SMB NAS Roundup
by Ross Whitehead Jason Clark Dave Muysson on December 5, 2006 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
QNAP TS-401T
The QNAP TS-401T has clearly been positioned for the SMB/SOHO market. The unit is powered by a VIA C3 processor running at 800MHz, contains 256MB RAM, two 10/100/1000 network ports, two USB 2.0 ports, four hot-swap SATA drive bays, and 32MB Flash for the OS. The TS-401T comes with many features such as a built-in DHCP and Print server, SNMP and SMTP alerts, USB or SNMP UPS support, detailed status information and logs, and Active Directory integration. It also includes remote replication to another QNAP NAS, and built-in anti-virus scanning (optional). RAID 0, 1, and 5 are supported along with Spanning and JBOD. Client support for Windows, Mac, and Linux is included. Protocol support includes CIFS/SMB, AFP, NFS, HTTP, and FTP.
QNAP also added the ability to connect a USB CD/DVD writer to either of the rear USB2.0 ports. This can then be used through the web interface to archive data to CD/DVD or to copy data from CD/DVD to the NAS. This can be quite useful when you want to archive old data off the NAS to free up space or to backup critical data.
The TS-401T is the largest NAS in the roundup with dimensions of 168mm (W) x 240mm (H) x 380mm (D) and a total weight of 12Kg with hard drives. The front panel consists of a status LCD displaying the IP address, host name, error messages, and it allows network configuration and shutdown using the selection buttons. Also included are LEDS for disk activity, network activity, power, and an error indicator. The rear of the unit has two USB ports, two Gigabit ports, dual power supplies, power switch, and cooling fan.
Admin Interface
The management interface for the TS-401T is fairly simplistic, but still easy to navigate. It provides access to all configuration options and features inside the unit.
Pros
Cons
Retail (Newegg.com): $1200
The QNAP TS-401T has clearly been positioned for the SMB/SOHO market. The unit is powered by a VIA C3 processor running at 800MHz, contains 256MB RAM, two 10/100/1000 network ports, two USB 2.0 ports, four hot-swap SATA drive bays, and 32MB Flash for the OS. The TS-401T comes with many features such as a built-in DHCP and Print server, SNMP and SMTP alerts, USB or SNMP UPS support, detailed status information and logs, and Active Directory integration. It also includes remote replication to another QNAP NAS, and built-in anti-virus scanning (optional). RAID 0, 1, and 5 are supported along with Spanning and JBOD. Client support for Windows, Mac, and Linux is included. Protocol support includes CIFS/SMB, AFP, NFS, HTTP, and FTP.
QNAP also added the ability to connect a USB CD/DVD writer to either of the rear USB2.0 ports. This can then be used through the web interface to archive data to CD/DVD or to copy data from CD/DVD to the NAS. This can be quite useful when you want to archive old data off the NAS to free up space or to backup critical data.
The TS-401T is the largest NAS in the roundup with dimensions of 168mm (W) x 240mm (H) x 380mm (D) and a total weight of 12Kg with hard drives. The front panel consists of a status LCD displaying the IP address, host name, error messages, and it allows network configuration and shutdown using the selection buttons. Also included are LEDS for disk activity, network activity, power, and an error indicator. The rear of the unit has two USB ports, two Gigabit ports, dual power supplies, power switch, and cooling fan.
 Rear |
 Front |
| Click to enlarge | |
Admin Interface
The management interface for the TS-401T is fairly simplistic, but still easy to navigate. It provides access to all configuration options and features inside the unit.
 Web Interface - Status |
 Web Interface - Disks |
| Click to enlarge | |
Pros
- Easy to use interface
- Redundant Power
- Dual NIC with Redundancy or Load Balancing support
- Direct USB CD/DVDRW archiving
- USB Printer and USB/SNMP UPS support
Cons
- Large Footprint, heavy
- No multimedia support (UPnP, SlimServer, etc.)
- Moderate noise
Retail (Newegg.com): $1200
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yyrkoon - Friday, December 8, 2006 - link
My problem is this: I want redundancy, but I also do not want to be limited to GbE transfer rates. I've been in communication with many people, via different channels (email, IRC, forums, etc), and the best results I've seen anyone get on GbE is around 90MB/s using specific NIC cards (Intel pro series, PCI-E).The options here are rather limited. I like Linux, however, I refuse to use Ethernet channel bonding (thus forcing the use of Linux on all my machines), or possibly a combination of Ethernet channel bonding, with a very expensive 802.11 a/d switch. 10GbE is is an option, but is way out of my price range, and 4GB FC doesn't seem to be much better. From my limited understanding of their product, Intel pro cards I think come with software to be used in aggregate load balancing, but I'm not 100% sure of this, and unless I used cross over cables from one machine, to another, I would be forced into paying $300usd or possibly more for a 802.11 a/d switch again. I've looked into all these options, plus 1394b firewire teaming, and SATA port multipliers. Port multiplier technology looks promising, but is Dependant on motherboard RAID (unless you shell out for a HBA), but from what I do know about it, you couldn't just plug it in to a Areca card, and have it work at full performance (someone correct me if I'm wrong please, Id love top learn otherwise).
My goal, is to have a reliable storage solution, with minimal wait times when transferring files. At some point, having too much would be overkill, and this also needs to be realized.
peternelson - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
It sounds like your needs would be solved by using a fiber channel fabric.
You need a FC nic (or two) in each of your clients, then one or more FC switches eg from Brocade or oems of their switches. Finally you need drive arrays to connect FC or regular drives onto the FC fabric.
It isn't cheap but gives fantastic redundancy. FC speeds are 1/2/4 Gigabits per second.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - link
I've been giving Areca a lot of thought lately. What I was considering, was to use a complete system for storage, loads of disk space, with an Areca RAID controller. The only problem I personally have with my idea here is: how do I get a fast link to the desktop PC ?I've been debating back and forth with a friend of mine about using firewire. From what he says, you can use multiple firewire links, teamed, along with some "hack" ? for raising to get 1394b to 1000MBit/s, to achieve what seems like outstanding performance. Assuming what my friend says is accurate, you could easily team 4x 1394b ports, and get 500MB/s.