CONCLUSION

   From the moment we logged into the TurboNAS TS-221 we had but one question in mind and that was how much resources the new redesigned OS would take compared to the old one since it's far more complete and looks a lot better. Well at first glance judging by the resource monitor the new QTS 4.0 seems to do ok however for some unknown reason after finishing all tests we still can't figure out why the TS-221 lagged behind the "inferior" TS-219P II especially since we used the same Seagate Constellation ES.2 3TB SATA III HDD on both. We even went the extra mile and decided to benchmark the TS-221 with the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V3 4TB SATA III HDD (snapshots were taken using that drive) since some suggested that the ES.2 could be faulty however the difference in performance was negligible. However that doesn't mean that the TS-221 did bad, it actually did very well we just feel that it could do even better (perhaps something that can be solved with a future firmware update ?). As for the QTS 4.0 well thanks to its design it's very user friendly and although it resembles the OS used by Synology quite a bit it has kept part of its predecessors identity so right now you can easily tell that it's something by QNAP something i can only hope will not change in the future.

   The brand new TurboNAS TS-221 NAS server by QNAP currently retails for a price tag of USD329 inside the USA (Purchase Directly from Amazon.com) and for 310Euros inside the EU (Purchase Directly from Amazon.co.uk). This price tag is almost identical to the one the TS-219P II model had at launch so i always welcome something better for the same price. True in our tests for some weird reason the TS-219P II did better but i believe that will change with a future firmware update but even if it doesn't the difference is not great. Same goes for temperatures and power consumption so if you want to save a few bucks you can always opt for the TS-219P II. However the TS-221 is a lot quieter at full load so for some people i expect that to be the deciding factor and not performance. Overall the TurboNAS TS-221 may not impress with its performance levels but it’s very quiet (compared to other solutions by QNAP), has very good specifications, a wide range of features and the design of the new QTS 4.0 will certainly appeal to people who wanted an improved OS and so for all of the above we are happy to award it our Golden Award.

PROS

- Excellent Build Quality
- Good Performance
- Features
- 1GB DDR3 RAM
- 3 USB Ports (2xUSB 3.0 / 1xUSB 2.0)
- 2 eSATA Ports
- Single/JBOD/RAID0/1 Support
- QTS 4.0 OS
- IP Camera Support
- Android/iOS Apps
- Power Consumption
- Noise Levels (Compared To Other QNAP Models) 

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- No HDMI Output