QNAP TS-451 Bay Trail NAS Performance Review
by Ganesh T S on July 28, 2014 9:00 AM ESTMiscellaneous Aspects and Concluding Remarks
It is expected that most users would configure the QNAP TS-451 in RAID-5 for optimal balance of redundancy and capacity. Hence, we performed all our expansion / rebuild testing as well as power consumption evaluation with the unit configured in RAID-5. The disks used for benchmarking (Western Digital WD4000FYYZ) were also used in this section. The table below presents the average power consumption of the unit as well as time taken for various RAID-related activities.
| QNAP TS-451-4G RAID Expansion and Rebuild / Power Consumption | ||
| Activity | Duration | Avg. Power |
| Single Disk Init (4TB in JBOD) | - | 19.47 W |
| 4 TB JBOD (1D) to 4 TB RAID-1 (2D) | 8h 42m 12s | 31.73 W |
| 4 TB RAID-1 (2D) to 8 TB RAID-5 (3D) | 24h 58m 25s | 42.36 W |
| 8 TB RAID-5 (3D) to 12 TB RAID-5 (4D) | 26h 25m 47s | 52.84 W |
| 12 TB RAID-5 Rebuild (4D) | 9h 14m 48s | 54.37 W |
Similar to the Seagate NAS 4-bay we saw last week, the rebuild process takes much less time compared to the RAID expansion process. The time taken for the various RAID modifications are amongst the lowest of all the four-bay NAS units that we have evaluated so far. Starting with the next review, we will have comparison graphs for these aspects.
QNAP also enables access to the NAS over the Internet through automatic port forwarding (UPnP). There is also a Cloud Link beta service which utilizes relay servers operated by QNAP to achieve the same functionality without the port forwarding setup. Our experience indicated that the beta tag for Cloud Link is not unwarranted. The myQnapCloud.com service also ties in with the Qfile mobile app for access to the NAS contents over the Internet from a mobile device.
The differentiating aspects of the TS-x51 series are obviously the virtualization and transcoding features. In our evaluation so far, the QEMU-based Virtualization Station app works really great for the average consumer (though power users coming off a Hyper-V or VMWare background may miss some features that they take for granted). The hardware transcoding features have not been evaluated in full depth yet, but, in our limited experience, there are still quite a few rough edges - we can't say for sure yet whether it is substantially better than the Intel Evansport-based Synology DS214play. Based on paper specifications, it should definitely be. Hopefully, by the time we get to detailed coverage in a month or two, we can decide one way or the other.
Coming to the business end of the review, we find that QNAP's choice of Bay Trail for this market segment makes quite a bit of sense. For the SMB and high-end SOHO markets, the Intel Avoton and Rangeley platforms are the best bet. For home consumers and power users looking for a media server solution with mobile app support and ability to take advantage of Quick Sync, NAS units based on Bay Trail parts such as the Celeron J1800 make more sense. With the TS-451, QNAP has delivered a NAS that can handle a large number of simultaneous connections without drop in performance, a pre-requisite for a powerful media server. It also ticks all the boxes for a full-featured solution.
We do have use-cases in mind for evaluating the virtualization and transcoding features of the TS-451 for the upcoming articles. That said, it would be interesting to see what readers want to see evaluated when it comes to running virtual machines on a NAS, as well as what they would like to see done for evaluation of the real-time transcoding features. The feedback would be of great aid in shaping up the second and third parts of our TS-451 review.
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jabber - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
I'm just amazed how many here have forgotten the mantra that often simple is better.I'd be amazed if some of you ever get jobs finished or deliver anything with the overly complex solutions you come up with.
Data storage, redundancy and back up for small business/home use is really not complicated at all. Most of you are worrying about scenarios that rarely if ever occur and if they do...no one will die.
If you work on someone else'e dime well maybe you can dick around with the Heath Robinson solutions but when you work for yourself and reputation is everything you keep it simple, low maintenance and you deliver it quick. Customers and staff appreciate it too.
KSyed0 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I completely agree. My days of tweaking HW and fiddling with my computers is long gone. I don't care about saving $100 and losing 1 or 2 days putting it all together and setting it up.My synology was up and running within 15 minutes of getting home. I've upgraded drives twice already.
I think this is a key point that differentiates Synology from QNAP or other NAS vendors. You can use the Synology SHR (Syn Hybrid RAID) with mixed drives, with no wasted space!
MKS
tmoz13 - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
So how does it compare to the Synology DS415play? Which one would you choose if you had to pick one?carage - Thursday, August 7, 2014 - link
I would probably steer clear from Synology for now, at least until this whole Synolock problem is gone.KSyed0 - Monday, August 11, 2014 - link
I have to jump in - the Synolocker problem is only on the "old" OS, and it was patched almost 9 months ago. People who don't update their base OS or at least to the latest patches many months later, are always at risk. I know that you could make an argument that these NAS boxes should autoupdate, but at least it will warn you that an update is available.For the purchase of a new unit (which is already running the new OS), this is not an issue.
MKS
ZilchTech - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Ganesh, I am looking forward to what you have to say about the ts 451 and virtualization. I am ready to buy a NAS and was set to buy a Synology DS415play. From what I could ascertain, the Synology OS and robust community make it a safe choice for someone like me who is buying their first NAS. The QNAP however seems to have moved ahead of Synology with the celeron and VM capabilities.Thanks for your thorough work.
ganeshts - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I have been using the VS app without any issues for the last 3 - 4 weeks. While there has been nothing fatal, I do miss some features (having come from a Hyper-V background). For example, I am currently yet to find a way to associate multiple storage controllers to a single VM. I also can't use a USB Wi-Fi stick as the network adapter for a VM (wanted to keep port-trunking in place for the baseline NAS operation). Data transfer between the host and the guest machines always need to go through the physical network ports for now.So, yes, there are plenty of areas where the app can improve, but the baseline functionality with respect to VM hosting is as stable as QEMU is stable on Linux.
ZilchTech - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Is the QNAP QTS OS 64 bit? I have been under the impression that consumer NAS appliances have operated under 32 bit OSs. The j1800 can address 8 gigs. The TS-251 and TS-451 have 2 ram slots that will accommodate 8 gigs. The TS-251 comes with 2 gigs and needs 4 gigs to use the VS Station. The TS-451 comes with 4 gigs. The VS station requires a minimum of 4 gigs so I'll assume the extra 4 gigs could be allotted to the VM.ganeshts - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Yes, QTS is 64-bit (you can see that in the SSH screenshot also). You can have up to 8G of RAM in the x51 series.VS models require at least 4G, but the VMs can be configured with 1G or 2G of RAM. The remaining is allocated to QTS for its baseline operation.
I am currently running a Windows 8 VM with 2G of RAM on the TS-451. The other 2G is allocated for normal NAS usage.
aryonoco - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Ganesh,I wish you would start addressing the issue of bitrot in your reviews.
With ever increasing number of disks and ever increasing size of disks, this is becoming a real problem. Some attention to this, and how various NAS platforms attempt to correct that (or not) would be great.
This is an area that greatly requires AnandTech's attention to move the industry forward.