I have the opportunity to work in the Information Technology market and I get to work with some cool technology. Recently, I've been focusing more and more on visualization and network storage. To put it simply, we have the ability to run multiple virtual servers off of a couple of physical servers and some form of network attached storage. One of the interesting things that I've seen happen over the two decades that I have worked in IT is there is a form of corporate technology that filters down to home and small office users over time. How does an average home user take advantage of network attached storage or in this case a NAS. Well, the answer is: it depends. How you use network attached storage is going to be different between home users and small offices. Most small NAS units offer more than just a collection of disks on which data is stored. Some offer the ability to host a web site, run light weight operating systems, or can even act as a media repository and most can do it with a very easy to navigate user interface (UI). While network attached storage is not a new technology on the consumer side, they are becoming more and more affordable as more models are released. QNAP is one of the market leaders in network storage. The recently released TS-563 is aimed at the upper end of the consumer market and the middle of the small business range. The TS-563 is a 5-bay device that features the AMD G-Series quad-core 2.0 GHz processor. [sc:sponsor sponsor="QNAP" product_link="https://www.qnap.com/i/en/product/model.php?II=194" product_name="QNAP TS-563" product_price_link="http://amzn.to/1H5rInU" product_price="550.99" ] QNAP TS-563 Packaging Unlike a lot of consumer based products, QNAP takes a very simple approach with their packaging. The TS-563 is packaged in a very simple cardboard box that has a sticker on the front with a list of the specifications and features. Inside, you'll find the TS-563 tucked away inside stiff foam inserts and wrapped in a plastic bag to prevent scrapes and scratches during transport. There is not a lot needed to get the TS-563 up and running. Included in the kit is a power cord, quick start guide, two 6' Ethernet cables, and screws for the hard drives. Specifications CPU AMD® x86 G-Series Quad-core 2.0 GHz processor Floating Point Unit Yes Hardware Encryption Engine Yes (AES-NI) DRAM System memory: TS-563-2G: 2GB DDR3L RAM (2GB x1) TS-563-8G: 8GB DDR3L RAM (8GB x1) Total memory slots: 2 SODIMM Memory expandable up to: 16 GB (8GB x 2) NOTE: For the information of RAM module installation and compatible NAS models, please refer to the QNAP RAM Module Installation Guide Flash Memory 512MB Hard Disk Drive 5 x 3.5"or 2.5"SATA 6Gb/s, SATA 3Gb/s hard drive or SSD NOTE: 1. The system is shipped without HDD. 2. For the HDD compatibility list, please visit https://www.qnap.com/compatibility Hard Disk Tray 5 x Hot-swappable tray LAN Port 2 x Gigabit RJ-45 Ethernet port (Expandable up to 4 x GbE or 2 x 10GbE + 2 x GbE via PCIe NIC) Network Expansion Slot 1 (PCIe Gen2 x 4) LED Indicators Status, USB, HDD 1-5 USB 5 x USB 3.0 port (Front: 1, Rear: 4) Support USB printer, pen drive, and USB UPS etc. Buttons Power/Status, USB One-Touch-Backup, reset Alarm Buzzer System warning Form Factor Tower Dimensions 185(H) x 210.6(W) x 235.4(D) mm 7.28(H) x 8.29(W) x 9.27(D) inch Weight Net: 4.4 kg (9.7 lbs) Gross: 5.8 kg (12.79 lbs) Power Consumption (W) S3 sleep: 2.26W HDD standby: 30.17W In operation: 47.68W (with 5 x 2TB HDDs installed) Temperature 0-40˚C Humidity 5~95% RH non-condensing, wet bulb: 27˚C Power Supply ATX 250W, 110-240V AC, 50-60Hz, 5A Secure Design Kensington security slot for theft prevention Fan 1 x quiet cooling fan (12cm, 12V DC) Software Specifications Operating System QTS 4.1 (embedded Linux) Power Management Wake on LAN Internal hard drive standby mode Scheduled power on/off Automatic power on after power recovery USB and network UPS support with SNMP management System sleep mode (S3) Supported Client OS Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 (32/64-bit), Windows 8 (32/64-bit), Windows Server 2003/2008 R2/2012/2012R2 Apple Mac OS X Linux & UNIX Access Right Management Batch users creation Import/Export users User quota management Local user access control for CIFS, AFP, FTP, and WebDAV Application access control for Photo Station, Music Station, Video Station, and File Station Subfolder permissions support for CIFS/SMB, AFP, FTP, and File Station Supported Browsers Microsoft Internet Explorer 10+ Mozilla Firefox 8+ Apple Safari 4+ Google Chrome Transcoding Management Background video transcoding to 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p and 1080p resolutions Automatic offline video transcoding for a preset shared folders Embed subtitles to videos in background transcoding Multilingual Support Chinese (Traditional & Simplified), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish Domain Authentication Integration Microsoft Active Directory (AD) & Domain Controller support LDAP server, LDAP client Domain users login via CIFS/SMB, AFP, FTP, and File Station File System Internal Hard Drive: EXT4 External Hard Drive: EXT3, EXT4, NTFS, FAT32, HFS+ myQNAPcloud Service Private cloud storage and sharing Free host name registration (DDNS) Auto router configuration (via UPnP) Web-based file manager with HTTPS 2048-bit encryption CloudLink for remote access without complicated router setup myQNAPcloud connect for easy VPN connection (Windows VPN utility) Networking TCP/IP (IPv4 & IPv6*: Dual Stack) Dual Gigabit NICs with jumbo frame (failover, multi-IP settings, port trunking/NIC teaming) Service binding based on network interfaces Proxy server (Squid available in App Center) Proxy client DHCP client, DHCP server Protocols: CIFS/SMB, AFP, NFS, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, TFTP, HTTP(S), Telnet, SSH, iSCSI, SNMP, SMTP, and SMSC UPnP & Bonjour discovery USB Wi-Fi 802.11ac adapter support * Not all services support IPv6. Qsync Syncs files among multiple devices with SSL support Selective synchronization for syncing specific folders only Use team folders as a file center for greater team collaboration (maximum sync tasks: 32) Shares files by links via email Policy settings for conflicted files and file type filter support Version control: up to 64 versions. Incremental synchronization for HDD space saving Supports Windows & Mac OS Security Network access protection with auto-blocking: SSH, Telnet, HTTP(S), FTP, CIFS/SMB, AFP CIFS host access control for shared folders FIPS 140-2 validated AES 256-bit volume-based data encryption* AES 256-bit external drive encryption* Importable SSL certificates Instant alert via email, SMS, and beep * Somedata encryption functions may not available in accordance with the legislative restrictions of some countries. Web Administration Smart fan Control Dynamic DNS (DDNS) SNMP (v2 & v3) Resource monitor Network recycle bin for file deletion via CIFS/SMB, AFP, and File Station Automatic Cleanup File Type Filter Comprehensive logs (events & connection) Syslog client/server System settings backup and restore Restore to factory default Mobile app: Qmanager for remote system monitoring & management Storage Management QNAP flexible Volume/LUN with thin provisioning and space reclaim RAID 0,1, 5, 6, 10, + hot spare Supports storage pool Online volume expansion Online storage pool expansion Online RAID capacity expansion and online RAID level migration SMART data migration Storage expansion via QNAP UX-500P/UX-800P expansion unit (max 2) Bad block scan and hard drive S.M.A.R.T. Bad block recovery RAID recovery Bitmap support Powerful All-in-one server File Server File sharing across Windows, Mac, and Linux/UNIX Windows ACL Advanced folder permission for CIFS/SMB, AFP, FTP Shared folder aggregation (CIFS/SMB) Storage Plug & Connect Creating and mapping shared folders using QNAP Windows Qfinder Creation of and connection to iSCSI targets/LUN FTP Server FTP over SSL/TLS (Explicit) FXP support Passive ftp port range control iSCSI (IP SAN) iSCSI target with multi-LUNs per target (Up to 256 targets/LUNs combined) Support for LUN mapping & masking Online LUN capacity expansion Support for SPC-3 persistent reservation Support for MPIO & MC/S iSCSI LUN backup, one-time snapshot, and restoration iSCSI connection and management by QNAP Windows Qfinder Virtual disk drive (via iSCSI initiator) Stack chaining master Max No. of virtual disk drives: 8 File Station Supports ISO Mounting (Up to 256 ISO Files) Supports thumbnail display of multimedia files Supports sharing download links and upload links Drag-n-drop Files via Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox File Compression (ZIP or 7z) Creation of and sending download links for sharing public files with expiration time and password protection Support for displaying subtitles (*.SRT, UTF-8 format) Support slideshow playback in media viewer Mobile App: Qfile for file browsing and management Surveillance Station Supports over 3,000 IP cameras Includes 4 free camera licenses, up to 40 camera channels via additional license purchase Instant playback to check recent events Online editing to change cameras when in live view Visual aid by using e-maps Playback and speed control by shuttle bar Video preview using playback timeline Intelligent Video Analytics (IVA) for advanced video search Surveillance client for Mac Mobile surveillance app: Vmobile (iOS and Android) Mobile recording app: Vcam (iOS and Android) Backup Station Remote replication server (over rsync) Real-time remote replication (RTRR) to another QNAP NAS or FTP server Works as both RTRR server & client with bandwidth control Real-time & scheduled backup Encryption, compression, file filters, and transfer rate limitations Encrypted replication between QNAP NAS servers Desktop backup with QNAP NetBak Replicator for Windows Apple Time Machine backup support Data backup to multiple external storage devices Synchronizes with cloud storage: Amazon S3, ElephantDrive, Dropbox Third party backup software support: Veeam backup & replication, Acronis True Image, Arcserve backup, emc retrospect, Symantec Backup Exec, etc. VPN Server Secure remote access: PPTP & OpenVPN VPN services Max number of clients: 30 Print Server Max. number of printers: 3 Support for Internet Printing Protocol Print job display and management IP-based and domain name-based privilege control VPN Client Supported VPN protocols: PPTP & OpenVPN services PPTP Authentication: PAP, CHAP, MS-CHAP, MS-CHAPv2 PPTP Encryption: None, AES 40/128 bit, AES 256 bit OpenVPN Encryption: None, AES 40/128 bit, AES 256 bit Transmission package monitor OpenVPN port control OpenVPN link compression Cloud Backup Station Amazon S3 Amazon Glacier Webdev-based cloud storage Microsoft Azure Open Stack App Center Over 100 official and community software add-ons such as Photo Station, Music Station, Video Station, DLNA server, Notes Station, Signage Station, Airplay/Chromecast, and more. Virtualization Station Supports creating one Virtual Machine (VM) to run an operating system such as Windows, Linux, Unix VM import from Virtual Appliances VM export into a virtual appliance in OVF / QVM format VM clone&snapshot HTML5-based shared remote console Designs and specifications are subject to change without notice. A Closer Look at the QNAP TS-563 A NAS is basically a small form factor computer stuffed in a box that has multiple drive trays and sits some where on your network. Most consumer NAS devices range from two to six bays and will typically have one or two network cards. The TS-563 is fairly small when compared to other 5-bay units and measures in at 185(H) x 210.6(W) x 235.4(D) mm (7.28(H) x 8.29(W) x 9.27(D) inch) and weighs in at about 9 lbs without the drives. The drive trays unlock by pulling up on the lever at the front and slide out. The drive arrangement is side-by-side with the drives installed on their edge. Just above the drive bays is a highly reflective piece of plastic that loves to collect finger prints. One would assume this would house some type of LCD display but, sadly it does not. It does however, have the drive indicators and the status indicators such as mulit-color LED for the status, USB, and LAN. Just under and above each drive slot is the drive indicators. With the drive trays removed, you can see the back plane for the drives. The back plane contains both the SATA and power connections for each of the drives. Rounding out the front of the TS-563 on the left there is a power button, copy button, and a USB 3.0 port. At the rear of the TS-563 you'll find four USB 3.0 ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports. Just above that there is a slot to add a 10 Gigabit network card. QNAP offers two flavors of the 10 gigabit card, 10 Gb over copper and 10 Gb over fiber. While the cards are not priced extremely high ($170-$220), expect to pay around $800 or so for a managed 10 Gb switch. While prices are still coming down, they are not where I would even consider reasonable for a "home" network. The main feature on the back is a 120mm fan and the fan speed can be controlled via the software on the NAS. A 250 watt power supply sits up top at the left side. Getting into the NAS is easy. There are three screws on the back that need to be removed. The top and side panels are one piece and slide to the rear. Removing the panel gives you access to upgrade the RAM in the unit. This review unit shipped with 8 GB of DDR-3 on a single SO-DIMM and can be upgraded to a max of 16 GB. After tearing the TS-563 down the rest of the way, I was able to pull out the motherboard. The most prominent feature on the front side of the motherboard is the heatsink for the AMD Quad-Core CPU. The CPU is passively cooled. On the back, are the two SO-DIMM memory slots. Networking is controlled by two Intel i210AT networking chips. These provide 10/100/1000 mbps connectivity. The i210AT chips also support advanced networking protocols such as 802.1q (VLAN), Wake-On-LAN (WOL) and jumbo frames. The ASMedia ASM1182e is a PCIe switch. This chip takes one single PCIe x1 Gen 2 port and split it out into two PCIe x1 Gen2 ports. The ASMedia ASM1074 is responsible for handling the USB 3.0 connectivity on the QNAP TS-563. The Fintek F71869AD is the super I/O controller for the TS-563 and is responsible for the hardware monitoring of the NAS. The disk-on-module (DOM) is flash based and is used to house the operating system of the TS-563. Interestingly, the DOM module is SATA based. SATA connectivity is provided by the Marvell 889215 SATA controllers.These chips provide up to four SATA III ports each. The drive trays support both 3.5" and 2.5" drives. To install the drive, use the included screws to secure to the drive under the tray. The 2.5" drive mounts are marked on the underside of the tray. QNAP QTS 4.2 Smart Start After installing the drives and plugging in the network and power cables, give the power button a tap and the NAS will power up. By default the TS-463 is set to get an address automatically. Once you have the address you can open a web browser and type in the IP address in the address bar. The first page of the initial set up is the Welcome Screen. This screen will will ask you how you would like to set up the TS-563. If you choose home use, the NAS will enable applications such as music station, video station and photo station; these applications typically do not make sense running in a business environment. The business use option only enables services that are used for business such as Windows networking services, NFS, etc. However, the previously mentioned applications can still be installed in the App Center. Next up, you'll want to set the NAS device name and the administrator password. The date and time are set on the next screen. You can also choose to synchronize the date and time with a network time protocol (NTP) server. The next screen in the Startup Wizard is setting up the network address. You can choose to set up a static IP address or set the NAS to get an IP address automatically from your DHCP server. In the Services screen, you'll turn on or off what networking services you will run on the TS-563. Windows, MAC, and Linux file sharing services are available. You can also turn on or off some applications such as Photo Station, Music Station and the iTunes server. On the next screen is where you get to decide what type of RAID array you would like to run as well as what kind of volume you'd like to use. For most home users a Static Volume is going to work just fine. After you've chosen the volume type, then you'll choose the RAID array configuration. Depending on the number of disks installed and the number of disks selected, the options are Single, JOBD (Just a bunch of disks), RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5, and RAID 6. The last page of the Startup Wizard confirms your settings. If you'd like to make changes just click on the back button. Changes are not applied until you click the Finish button. QNAP QTS 4.2 User Interface The QNAP QTS 4.2 operating system in my opinion is very easy to navigate. There are a lot of options in the interface and I will only be covering a basic set. The Smart Start configuration wizard is not mandatory and can be skipped and you can go directly to the user interface of the TS-563. When you first launch the UI, you will be presented with a log in screen. The default username and password is admin/admin. After logging in, you will be taken to the desktop. The desktop is very similar to a Windows or Linux based interface. Icons can be placed on the desktop as shortcuts to the applications and configuration items you most commonly use. Menus, notifications and performance information are available on the top bar of the screen. If you are like me, you'll want to know what the hardware on the TS-563 is doing. How hot is the CPU, what's the fan speed, network bandwidth information is all available by clicking on the gauge icon at the top right of the screen. Each of the areas can be placed on the desktop by simply clicking and dragging the title of the box such as hardware. If you were to drag the hardware section onto the desktop, you'd see the graphical representation that you see in this menu but only for that section. The same applies to system health, resource monitoring, hdd health, and storage. Background tasks is the icon that looks like papers in an inbox on the top bar. Backup status is the circular icon with a hard drive in the middle, and the error and information logs is the icon with the lower case "i" in the center. The menu is the three horizontal bars located at the upper left of the interface. Click on this brings down the menu with all the areas needed to manage the NAS. The control panel is the first item on the list. The control panel is where you will manage all the available configuration settings on the NAS. It is broken down in to four major groups: System Settings, Privilege Settings, Network Services and Applications. The System Settings sub-menu is where you can configure items such as network IP addressing, system security, backups, power management, and firmware updates. The storage manager application can also be launched from this menu. Granting users permissions to shared folder, or adding them to groups is done in the Privilege Settings sub-menu. You can also set disk quotas for the users in this area too. For those users that have a Windows Active Directory domain, you can add the NAS to the domain. This allows you to assign domain accounts vs local NAS accounts permissions to the shared folders on the NAS. The TS-563 can act as a domain controller in addition to being added to your Windows Domain. The networking services sub-menu allows you to configure the services that will run on the network. You can enable Windows, MAC, and Linux networking shares. FTP, Telnet/SSH, SNMP and network discovery and enabled and configured here as well. Typically on a shared folder on the network, when a file is deleted, it is gone. It is not stored in the recycle bin on a Windows PC or server. The network recycle bin on the TS-563 stores deleted items for shared folders when it is enabled. This functions the same way that your recycle bin does on your PC and, just like your PC it will have to be emptied occasionally as it takes up space. The applications sub-menu is where you will manage the applications that are already installed on the NAS. You cannot install additional applications from this location. By default there are a few applications that come with the TS-653 and others are installed during the initial configuration, depending on the options you choose. Going back to the menu, you'll see the App Center option. This is where you can install and update applications from QNAP's "app store". There are a lot of applications that are free however, some require to you purchase additional licenses to enable or expand on certain features. A manual install option is available for those linux guru's that want to install applications that are not available from QNAP. myQNAPcloud allows you to grant access to the NAS from any where in the world. There is an option to automatically provision certain routers. Once the configuration has been completed, you'll need to establish a connection to CloudLink. There are options to set up Dynamic DNS so that your users do not have to try and remember an IP address but just remember a URL such as http://mycloud.modders-inc.com. On top of the NAS is a serial number that will grant access to the myQNAPcloud service. Finally, we will tackle the Storage manager menu. Storage manager is where you can monitor and configure items related to the installed hard drives, configured volumes, and the RAID array. The overview page gives you a very quick glance at the storage system. It will let you know if you have any failed disks, volumes or storage pools. Utilization will show how much space each of the shared folders is using. The disks menu will give you more detailed information on each of the physical hard drives installed in the NAS. You can also run SMART tests on each disk to verify their health as well as monitoring temperatures on each disk. The information provided here can be used to determine if your drives are in danger of failing. The storage space menu is where all the RAID and volume configuration is done. There are a lot of options here and you can tweak and tune as much as you'd like. From here you can create a storage pool. Think of a storage pools as a container for your physical hard drives. A pool can only have one RAID type but you can have multiple storage pools. For example, storage pool 2 may contain disks 1 & 2 and is a RAID 0 array and storage pool 2 contains disk 3 & 4 and is a RAID 1 array with disk 5 as a hot spare. This gives you two storage pools with two types of RAID arrays. Thick and Thin volumes be created in storage pools. A single Static volume will allocate 100% of the available space for the selected drives. It can be a little confusing determining which type of volume you'd like to use. QNAP's help is an outstanding resource. The Storage Manager also allows more advanced features such as Cache Acceleration. Cache Acceleration allows the NAS to determine what data is used the most. It will then use the fastest disks to store a copy of the data and syncronize it back to the main storage disks. Typically you'll want to have fast storage such as SSDs available. A typical set up may look like 2 SSDs configured in RAID 0 and 3 mechanical drives configured for RAID 5. With Cache Acceleration turned on, over time the NAS will see what data is accessed the most and move a copy to the SSDs. While there is very little improvement on transfer speeds (a single SSD can transfer more data than ate a 1 gb network link) the access times can be dramatically reduced. Testing Methodology System Configuration Case Cooler Master Cosmos II SE CPU Intel i7 4770K Motherboard MSI Z97m Gaming Ram 2 GB G.Skill F3-12800CL9q DDR3-1600 GPU MSI GTX 970 OC Hard Drives Samsung 840 EVO 256gb SSD Western Digital black 500 gb 7200 RPM HDD Power Supply NXZT Hale v2 1000 Watt power supply 4 Seagate 4 TB 7200 RPM desktop drives were installed and used in the NAS tests. A dual port Intel network card was installed in the test system. The QNAP TS-563 in all RAID arrays used a Single Static Volume. In our testing I used the Thecus N5550, QNAP TS-451, & the Seagate DP-6 to get comparison numbers against the QNAP TS-563. The QNAP TS-563 shipped with 8 gb of RAM. The Seagate DP-6 used 4 drives and 2 GB of RAM. The other NAS devices use 4 GB of ram and the same Seagate NAS hard drives. Network Layout For all tests the NAS was configured to use the a single network interface. One CAT 6 cable was connected to the Cisco 2960 from the NAS and one CAT 6 cable was connected to the workstation from the switch. Testing was done on the PC with only 1 network card active; the Killer network card and the corresponding software were disabled for the testing. The switch was cleared of any configuration and left in a unconfigured state. Jumbo frames was not enabled and no changes to the network interfaces was made. Software All testing is done based off of a single client accessing the NAS. We are currently working on a multi-client testing solution. Stay tuned. To test NAS Performance I used The Intel NAS Performance toolkit and Atto Storage benchmark. The Intel NAS Performance toolkit simulates various tasks for storage devices such as video streaming, copying files and folders to and from the NAS as well as creatingcontent directly on the NAS. To limit caching, a 2GB G.Skill memory module was used in all tests. All options in the Performance toolkit were left that the defaults. The NAS performance test is free to download. You can pick up a copy for yourself here. All tests were run a total of three times then averaged to get the final result. RAID 0, RAID 10, and RAID 5 are all tested. Tests were run after all the RAID arrays were fully synchronized RAID Information Images courtesy of Wikipedia JOBD or Just a Bunch Of Disks is exactly what the name describes. The hard drives have no actual raid functionality and are spanned at random data is written at random. RAID 0 is a stripe set and data is written across the disks evenly. The advantage of RAID 0 is speed and increased capacity. With RAID 0 there is no redundancy and data loss is very possible. RAID 1 is a mirrored set and data is mirrored from one drive to another. The advantage of RAID 1 is data redundancy as each piece of data is written to both disks. The disadvantage of RAID 1 is write speed is decreased as compared to RAID 0 due to the write operation is performed on both disks. RAID 1 capacity is that of the smallest disk. RAID 10 combines the 1st two raid levels and is a mirror of a stripe set. This allows for better speed of a RAID 0 array but the data integrity of a RAID 1 array. RAID 5 is a stripe set with parity. RAID 5 requires at least 3 disks. Data is striped across each disk, and each disk has a parity block. RAID 5 allows the loss of one drive without losing data. The advantage to RAID 5 is read speeds increase as the number of drives increase but the disadvantage is write speeds are slower as the number of drives is increased. There is overhead with RAID 5 as the parity bit needs to be calculated and with software RAID 5 there is more of a performance hit. RAID 6 expands on RAID 5 by adding an additional parity block to the array that is distributed across all the disks. Since there are two parity blocks in the array more overhead is used with a RAID 6 array. For a full breakdown of RAID levels, take a look at the Wikipedia article here. RAID configurations are a highly debated topic. RAID has been around for a very long time. Hard drives have changed, but the technology behind RAID really hasn’t. So what may have been considered ideal a few years ago may not be ideal today. If you are solely relying on multiple hard drives as a safety measure to prevent data loss, you are in for a disaster. Ideally you will use a mutli-drive array for an increase in speed and lower access times and have a backup of your data elsewhere. I have seen arrays with hot spares that had multiple drives fail and the data was gone. Do yourself a favor and read up on the different types of RAID arrays and plan accordingly. Personally, I use a RAID 10 array with an automated backup to the cloud. I feel with that setup, I’ve done what I can to keep my data safe. Intel NAS Performance Toolkit Results Conclusion and Final Thoughts There are a few things to consider when looking to buy a NAS from home. How much storage space do you need or want? How many drives do you want to install? What extra features should come with the software. There are a variety of different NAS units on the market. They range from a basic box that you can stuff a bunch of drives in and configure a RAID array to a box that not only does RAID, but can act as a media center, transcode your videos on the fly, or house your entire iTunes library. Like I said, there are plenty of options on the market and it all depends on what you want and how much you can afford. I feel that the QNAP TS-563 hits high marks in the Home User/SOHO market. It has a blistering amount of features and does in fact have the cabability of acting as complete media server with the right software (available from QNAP) installed. The TS-563's media features work pretty well. I was able to get my Arris Media Gateway to pick it up as a media server and was able to stream movies and shows directly through the cable box to on of our TVs. The quality was spot on and we didn't have any issues with quality loss. I used the Sintel (mkv)1080p test file to transcode on the fly. Transcoding on the fly allows the user to watch the video file as it is being transcoded. During the process I kept an eye on the CPU utilization and for a little while it jumped up around 50% then dropped back down. Most of the time CPU utilization was somewhere between 20-30%. The CPU temperature did manage to reach 144° F during some of the testing however, the fan was able to keep the CPU's temperature from going any higher and with the NAS about 10 feet from me I did not notice the fan. Or, you could go the other way and only have the file and folder sharing features that you'll need to run your small office. Mapping a network drive is as simple as browsing the network, picking the NAS and mapping a share as a drive. When mapping a drive you will need to enter a username and password the first time. The NAS can also perform other network services such as acting as a domain controller for authentication services, SNMP server for monitoring alerts, or a Syslog server to capture logs from other network devices. The TS-563 can also be used as a virtualization platform. This means that you could run a virtual PC from the NAS and not need another PC. The limitations for the virtualization station is limited to the by the hardware of the NAS. However, I have used it to create a virtual PC or two that I didn't want on the network for testing infected files. Performance is on par with what I expected. The TS-653 is slightly slower in some tests and quite a bit faster in others. The speed increases could be attributed to the fact the QNAP TS-563 shipped with 8 gigabytes of RAM and has a maximum capacity of 16 gigabytes of RAM vs the maximum capacity of 4 or 8 on our comparison systems. Having RAID at home is a nice feature. I find that with the hobbies that I have, I need ever increasing disk space, even if it is only temporary. It is a nice tool to have on the network to be able to share out files, folders, etc. with the rest of my family with very little management. However, any form of RAID is not a data protection plan; you will still need to back up your data in some fashion. The TS-563 has a quite a few apps available that will allow you to back up your data to some of the cloud service providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. QNAP continues to improve and impress with a good hardware selection and a great UI. The layout of the UI makes everything easy to find. The UI is fast and responsive with very little waiting on the NAS. Price wise the QNAP TS-653 sits at $550.00 USD. I think that sits in the middle of the 5 bay market and is affordable. The features, functionality, and price earns the QNAP TS-563 NAS the Modders-Inc Must Have Hardware award. If you are looking to purchase a NAS with more than two bays, give the TS-563 a peek. [sc:must_have_award ]
