QNAP TS-453 Pro

[testman78]

Introduction

Qnap has long been a favorite of mine here with their simple to set up and operate NAS servers.The four bay TS-453 Pro is one of their latest releases and is designed to provide plenty of room for storage and/or redundancy.Basically it is designed for the enterprise SMB market.Scalability is an important issue for businesses that are growing or anticipate data growth.The QNAP TS-453 Pro is designed with this in mind.QNAP is aiming for the budget minded SMB users who put cost-efficiency and high performance on top of their requirements list.That said, on paper it cranks up both read & write speeds,comes in the faster USB flavor, and doesn't back down on expandability.



The new Turbo NAS TS-x53 Pro series is shipping in 2, 4, 6 and 8 bay configurations.They are powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron processor rated at 2 GHz, with a maximum burst rate of 2.4 GHz-a faster processor than the Intel Atoms and Marvell Armada processors shipping in competing NAS devices.Coupled with exclusive QvPC Technology,these new series can serve as cost-effective PC substitutes that enable direct access to stored data,real-time surveillance monitoring with local display,XBMC digital entertainment,and more.Coming with quad LAN ports with failover and Link Aggregation support,TS-453 Pro ensures continual network service in case of LAN connection failure, avoiding possible disruption occurrences.Link Aggregation feature enhances connection speeds beyond the limits of any one single cable or port.As your data storage needs grow,TS-453 Pro can be connected to dedicated UX-series expansion enclosure for additional storage on the fly,growing capacity with minimal effort.The RAM within this server can also be upgraded to 8GB if necessary.While you ponder the possibilities of that much storage, bear in mind that this NAS unit also sports an HDMI output.What's that good for? A direct connection to your TV, serving as a media server? Or how about in a medium-sized business, streaming video presentations into the board room? Frankly, most of would probably prefer to keep our servers and theatres separated by more than just an HDMI cable. However, video output is becoming an increasingly common feature, too.




Packaging & Contents

The Turbo NAS TS-453 Pro comes in a stylish white and blue box. Along with a picture of the unit, the front advertises many of its key features including its Intel Celeron processor,expandable DDR3 memory,USB 3.0 ports and Software capabilities.



The back of the box provides a bit more information regarding the TS-453 Pro's file sharing,HD Station,Virtualization Station and backup features.



We found nearly every detail(other than performance)just by reading each side of the package.



The model description can be found near the top left corner.



A greeting message including support and social network-page address welcomes you once you open the top flap of the box.



QNAP has one of the best inner packages on the market with a very liberal amount of protective foam around the NAS.



Inside the box you'll find the TS-453 Pro as well as an AC power cord and four ethernet cables,quick installation guide and one two bags of screws.




The Nas

The current QNAP NAS design is focused on a more industrial/datacenter look.Over time, I have really grown to appreciate the sleek industrial look of QNAP's current line of network attached storage systems, even in a home environment.



By retaining its excellent design, there is absolutely no learning curve for users who are familiar with using QNAP NAS systems.It is just plug and play.Why fix something that is not broken?



While the QNAP TS-453 Pro is constructed on a steel frame, its shell that covers three sides of the system is composed of brushed aluminum in gunmetal with a black overtone.This not only improves heat dissipation due to thermal properties of aluminum, but also makes it look incredibly attractive in my opinion.Sure, for most users,the NAS will be placed in a room where no one will bother spending time admiring your equipment,but that does not mean network appliances have to be ugly!



Vents on the side allow air to pass over the internal components to keep them cool and to reduce any internal fan speeds.It is placed right next to where the motherboard is inside.Fresh air also enters through the drive trays.



QNAP's Cloud key sticker is placed near the top left corner.



There are LED status lights that show the system is on,as well as LAN and USB activity.The drive status LEDs flashes when there is disk activity, and remains on when it is idling.It turns red if the system determines the corresponding hard drive is in trouble.



Power the unit up and the blue LED display up top tells you exactly what the unit is doing,such as booting up,loading drivers and,when it's finished,the unit's IP address and you can even do the initial RAID volume set up.



Just below the power button is a special USB 3.0 port that's encapsulated by a copy button.This allows the user to plug in a USB drive and hit the button to quickly and easily backup the contents of the external storage device.



The QNAP TS-453 Pro's LCD display is navigated by two simple buttons adjacent to it:The Enter key, and the Select key.Those buttons are used to setup the NAS and check the status of the system.In this close up image,you can also see the IR sensor for an optional QNAP remote control for media center use.



QNAP includes a sticker on the top of the NAS that labels the drive bays. It might seem simple, but when loading and unloading the NAS this is very useful.



Up front there are four individual drive bays,each hot-swappable and with a security lock.The ventilated disk trays provide excellent airflow over the hard drives driven by the rear mounted cooling fan inside the QNAP TS-453 Pro.Each bay gets status LEDs.



On the back, meanwhile, QNAP gives you more than the average number of ports for a NAS.There are a further two USB 2.0 ports,two USB 3.0 ports and four gigabit ethernet ports handle networking duties.TS-x53 Pro supports the latest 802.11 ac Wi-Fi standard.With a 802.11 ac or 2.4GHz/5GHz dual-band USB Wi-Fi NIC,it can rapidly transmit large files and multimedia.There is one display option,an HDMI port.The HDMI port was added to increase the functionality of QNAP NAS products.Built-in HDMI guarantees good HD playback direct to your TV if you don't mind your central data-store in the living room, and it adds in web functionality and more.An optional remote control rounds out the media center experience.You also get a total of two fans,one dedicated to the power supply and the other 120mm fan for keeping the drives from overheating.A Kensington lock can be attached near one of the corners of the fan for some physical theft deterrent.



TS-x53Pro offers 4 Gigabit LAN ports,and you can assign each port for different applications to optimize network resources and increase security (for example:Public IP,Intranet,Server Backend Network,VM Network,etc).When using Virtualization Station, the network traffic from the virtual machines (VMs)is isolated from the network used by the Turbo NAS.The bandwidth for the Turbo NAS applications will not be impacted by the VM operations, and the VMs can have dedicated bandwidth for operating high-traffic applications.Also, you can flexibly install LAN cards and arrange other LAN ports for different VMs to use as a dedicated network resource.



There is nothing particularly exciting at the bottom of the QNAP TS-453 Pro's chassis.



What you'll see here are four large legs affixed on top of its steel frame panel.As always,they're installed to reduce vibration noise,increase grip, and prevent surface scratching.




Installation

The next step is to install the drives.Each drive is held in a tray, supporting both 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch,6Gbps HDD/SSD,to which the drive is screwed into.To remove the drive tray, you simply lift the latch up and the drive trays slide out easily.



The hot-swappable drives get installed in removable drive trays,which some people call drive caddies,but I prefer the term "tray".They are all physically identical and you can mix and match them all you want,until you build a drive array and then you had better remember which one goes where,if you ever take them out.Seriously,keep them in the same,sequential order they ship in-creativity and imagination are completely out of place in this one instance.The tray is made from carbon steel and then plated for corrosion resistance.The latching mechanism is a combination of steel and plastic.The four bottom mounting holes on each HDD are utilized,and that's the only option.Because the tray and drive need to solidly engage the SATA connectors on the backplane, there is no realistic way to include shock mounting for the drives.



Mounting each drive is very simple.If you choose to use 3.5″ hard drives you will need four screws per drive but if you use a 2.5″ hard drive you will need to use the three smaller screws per drive.



Once the drives have been inserted into the Turbo NAS you must close the lever to ensure the drive is pushed into the back where the SATA data and power connection can be made.The drives can be locked into the Turbo NAS if you are concerned about unauthorized access and potential theft.



QNAP has the ability to support RAID Expansions as well.If a user installs smaller hard drives,and wishes to upgrade the hard drives to a large size, the QNAP TS-453 Pro supports on the fly migration, meaning the user does not have to copy the data off the array before installing the new drives.Currently the largest disks that QNAP supports are 4TB hard drives,but with the growing popularity of more than 4TB Drives,i could see a firmware upgrade coming in the future to allow the NAS to support the large hard drives.You can expand the total raw storage capacity up to 72 TB with the economical UX-800P QNAP expansion enclosure.



Now that we've had a thorough tour of the exterior,let's do a tear-down and see what the insides look like.The next section covers the Hardware inside TS-453 Pro.




Hardware

Removing its shell is pretty simple.Ssimply remove three screws, and slide it out.There is not a whole lot of wasted room inside the QNAP TS-453 Pro.Taking a quick look around, we can see the LCD controller module at the front, and its four 3.5" drive bays occupying majority of the area.



A few centimeters of clearance room can be seen between the rear 120mm Y.S. Tech FD121225LB fan(12 V,0.18 A,1800 RPM,34 dBA,73 CFM and 80000 MTBF) and the four hard drive bays.



Again,this allows some space between components to reduce heat congestion.Its well placed rear exhaust fan can then easily take out the warm air, and allow cooler air to flow over the mounted hard drives with minimal turbulence noise.



The motherboard is mounted with its components facing inwards to take advantage of the airflow generated by the sole rear fan.Overall,very thing is neatly placed and cabled to maximize cooling efficiency, with some room to spare around.



It has become relatively common for today's NAS devices to use SO-DIMM slots,especially for higher-end models.The new TS-453 Pro series features not one but rather two SO-DIMM slots, making it possible for users to expand memory support from 2GB to 8GB without voiding their warranty.



The pair of DDR3 DIMM slots populated with one ADATA (DDR3-1600) 4GB memory module and one 4GB memory module from Micron.



The internal power supply brick is manufactured by Delta,with model number DPS-250AB(17 A max at +12V).Sustained power output is set at 250W, and is rated at 80 PLUS efficiency level.This follows the International Efficiency Marking Protocol for internal Power Supplies under the ENERGY STAR Version 2.0.



One heatsink cool down the cpu and chipset.



I removed the CPU heatsink to take a good look at it.Powered by a new 22nm 64-bit quad-core Intel Celeron 2.41GHz processor means they boast video transcoding capability that's 18x faster than earlier Atom based solutions.This more powerful hardware enables the NAS device to provide desktop virtualisation capabilities with Linux and Windows operating systems both supported.The TS-453 Pro can also automatically increase the processor's clock rate from 2.0GHz to 2.41GHz when needed for CPU-intensive tasks.The processor also features a 2MB L2 cache and is equipped with an Intel HD Graphics engine capable of running at 854MHz.The J1900 is an FC-BGA 1170 processor which means it is soldered directly to the PCB and is therefore not interchangeable.



QNAP has gone with a 100% solid capacitor design,which is said to improve the TS-453 Pro's durability.While i don't doubt that's true to some extent, it's always difficult to quantify such claims.



Super I/O controller chip is the Fintek F71869AD.




QTS Initialization

In order to start setting up the NAS, i will download and install the QNAP Qfinder utility which will list the current configuration.



The software will offer us a Quick Setup method, which is quite automated or Manual Setup.



Then we will be prompted to confirm the current disk configuration.The next step would be to specify the NAS name inside the network, a password for the administrator account, an email address but also a desired disk configuration.



We will be able to leave the NAS obtain a network IP automatically or specify a manual configuration.



The firmware can be chosen to be uploaded automatically from the QNAP servers or we can specify a file we have already stored on our HDD.



During the setup procedure, which will take a while, we will be able to see the configuration steps and watch the progress bar.



When the configuration has been completed and the NAS has automatically rebooted, we will be informed of the operation success.In QTS 4.1 the login screen has changed slightly, but the older version is also available/selectable from the software interface.




Software Part I

We will be prompted to enter up the login username/password combination.



The interface of the QTS 4.1 OS is quite intuitive and on first boot we will be also shown a wizard to guide us through the further setup steps.



The desktop widget shows various info regarding the current system status including transfer rates, temperatures, available resources and so on.



From the Control Panel we will be able to adjust several system settings.



The Storage Manager menu will allow us to see the currently installed drives and available logical volumes.



QTS will check the HDD status regularly and update the health information inside the HDD S.M.A.R.T. menu.



Next we will be able to adjust options like the system time, login screen appearance and so on.




Software Part II

From the Network menu we can modify the current settings, also including Wi-Fi (with a compatible adapter), IPv6, Proxy, DDNS and so on.



The Hardware section allows us to modify the HDD standby times, light signal alert, write cache, but also the buzzer behavior.



Next we could access the EuP Mode Configuration menu, WoL configuration, Power Recovery and Power schedule menus.



The NAS can save the system settings to a file via the Backup/Restore settings tab, but we can also bring it to the factory defaults.




Software Part III

A separate menu is creating for dealing with External Storage devices, Printers but also UPS systems.



The System Status menu allows us to check the System Information, Network Status, currently running System Services or Hardware Information.



The Resource Monitor tab also has other sub-sections like CPU Usage, Memory Usage, Disk Usage, Bandwidth Usage or Process.



User Groups are already pre-defined by the manufacturer.



Next we will be able to check the current folders along with their sharing permissions.



If needed, we can specify a disk quota for all users, or individual.



We can enable different networking services in the next menu.



Network Recycle Bin is handy when we delete files or folders by mistake since they will be first moved to a specific folder and not deleted permanently.




Software Part V

For syncing files between different devices we can always use Qsync.



Let's also take a look a little at some of the regular applications.We can install plenty from the interface even made by 3rd party developers.



First i would like to mention the Photo Station application which allows us to organize our private photo collection, but also run slideshows.



Music Station will pick up our files from the respective folders, index them and pick up the album art from the web. Online radio can be also listened from the same interface via TuneIn.



Download Station permits file search on different portals but can also support file download from private torrent trackers.We only have to download the torrent file on our computer and drag-drop it to the Download Station window.The operation will then start automatically.



With Video Station we will be able to watch our entire video collection, after it has been processed and thumbnails have been assigned to each file.During playback, each video will open up in a new browser window (via VLC plugin).



A very important application is also File Station which helps us to organize the files on our NAS or transfer new ones from other different sources.



Backup Station helps replicating the data to another storage device, including cloud.Ηere we can also access the remote NAS to NAS backup function.



QNAP Notes Station enables you to create digital notebooks on the private cloud provided by the Turbo NAS. You can also easily leverage the rich files, photos, music and video collection stored on the Turbo NAS to enrich your notes. With the Notes Station, your digital memos are safely kept for instant access.A note on the Clipper Chrome extension.In order to use the Clipper, you need to enter your QNAP NAS IP address.



The Signage Station is a free app for the Turbo NAS. With the designing software iArtist Lite you can easily create content for a wide range of presentation, such as an animated resume to impress the interviewers, or a life memory book that is able to be shared on Facebook. Shop owners can choose from rich designing widgets to create menu boards, advertising posters, or business profiles by themselves, and easily display the eye-catching works on tablet devices to attract more customers!All the designed content can be easily uploaded to the Turbo NAS through the Signage Station, and displayed on the web browsers. Your creativity can now travel around the world!



The Surveillance Station is professional network surveillance Video Management System (VMS). Being one of the Turbo NAS standard applications, the Surveillance Station can be activated on the QTS App Center to turn the Turbo NAS into a professional Network Video Recorder (NVR) system for real-time monitoring, recording, playback, alarm notifications, Intelligent Video Analytics (IVA), and management to safeguard your assets and property when used with supported IP cameras.




Software Part VI

QNAP has bundled all the business-oriented features of the x53 Pro under the QvPC umbrella. QNAP projects using the x53 Pro NAS as a business PC in addition to fulfilling the tasks of a SMB networked storage device.



Three 'views' are made available:
- QVM Desk: Users have a window into any of the VMs running on the unit.

-Defense Desk: Users can access the Surveillance Station UI for monitoring the IP cameras being recorded on the NAS

- Local Display Desk: Users have access to the X-Windows session on the NAS, enabling access to apps such as XBMC, Chrome, YouTube, Spotify etc, all of which are specific apps for the NAS.Obviously,the NAS can be administered from within this UI also.


QNAP HD Station integrates the powerful XBMC v12 media player and web browser. With HDMI 1.4a connectivity, you can connect the TS-453 Pro to a HDTV to enjoy your rich multimedia content on the big screen. The splendid user interface and support for 7.1 channel surround sound audio passthrough bring smooth playback of Full HD videos providing a quality home theater experience. You can also turn your mobile devices into remote controls by installing the Qremote app or use QNAP RM-IR002 remote control and MCE remote controls via the built-in IR receiver of the TS-453 Pro for convenient & easy control of the HD Station. Moreover, the HD Station supports YouTube Pairing, allowing you to select a YouTube video on your smartphone, tablet or computer and play it on HDTV via the TS-453 Pro.



The TS-453 Pro delivers superior real-time Full HD video transcoding to convert your videos to formats that can be smoothly played on PCs, mobile devices and Smart TVs. It allows for up to 5 devices to simultaneously view different videos stored on the TS-453 Pro with on-the-fly hardware accelerated transcoding. The TS-453 Pro allows you to enjoy instant videos on multiple devices - even those that lack computing power or have limited file format support - without the need for complicated and time-consuming file conversion.With the benefit of offline transcoding, if you can only connect to an Internet connection with limited/restricted bandwidth, you can still enjoy smooth videos by selecting a pre-rendered lower resolution to play the videos via File Station, Video Station, or the Qfile app for iOS & Android without affecting the TS-453 Pro's performance running other applications. This also allows more people to play videos via streaming. The TS-453 Pro also allows you to set a dedicated folder for automatic video transcoding.The offline transcoding for TS-453 Pro is 18x times faster than other 4 bay atom-based NAS



You can use DLNA-compatible devices such as HDTVs, Smart TVs, Sony PS3, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Hi-Fi systems to enjoy HD quality videos and high-resolution audio content such as DSD (Direct Stream Digital) audio format stored on the TS-453 Pro. You can also use the Qfile app on an iOS device to browse videos and photos stored on the TS-453 Pro and play on the TV via Apple TV. By installing the QAirplay app, available on the QTS App Center, you can stream your media content directly on a TV via Apple TV. The media contents are streaming on Apple TV, bypassing your mobile device, thus saving the energy of your mobile device. The TS-453 Pro's support for Plex Media Server organizes all of your media with rich information and transforms the TS-453 Pro into a powerful & easy to use streaming machine with DLNA, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Google TV support.



Virtualization has been around since the 1960s, but it wasn't till Intel and AMD started introducing hardware acceleration features that the feature started gaining mainstream focus outside enterprise applications. In addition to several applications in the enterprise space, virtualization has also started to lower the cost of IT infrastructure even for SMBs (think in terms of virtualized Exchange servers and similar applications).However, does the current state of virtualization offer any applications / benefits to home users? What are the ways in which regular users can take advantage of it?The answer to the second question is partly provided by QNAP's Virtualization Station package in the TS-x53 series.The answer to the first question will decide whether the Virtualization Station package can offer compelling enough benefits for users to choose the QNAP TS-x53 series over competing models from other vendors.



Put simply, the virtualization concept that we are discussing today refers to the creation of computing resources that exist 'virtually' - i.e, independent of the underlying hardware infrastructure.Most commonly, the creation of a virtual machine (VM) implies the setting up of a computer (guest machine) on certain hardware resources (host machine) such that the software / OS being run on the VM is separated from the host's hardware resources. An example could be the setting up of a Linux distribution as a VM on a computer running Windows as the host OS. Software developed for Linux can be run on the VM.The combination of hardware and software on the host machine which enables the creation and running of VMs is called as the hypervisor.QNAP Virtualization Station enables virtualized desktop operations on the Turbo NAS for managing multiple virtual machines. With the easy-to-use interface, you can centrally manage all virtual machines created on the Turbo NAS with least efforts.



Virtualization Station does not come pre-installed on the TS-453 Pro.I had to go to the App Center to install.A straight forward process:



Once installed,the app was opened to complete the configuration:



Then you must select the network card to use:



Installed:



For the first test virtual machine,I decided to do a migration from an existing vmware Windows 8 virtual machine.You need to copy the vmware image to the NAS before commencing:



Firing up the console and greeted by the familiar Windows 8 screens:



Ubuntu VM installing:



Ubuntu VM installed:



QNAP has bundled a featured called RTRR (real-time remote replication) into their firmware and it allows you to have your QNAP NAS schedule a sync or a backup either from an RTRR servers or through FTP.RTRR can work in a number of ways.It can be configured for any of the following:
-Local Folder to Remote folder – Synchronize files from a local folder to a remote folder.
-Remote folder to local folder – Synchronize files from a remote folder to a local folder.
-Local folder to local folder/external drive – Synchronize files from a local folder to another local folder or external drive.



For this to work you are going to have an FTP server installed on your server or your home server.I like FileZilla and have here a tutorial for installing it on WHS (it works for all Windows Server builds).



For our purposes here,we will blast through the Wizard welcome screen by hitting.



Since we want our data replicated from the Server to our QNAP offsite,we are going to choose the option for Remote Folder to local folder as our “Sync Locations”. After we have our selection and hit Next.



We have to configure the QNAP to recognize or FTP server for replication. For in-house replication,we can use our server’s hostname, but if you are offsite you can use your static IP address.If you subscribe to an internet service provider that doesn’t give you a static IP address, you can use a free service like DynDNS or,if you are a WHS user, your xxxx.homeserver.com name in the IP Address/Hostname field. For the server type, choose FTP Server and populate your FTP Username and Password.Hit Test to verify everything is working.After you have your FTP information populated and verified.



Hitting the Next button will bring you to a screen that wants you to select your Folder Pairs.The left side of the screen represents your FTP Server’s folder structure and the right side is your QNAP’s folder structure.I am only going to show you one folder pair in my example,but if you select the box at the bottom of the Wizard screen you can add more than one folder pair. When you have all your folder pairs setup the way you want.



This next step will be for you to choose between real-time replication or replication based on a schedule.For this,this is personal preference.I prefer to have this done at off-peak hours,so I would choose Schedule and pick a time like midnight.You will want to check the box for Configure policy and filter then hit Next.



The policy and filter screen is optional,but for things like Pictures or Business documents,I choose to leave the setting for Delete Extra Files unchecked,but for things like Software and Music,I am not as anal and would most likely want extra files to be deleted.



For synchronization filter,I leave everything blank.



Next,you can name your job something descriptive.



Confirmation of settings.



Congratulations,you are finished!Now you can rest assured that your important data will be backed up on a daily basis.



Mobile Apps

QNAP has also put to the users disposal some free applications for mobile devices.On Android we have Qfile, which is a regular file browser for our NAS. The contents can be accessed only after we have provided valid login credentials.



Qmanager app is more advanced, since we can see lots of system statistics but also access the App Center, Backup Station, Download Station or other System Tools.



Resource Monitor will open when we click on the CPU/RAM dials to reveal information regarding the internal temperatures, CPU load, RAM and Swap degree of occupation, Disk usage, Bandwidth usage for each LAN port, currently running Processes, but also logged in Users.



App Center allows us to enable/disable the currently installed applications, but also browse more apps.



Backup Station allows accessing different backup functions like NAS to NAS, Rsync, RTTR and so on.



We can also perform downloads directly to our NAS from the mobile phone/tablet, but also search BT files.



From System Tools we can access connected external storage, block-list and more.



Qmusic app will let us browse through our libraries after we log in.



Qget will allow us to schedule the download tasks from Download Station, but also playback and save our favorite videos with the help of HappyGet II.



The free Qmusic app allows you to listen to your terabytes of music collection on the Turbo NAS anytime and anywhere.



VMobile is a mobile surveillance app for remote and wireless monitoring of IP cameras managed by the Turbo NAS with Surveillance Station Pro or the VioStor NVR.



When enjoying the HD Station, rather than hardware remotes, Qremote app is so convenient to make your mobile devices as a handy remote control.







Test System & Methology

I now begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you my test system and the software I used:

OCZ Vertex 4 512GB SSD
Mainboard X79 MSI GD65 - Intel SATA 6G controller in AHCI mode
Processor Core i7 3960X at default configuration
Graphics Cards GeForce GTX 580
Memory 16 GB (4x 4096 MB) DDR3 1600 MHZ
Power Supply Unit 1200 Watt
Monitor Dell 3007WFP - up to 2560x1600
OS related Software Windows 7 64-bit SP1



Using four HDD (Seagate Barracuda 3TB XT 7200RPM)for testing the NAS.



Peformance

Performance from the unit is strong.




Link Aggregation

An interesting feature on the TS-453 Pro is the presence of four Gigabit LAN ports.The ports can be daisy-chained to achieve fast read/write transfers.More often than not, you would need additional hardware to attain these numbers.While high-end routers come with Gigabit LAN and WAN these days,the TS-453 Pro makes use of a technology called link aggregation,an IEEE 802.3ad standard through which two or more Ethernet ports can be used in parallel for increased throughput.To use link aggregation,you need to use a switch that conforms to the IEEE 802.3ad standard,connect the two of the four LAN cables from the TS-453 Pro to the switch,and select the IEEE 802.3ad Dynamic Link Aggregation setting from the control panel of the TS-453 Pro.You also have to enable link aggregation on your switch.You can also tweak the firmware of your existing router,negating the need for a switch.For this I'm using a Intel i350-T4 NIC and a HP ProCurve 1810G-24.I also put on 4 OCZ AMD Radeon R7 (240GB) SSD's that connected by Raid 5 technology.



Qnap claims it is possible to reach data transfer rates up to an average of 430MB/s read & write speeds with link aggregation.While i do not dispute these claims it wasn’t possible to reproduce those results with my hardware.All in all,i am still very pleased cause 411 MB/s is plenty of speed with room to spare to simultaneously run a web server,access movies and music,and save and access documents and other files.Depending on your setup– especially how many files you’re accessing from any single drive,whether the drive is an SSD,a RAID 0 array, a RAID 5 array, or JBOD/one disk, and what kind of quality and capability each drive has,one would easily see higher or lower speeds. Also,i wager that a person copying a large file from one link-aggregated connection to another would also be able to see much higher speeds depending on his hard drive capabilities on each machine.




Noise,Power Consumption & Temperature

The fan doesn’t spin much at lower loads, meaning the Nas is very quiet.At around 900 Rpm,the fan kicks in a little,becoming audible although never that intrusive.At full load,the fan spins much higher, and noise levels hit 33.9dBa.



The TS-453 Pro draws 15W idling.The highest figure I saw was 42W while installing the QTS software.



The fan maintains good temperatures inside the chassis,and it spins up considerably in the upper part of overall load demand.




Conclusion

The TS-453 Pro NAS from QNAP is another impressive product which sports five bays and the new 22nm 64-bit quad-core Intel Celeron 2.41GHz along with 2GB of RAM.The memory can be upgraded up to 8GB if needed by simply removing the top cover and inserting an extra module on the back of the motherboard PCB.The server can be extended via expansion unit in order to include a maximum of 12 drives(72TB) and 4 Gigabit LAN ports are to be found in the back which support LAN aggregation.I expected this unit to exhibit great performance and it has certainly not failed to deliver.The TS-453 Pro offers excellent build quality, strong read and write performance and an impressive feature set,all in an attractive looking chassis.Link Aggregation doesn’t mean a single PC can achieve a throughput of 200MB/s+.What it means is multiple users can access the TS-453 Pro at the same time without having to all feed through a single Gigabit link.Theoretically four users could access the TS-453 Pro at the same time and still max out their Gigabit Ethernet connection if the CPU was fast enough.QTS is still one of the most friendly server user interfaces i have seen and supports regular upgrades from time to time.With more powerful specs,high-end media streaming and the ability to run multiple Windows and Linux virtual desktops simultaneously,maybe your next PC should be a NAS! Full HD video can be transcoded in real-time for streaming to network devices,or played directly over HDMI to a TV using XBMC media center.Hook up a USB keyboard and mouse, fire up one of those VMs, and you have a ready-made PC replacement available, directly on your NAS.



The QNAP TS-453 Pro is a massive network-attached storage (NAS) drive that's ideal for use as an office server.It supports multiple RAID configurations,so it can be optimized for speed and security,and it comes with lots of business-friendly features.With its massive capacity and high price tag,it's clearly overkill for most home users,but business owners should find it highly capable.This pricing may deter some home users who may want to start with a smaller Qnap and grow using the available expansion units.But if you are looking for a NAS that will provide enough storage for years to come then the QNAP TS-453 Pro is the way to go.Like most NAS drives, the QNAP TS-453 Pro is pricey.The drive enclosure itself costs nearly 800 US Dollars, and that doesn't even include the actual disks,which can cost 50 to 200 US Dollars each.Nonetheless,i consider this drive a great value compared to other NAS options,cause it brings enterprise-grade features and performance down to a budget that general consumers can feasibly afford.With its huge capacity,stellar performance and vast array of features,it's by far the best investment for those looking for a central storage server that has it all.