Home storage is pretty easy to find nowadays. What are your needs from your home storage device? Many of us look for reliability and performance at a reasonable price. When someone mentions reliability in storage I personally think of RAID technology which many NAS manufacturers use today. RAID is a Redundant Array of Independent Disks which combines multiple of disks into one volume for data redundancy. This data distribution method was created in 1970s. RAID comes in many levels and RAID 5 is widely used. RAID 5 requires three disks to stripe data across and in the event of a drive failure your data is still safe. The QNAP TS-328 provides exactly that. TS-328 is a three bay, budget-friendly NAS that comes with all of the goodness of QNAP’s QTS(Operating System) and its applications.
Review Sample Provided by:QNAP Product Name:TS-328 Price at time of review:$ 249.00 USD MSRP Product was given in exchange for work done to produce this review.
Packaging
Most of the devices by QNAP come in recyclable boxes and TS-328 is no exception. There isn’t much of technical data mentioned on the shipping box however, QNAP did mention that this is the Most affordable RAID 5 NAS on the market. Our sample version comes with 2GB of DDR4 RAM and there is no possible way to upgrade it in TS-328.
QNAP always tries to be as friendly and appreciative as possible towards its customers. There are multiple resources available to get you up and running in no time. Most of the helpful resources are listed on the internal flap of the shipping box.
The internal packaging of the QNAP TS-328 is very neat. TS-328 itself is placed in the center of the box with sounding accessories on either sides. Accessories include a single Ethernet Cable, Power brick, additional rubber mounts for the hard drive tray, Quick Installation Guide and SSD tray information.
Hardware Specifications
CPU
Realtek Quad-core ARM CortexA53 (64-bit), RTD 1296, 1.4GHz
Encryption Acceleration
System Memory
2GB DDR4 RAM (not expandable)
Flash Memory
4GB eMMC
Drive Bay
Hot-swappable 3 x 3.5″/2.5″ SATA 6Gb/s HDD/SSDs (bundled one 2.5″ tray base for installing 2.5″ HDD/SSD; additional purchase can be made from QNAP shop)
Gigabit Ethernet Port
2 x RJ45 Gigabit LAN port
USB Port
2 x USB 3.0 (1 x Front); 1 x USB 2.0 (Rear)
Audio
speaker, 3.5mm line out jack
LED Indicators
Status/Power, LAN, USB, HDD
Buttons
Power, USB copy, Reset
Security Slot
Kensington security slot
System Warning
Buzzer
Dimensions (H x W x D)
142 x 150 x 260.1 mm
5.59 x 5.9 x 10.24 inch
Weight
Net weight: 1.64 kg (3.62 lbs)
Gross Weight: 2.69 kg (5.93 lbs)
Cloud storage backup to Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Openstack Swift, WebDAV, and HKBN
Cloud storage syncing with Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon Drive, Yandex Disk, Box, hubiC, BackBlaze B2, Amazon S3, and HiDrive
RTRR server & client with bandwidth control
Rsync server with download bandwidth control
Qcontactz
One-way scheduled sync of contacts from multiple Google accounts
Import contacts from file: CSV or vCard 3.0
Export contacts into a file: CSV and vCard 3.0
Find duplicate contacts and merge them
Notes Station 3
Multi-user text editing using the collaborative editor
Table creation using the spreadsheet editor
Online quick preview of multimedia attachments
Smart snapshot for version control
Surveillance Station
Supports over 3,000 IP cameras
Includes 2 free camera licenses, up to 24 camera channels via additional license purchase
Instant playback to check recent events
Online editing to edit cameras during live view
AirPlay & Chromecast
Streams videos, photos and music from NAS to Apple TV or Chromecast via File Station, Music Station, Photo Station, Video Station or mobile app (Qfile, Qmusic, Qphoto or Qvideo).
Note: Media Streaming add-on app from the App Center is required
Photo Station
Photo organization by thumbnail, list, timeline, or folder
Virtual and smart albums
Validity control for album sharing
Photo tagging with text, colors, and ratings
File Station
Supports mounting cloud drives (such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft OneDrive for Business, HiDrive, Amazon Cloud Drive, Yandex Disk and Box).
Supports mounting remote shared folders through FTP, WebDAV or Microsoft networking (SMB/CIFS)
Supports opening documents via Office Online, Google Docs or Chrome Extension (Edit Office files in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides)
Supports ISO Mounting (Up to 256 ISO Files)
Transcode Management
Video transcoding (240p, 360p, 480p, 720p and 1080p resolution)
Automatic video transcoding for watched folders
Hardware-accelerated transcoding
Embed subtitles into videos for background transcoding
Qfiling
Auto filing
Recipe function
Archiving through iSCSI, USB, DVD and remote NAS
Advanced settings
Qsirch
Full-text search
Data distribution using a bar chart
Previews for photos, music, videos, PDFs, Gmail, and others
Advanced search operators and search scope
QVPN Service (Integrated VPN Server, VPN Client and L2TP/IPSec VPN Services)
Home storage is pretty easy to find nowadays. What are your needs from your home storage device? Many of us look for reliability and performance at a reasonable price. When someone mentions reliability in storage I personally think of RAID technology which many NAS manufacturers use today. RAID is a Redundant Array of Independent Disks which combines multiple of disks into one volume for data redundancy. This data distribution method was created in 1970s. RAID comes in many levels and RAID 5 is widely used. RAID 5 requires three disks to stripe data across and in the event of a drive failure your data is still safe. The QNAP TS-328 provides exactly that. TS-328 is a three bay, budget-friendly NAS that comes with all of the goodness of QNAP’s QTS(Operating System) and its applications.
QNAP always tries to be as friendly and appreciative as possible towards its customers. There are multiple resources available to get you up and running in no time. Most of the helpful resources are listed on the internal flap of the shipping box.
The design looks already old to me. But a 3 bay is a nice alternative for those who need space, specially with the new 14 TO Ironwolf.