CONCLUSION

   10GbE connectivity may still not be exactly affordable but with quite a few mainboard manufacturers even shipping some of their models with built-in 10GbE LAN connectivity this may change sooner than we had thought. Still the truth of the matter is that regular/casual users hardly even care about 1GbE connectivity (which is also why there are many network products in the market still stuck with 100Mbit/s fast Ethernet ports) so at least for the largest market share 10GbE will probably remain unknown for a long time to come. The TS-431X2-8G however and all other similar NAS models are not really aimed towards casual users and for small businesses 10GbE is not only a way to expedite things but can also save money in the long run. Now in terms of raw power the Annapurna Labs AL-314 ARM Cortex-A15 CPU may not be just as fast as some Intel CPUs but it was always ment as a cost-effective alternative and QNAP doesn’t shy away from that since they state it numerous times in their product catalog and website. We were hoping to see support for the brand new QVR Pro app with the TS-431X2-8G since we’ve been using it with our very own QNAP server and we feel it’s much better than the regular Surveillance Station but that could be a limitation due to the CPU used.

   Thanks to a current price tag set at just USD599 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 615Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) the TS-431X2-8G is among the most affordable 10GbE NAS servers in the market today. Granted it may not be the most feature-rich model both in terms of features but that shouldn’t matter much for small businesses. Long story short thanks to its single SFP+ 10GbE port and its 8GB of DDR3L RAM the TS-431X2-8G NAS by QNAP is among the fastest models to ever pass from our test bench and is without doubt worth our Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Performance
- Built In 10GbE SFP+ Port
- 8GB DDR3L RAM
- Power Consumption
- 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports
- 3 USB 3.0 Ports
- SSD Cache
- RAID 0/1/5/6/10 + hot/global hot spare
- QTS 4.3.4 OS

CONS

- No HDMI Output
- Annapurna Labs AL-314 CPU (Especially Compared To Intel and AMD Models)
- Available Apps Number (Reduced Compared To Other QNAP Models)