CONCLUSION

   The TS-453Be-4G arrived in our lab roughly two months ago and it wasn’t until early May that we finally started our tests and realized that it came with just 4GB DDR3L RAM. Not that 4GB is not a good number (after all many models out there come with just 2GB RAM) but to date QNAP mostly had 4GB and 8GB variants of their NAS servers so 2GB and 4GB did seem a bit strange. In the end having just 4GB (when most QNAP models in our charts have 8GB) didn’t affect our performance tests as much as we thought they would but as you also saw there are some limitations such as not being able to run the Virtualization Station (the good news however is that you can add 4GB RAM extra). The removable front cover is a nice touch since it protects the drives inside (although it does keep air from reaching the drives compared to other models), the 5 USB 3.0 ports are certainly more than what we see with the majority of NAS models in the market and the same applies for the dual HDMI v1.4b outputs, the microphone and speaker 3.5mm ports (primarily if you’re into Karaoke) and the PCIe 2.0 x2 expansion slot. Unfortunately unlike the TS-431X2 the TS-453Be doesn’t come with a built-in 10GbE port but prices for SFP+ expansion cards have dropped considerably so that shouldn’t be enough to keep potential buyers away. Unfortunately QNAP has still to make a KODI alternative available for their NAS (the HD player is just not as good) and that’s perhaps the one thing we’d like QNAP to focus on more.

   At the time of this review the TS-453Be-4G retails for USD543.51 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and for 557.15Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) so although not as cost-effective as some other models if you take into account its 4k playback capabilities (specs) and all of its available connectors it’s actually a very solid proposal. Thanks to its performance levels, features (software and hardware) and available connectors the TS-453Be-4G gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Very Good Performance
- Power Consumption
- 2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports
- 5 USB 3.0 Ports
- Two HDMI v1.4b Ports
- PCIe Gen2x2 Slot
- Built In Speaker (Audible Warnings)
- Two Microphone 3.5” Ports (Can Be Used For Karaoke)
- SSD Cache Feature
- Available Apps (135 At The Time Of This Review)
- RAID 0/1/5/6/10 + hot/global hot spare
- QTS 4.3.4 OS

CONS

- Still No KODI Equivalent
- Only 2/4GB Versions Currently Available (Expandable To 8GB)