the visual design, plus it doesn't show fingerprints. IMHO, it fits in perfectly with its intended environment, the small office or a sophisticated home office.

The construction quality of the TS-659 exceeds that of many computer-based appliances. The data center crews are all hardware junkies for the most part, and they like their gear to radiate superiority. QNAP takes the level of excellence that is required to win over that finicky community and applies it across the product line. Enjoy the trickle-down effect where you can, even if it's from the data centers on Wall St. and not the banks on Wall St. Every QNAP product I've ever used had the same attention to build quality, even the lower-priced units.

The QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS network storage server is going to have tremendous appeal to a very tech-capable SOHO organization that can take full advantage of all the capabilities and functions it offers. For some businesses, that need all the benefits but aren't tech-savvy enough to exploit the full functionality without some hitches, utilizing a Value-Added-Reseller (VAR) to integrate, configure and test it in your environment is always an option. However, most of the applications are well designed and documented, to the point where most resident geeks can handle setup and administration. There's a lot of functionality that's important in a business environment, but the availability of more broad-based web applications is also impressive, with support for several consumer focused cloud-based services being a simple example. The QMobile app for handheld devices, to stream music, digital pictures, and videos from a QNAP NAS server directly to your mobile device, is another example. Most of these consumer oriented features are easier to configure than the hardcore IT apps, like VMware and iSCSI, plus the documentation provided by QNAP is excellent. The newly released ability to implement RAID 10 across 3 pairs of mirrored drives is a functionality that a small set of users is really going to appreciate for database applications.

The QNAP TS-659 Pro Turbo NAS server may be less suited for the SOHO environment, but its size, performance and features certainly hits the corporate enterprise market head-on. The smaller two drive bay devices included in this test only allow for RAID-0 or RAID-1, and that's not enough for many small businesses, even though it may be all you need for the home office. Before we discuss the pricing in detail, remember that these systems are not discretionary items for most businesses, they are a necessary expense. The inevitable costs for not having a robust data management system in place are usually 10-100 times higher than any of the prices you will see in this paragraph. As of June 2011 the TS-659 Pro II model was listed at NewEgg for $1249.99. If you need the wealth of features the top TS-x59 Turbo NAS series provides, but need less storage space, the TS-459 Pro II is the logical choice at $949.99. Home users will probably feel more comfortable with the Marvell-based QNAP TS-219P+ at $349.99 for basic tasks.

Benchmark Reviews has enjoyed testing all of these QNAP network storage solutions, and with the wide range of products on offer from them, anyone in need of a NAS server can find one to fit their current and future needs. The TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS server seems ideal for certain segments of the corporate market. A few may need something simpler, and others may need more storage space, but the six-bay TS-659 hits the mark for a large portion of business users.

Pros:

+ 106 / 99 MBps best read/write performance
+ New features in v3.4 software are SOTA
+ Support Apps for multiple cloud services
+ Support App for Mobile access
+ USB 3.0 ports on front and back
+ VMware Ready iSCSI for virtualization deployments
+ Online RAID Capacity Expansion and Level Migration
+ Hot-swap RAID storage
+ Dual Intel Gigabit Ethernet with teaming and failover
+ RAID 0/1/5/6/10/JBOD disk configurations
+ SATA 6Gb/s interface for all drive bays
+ Two eSATA ports for additional storage expansion
+ Low power consumption

Cons:

- Marvell 88SE9125 6Gb/s controller may not keep up with new SSDs
- Some capabilities will be too daunting for a novice SOHO user
- Many consumer HDDs not suitable for drive arrays, enterprise units are $$$

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.50
• Appearance: 9.00
• Construction: 9.50
• Functionality: 9.50
• Value: 8.50

Final Score: 9.2 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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