INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   As time goes by more and more of you ask me about my opinion surrounding NAS units and more specifically which ones i consider to offer the best bang for your buck. Things however are never black and white when we are talking about technology so in the end it all comes down to what your needs are and how much you are willing to spend on it. So if you just want to buy a NAS Server to use just as a download station then even the entry-level Qnap TS-119P II (review soon) will be more than enough for that purpose so there's really no need for you to spend much. On the other hand if you want an NAS Server for multiple usages, for example use as a download station, media station, FTP server and webserver then you would do well to choose something more powerful like the Qnap TS-219P II. Performance however is only part of what makes a NAS server and so aside you deciding what use you need it for you also need to know how many drives bays you may require. Up until today we have mostly focused on 2 and 4 bay mid-end solutions but since many of you asked today we will be taking a look at the latest TurboNAS TS-469 Pro which as the name suggests is the latest high-end 4bay mid-end (SMB) solution from QNAP.

 

   QNAP Systems, Inc. is a privately held company founded in 2004 and is dedicated to bringing world class NAS storage, professional NVR video surveillance, and network video players to consumer, small/medium business, and entry level enterprise market segments. QNAP leverages not only hardware design but also a growing core competency in software engineering that is precisely focused on bringing to market products that offer the highest available performance coupled with outstanding reliability, scalability, and ease of installation and use. QNAP is a multi-national company with headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, and subsidiary offices in China and the United States.

 

       Appearance wise the QNAP TurboNAS TS-469 Pro is almost identical to the TS-419P II I had the chance to test a while back but that’s just about the end of their similarities since the TS-469 Pro packs a much more powerful punch, specs-wise. So this time over we see an dual core Atom processor running at 2.13GHz, 1GB DDR3 RAM running at 1333MHz (expandable to 3GB), 512MB of flash memory and SATA III (6Gb/s) connectivity for all 4 drive bays which can in turn be used in various configurations such as single, JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 5 + Hot Spare, 6, 6 + Hot Spare, 10, and 10 + Hot Spare. SATA III connectivity is something I’ve wanted to see for a while with SMB solutions and finally QNAP did it.

 

 

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much like the most 4 bay solutions by QNAP the TS-469 Pro arrived inside a large cardboard box with a large product image at the front alongside with its main features, drive compatibility and the QNAP logo.

 

 

At the right side QNAP has placed a quick list of features in 23 languages.

 

 

The complete hardware and software specifications of the TS-469 Pro can be seen at the left side.

 

 

A large drawing at the rear showcases the correct topology and explains the various ways one can use the TS-469 Pro.

 

 

The usual welcome message by QNAP awaits you once you open the box, however this time over we also see a quick showcase of how you can use the front LCD display.

 

 

The unit is securely placed between two thick Styrofoam spacers while the rest of the contents are placed inside a separate cardboard box.

 

 

The box contains the TurboNAS TS-469 Pro unit, AC power cable, AC power adapter, 2 Gigabit Ethernet cables, 2 sets of HDD mounting screws (one for 3.5” and one for 2.5” drives), two keys, free firmware update paper, quick installation guide and the software CD.

 

 

 

 

THE TURBONAS TS-469 PRO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As already mentioned the latest TurboNAS TS-469 Pro features an dual core Atom processor running at 2.13GHz, 1GB DDR3 RAM running at 1333MHz (expandable to 3GB), 512MB of flash memory and measures 177mm in Height, 180mm in Width and 235mm in Depth while weighing a total of 3.65Kg.

 

 

Some of you always ask if we can compare the units we review with others of the same brand so here’s the TS-469 Pro right next to the TS-259 Pro+, the TS-219P II and the TS-119P II.

 

 

The perforated section on both sides is pretty much standard for every 4 bay NAS server we’ve seen by QNAP.

 

 

Just like the TS-419P II only the front fascia of the TS-469Pro is black (the rest is plain aluminum), something that used to be the case with the previous generation of NAS Servers by QNAP and also something i didn't enjoy much.

 

 

As it is typical for QNAP units the company logo is present at the left front top of the unit.

 

 

The on/off power button along with a one touch backup button and a USB port are present at the lower left.

 

 

Moving at the center we see the VFW (LCD) screen and the Status, LAN, USB and eSATA LED activity indicators right beneath it.

 

 

With the help of the LCD screen and this navigation button you can perform certain commands described in the welcome message (basic ones).

 

 

As usual at the two top sides we see the Intel Atom and the sequence/drive placement stickers.

 

 

All 4 bays are hot-swap so you can add/remove drives at will just like with any QNAP unit. That aside you can setup the drives either in JBOD array in which case you can share both drives as one, as a RAID 0 array splitting all data in both drives, RAID 1 with the second drive backing up the primary one, RAID 5 which is basically similar with RAID 0 but also ads a parity check bit to ensure that the system keeps going even if one of the drives fail, RAID 6 which is identical to RAID 5 but allows for up to two simultaneous disk failures (dual parity) and finally RAID 10 which combines the best of both RAID 0 and RAID 1 by writing data on half of the disk drives available while the other half mirror the data of the first set. QNAP has also added a Hot Spare feature in most of the above configurations for improved data safety.

 

 

I was very glad to see that the TS-469 Pro comes with the same high quality drive bays as the TS-259 Pro+. These bays can hold up to four 2.5' or 3.5' SATA II drives with a maximum capacity of 4 TB each.

 

 

As expected the rear of the unit is also not black but i guess that can't be helped.

 

 

Since the TS-469 Pro has a 3pin power plug at the rear and a small 40mm fan right next to it that means it must feature an internal PSU.

 

 

A single 90mm fan manufacture red by Y.S Technologies (1900RPM, 40.2CFM) is used to keep the drives inside the unit at low temperatures.

 

 

Next to the 90mm fan we see an HDMI output and a VGA output reserved for maintenance purposes.

 

 

Beneath the video outputs we see 2 USB 3.0 ports, the reset switch, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 eSATA ports and 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

 

 

Finally a Kensington lock is placed right between the rear connectors and the exhaust fan.

 

 

The unit sits on 4 round rubber feet which you can remove if you want to save 2cm in height.

 

 

You can remove the top cover by removing the 3 screws found at the rear in case of an emergency or if you just want to add an extra SO-DIMM.

 

 

The TS-469 Pro features a 250W switching power supply made by Delta Electronics.

 

 

The UDMII Plus-C Flash Disk Module is manufactured by Apacer.

 

 

The 1GB DDR3 RAM running at 1333MHz is manufactured by ADATA.

 

 

You can easily install up to an extra 2GB DDR3 at the empty rear slot.

 

 

Once you turn on the TS-469 Pro its LCD screen will start to display various information as seen above.

 

 

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before you do anything it’s highly recommended that you head over to the official QNAP support page to download the latest software version. QNAP has a very high rate of updates so you will probably have an older version on the supplied software CD.

 

 

You will need to follow some small steps for the unit to recognize, format and prepare the installed drive.

 

 

The login page has two different views which you can switch between according to your preference. Do note that if you can't login with the usual admin/admin username and password you will need to press the reset switch at the rear of the unit.

 

 

After entering your user name and password you now have access to the main page of the web interface. Since the device has more or less 50 different screens filled with settings we will only look at the most important ones.

 

 

In the System Administration folder you can perform firmware updates (automatic/manual) and adjust every basic setting from the name of the server, time, location and network IP to the power and security settings. You can also check the current hardware configuration from the above screen.

 

 

The Disk Management folder gives you the ability to manage the installed drives, choose the preferred RAID mode, add a virtual disk, use the iSCSI mode or use the smart feature of your HDD to check its current state and temperature.

 

 

You can use the Access Rights Management folder to add/remove users, create user groups, share folders and even to set specific quotas for each user.

 

 

Just about everything related with the network can be found under the Network Services Tab such as the usual Microsoft and Apple Networking up to setting up your own FTP/Web servers.

 

 

From within the Applications Folder you can manage your files and use the unit as a media server, download server, surveillance station and much more. We will come back to check on these on the next page.

 

 

The Backup folder can be used to perform backups of your system drives, create cloud backups, use the Apple time machine feature and set the one touch backup button properties.

 

 

Properties for all the external device settings from USB drives and printers up to your UPS can be accessed from the External Device folder.

 

 

The MyCloud page is something the QNAP units did not originally have and through here you can make the unit accessible from all over the world.

 

 

Via the System Information drop down menu you can check basic information about the unit and also monitor all the running Services and resources used.

 

 

 

WEB INTERFACE PART 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you will see screenshots of all of the available stations along with the Anti-Virus tab. As usual through the web file manager you can upload and download files onto the TS-469 Pro, granted it's not very flashy but it works like a charm.

 

 

The second version of the Multimedia Station is simple yet very user friendly so your movie files will appear as medium sized icons on the right part of the screen. The 469 Pro (like the 259Pro +) can play FullHD files flawlessly and it is 100% dependent on the Atom CPU meaning that it doesn't take resources from your own system (as opposed to some Synology NAS units).

 

 

What really changed from the last time i tested a QNAP NAS is the layout of the PhotoStation which looks really better than the old one and also features Google maps geotagging.

 

 

The Music Station may not be something fancy (like the Multimedia Station) but it gets the job done and is extremely easy to use.

 

 

Moving to the download station you can download files either directly (HTTP/HTTPS/FTP) or by using the build in BitTorrent program.

 

 

As you can see you can use up to 4 IP Cameras with the TS-469 Pro. Unfortunately it worked fine with just one out of the two latest IP cams i am currently testing here (Airlive). This is due to the limited support by QNAP for IP Cameras and although you can use compatibility settings to support many models that are not officially supported still i consider this as the single largest drawback QNAP has currently.

 

 

Inside the QPKG screen you will find a large number of useful applications which you can download and install in the unit.

 

 

 

TESTING METHODOLOGY

 

 

 

 

   Since some of the NAS servers/devices we have tested in the past are no longer in our possession (naturally) we will keep performing the exact same testing methodology we did in the past for as long as possible in order to provide accurate comparison results. So as always we used a single Seagate Constellation ES.2 3TB SATA III hard disk drive with the QNAP TurboNAS TS-469 Pro (just like with all of the NAS units) and performed upload/download tests with a single 10.9GB file. Tests were repeated a total of 4 times after which we recorded the average numbers (from the 4 peak ones) into our charts. Finally the network device used is the same Netgear DGN3500 Gigabit ADSL2+ Modem/Router we always use when performing tests on NAS servers.

 

TEST RESULTS

 

 

FILE TRANSFER TEST

A single 10.9GB file was uploaded and downloaded to and from all the NAS units in this test. Much like in our previous review data transfer speeds do not vary that much between high end models but as you can see even compared to its predecessor the TS-459 Pro+ the TS-469 Pro is faster in both read and write.

 

TEMPERATURES

A single 90mm fan maybe more than enough for dual bay NAS solutions but for a 4bay solution like the TS-469 Pro I would have chosen something bigger. Still 33 degrees is not a bad result, not at all.

 

POWER CONSUMPTION

When it comes to power consumption we see that the 469 Pro surpasses its predecessor the 459 Pro+ by 5W, however do take into consideration that all tests are taking place with a single HDD installed (granted it's an enterprise-class power hungry HDD) so if you install all 4 you can expect more consumption.

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   The TurboNAS TS-469 Pro by QNAP is without doubt a wonderful piece of hardware which will certainly cover 99% of the users out there (especially pros) due to its excellent hardware and software specifications. The 2.13GHz dual Atom processor along with the 1GB of DDR3 RAM (expandable to 3GB) make for a fine combination since not even once did we notice any speed issues while the 4 available drive bays give you a total available capacity of up to 16TB (and even more as new drives get released). The Web Interface is still my favorite since it's by far the most user friendly i have seen, that however is something that comes down to personal preference. Honestly i can't seem to find anything bad with the TurboNAS TS-469 Pro with sole exception the lack of support for many IP camera models in the market currently (if not most), something which i hope will change soon.

 

   As we speak the current retail price tag of around USD799 (Newegg) inside the USA and around 790Euros inside the EU for the TurboNAS TS-469 Pro by QNAP may seem a bit high at first but you need to understand that for people who actually need the incredible extra muscle, features and drive bays it's actually not. On the other hand if you don't really need the extra drive bays you can always choose the TurboNAS TS-259 Pro+ which is quite cheaper and is not much slower, specs-wise that is (although it lacks some of the features found with the 469 Pro). Personally i can live with just 2 bays so the TS-469 Pro seems just a bit overkill for my home/office requirements, still it works as advertised, it's extremely fast and gives you up to 16TB of storage so what more can any professional ask for? Because of all of the above we are awarding the QNAP TurboNAS TS-469 Pro with our Platinum Award.

 

PRO

- Excellent Build Quality
- Top Performance (Speed/Temperatures/Power Consumption)
- Features
- 1GB DDR3 RAM @ 1333MHz (Expandable to 3GB)
- 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports
- 2 eSATA Ports
- 7 USB Ports (2xUSB 3.0 / 5xUSB 2.0)
- RAID 0/1/5/6/10 + Hot Spare Support
- SATA III (6Gb/s)
- LCD Screen
- Web Interface
- Price (For Some)

 

 

CONS

- Still Quite Limited Support For IP Cameras (Update:Resolved)
- Price (For Some)