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QNap TS-412 Turbo NAS review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £253
inc VAT

There’s no need to buy a two-bay NAS enclosure when this fantastic four-bay is currently so cheap

Specifications

4 disk bays, N/A storage supplied, 2x 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet ports

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Once you start looking at four-disk NAS enclosures, you tend to find much sturdier hardware than you typically get with smaller domestic models. This is certainly the case with the solid metal chassis of QNap’s TS-412 NAS device. It also has a few more connectivity options than smaller NAS devices, having a USB2 port at the front, three more at the back, two LAN ports and a pair of eSATA ports.

QNap TS-412 Turbo NAS

Once the TS-412 is powered up and connected to your network, you can use the QNap Finder application on the supplied installation disc. This searches for the NAS on your network and takes you through setting it up via the NAS device’s web interface. After formatting your disks, you’ll be prompted to select and install the NAS’s firmware. You can either install it from the disc or download the latest firmware from QNap’s website.

After the firmware’s installed, you’re prompted to configure the NAS’s basic settings, including its name, password and optional services, such as FTP, UPnP or iTunes media streaming, and a web server. You can also choose between JBOD or RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, or 10 volume configurations. Once everything’s installed, you’ll have to use the excellent web interface to set up your services, including shared folders, which are often already set up on NAS devices. Fortunately, doing so isn’t much trouble at all thanks to a handy wizard that walks you through every step of your share’s configuration and security.

The administration interface’s main screen gives you a selection of shortcuts to the features that you’re most likely to need, from user management to external device management and a handy wizard to set your NAS up as your very own cloud storage server that’s accessible from anywhere. A wider range of options is available via a tree-style menu pane on the left.

QNap TS-412 Turbo NAS

From here, you can control the application servers running on the NAS, including services such as media servers and BitTorrent clients. You can also share USB drives and printers connected to the NAS, enable advanced network options such as SSH logins and security certificates and control a variety of backup options to secure data stored on the NAS.

QNap TS-412 Turbo NAS

As you’d expect from a four-bay business NAS device, the TS-412 is quick. With the drives set up as RAID 1 pairs, we saw average transfer speeds of 12.5MB/s for small files and 41.8MB/s for large ones. In RAID 0 mode, small files transferred at 52.3MB/s and large ones at 14MB/s.

The TS-412 Turbo NAS is currently available from Amazon for just £253. That’s less than its sibling two-bay QNap TurboNAS TS-219P II. It’s a fantastic price, but it’s not clear how long this will be in place. The NAS’s usual price of £442 is still good, but not such a brilliant deal.

Basic Specifications

Price £253
Rating *****
Award Best Buy

Storage

Capacity N/A
Formatted capacity N/A
Default file system ext4
Price per gigabyte N/A
Interface SATA2
3.5in drive bays 4
Free 3.5in drive bays 4
RAID modes JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 5 + hot spare, RAID 6, RAID 10

Interface

Ethernet ports 2
USB direct access ports (front/rear) 0/0
Other USB ports (front/rear) 1/3
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/2
Other ports none

Networking

Ethernet connection speed 10/100/1000Mbit/s
Universal Plug and Play support yes
UPnP media server yes
iTunes yes
Print server yes
USB disk server yes
Web server yes
FTP server yes
Protocols supported TCP/IP, SMB/CIFS, AFP, FTP, HTTP, NFS

Miscellaneous

Size 177x180x235mm
Weight 3.0kg
Vertical positioning no
Ethernet cable included yes
Additional features UPS support, download manager, IP camera support
Power consumption idle 30W
Power consumption active 33W

Buying Information

Price £253
Warranty two years RTB
Supplier http://www.amazon.co.uk
Details www.qnap.com

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