A few questions before I purchase

Wafflebird said:

TS-453 Pro 8 gig

Click to expand...

Might consider doing the 2GB variant and upgrade the memory yourself.. check prices, I just bought a couple of 8GB kits from Amazon (DDR3-1600) for 50 bucks each...

Memory is a user replaceable part/upgrade - QNAP has manual's online that show how to do it for most of their models (including the TSx53Pro models, with exact specs for the memory to order)

Agreed. Took all of 5 mins and removing 3 screws to do the upgrade on the 453


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Ok you may want to shoot me............ I know but.................... Just did my expense report for last month, came out to $1700 and some change which I can commit to the NAS purchase, the new oven is sitting pretty in the kitchen and works great. Now I see that Qnap has just announced another AMD powered NAS The TS-563. I am not looking to purchase it but this does make me rethink my options on the 663 or even the 863 (AMD machines) as it looks like they are planning on having the AMD machines as an option in the future, so some of the programs that might not YET be 100% will quite possibly be updated. Now I do know I am a little bit (edit A LOT) all over the place and my apologies on this sincerely. I am just after the best option for me that will also have longevity. Unless I am wrong I am thinking that the best/better processor will end up being the best long term option and lead up to longevity, which is what I am most after. If you are not in agreement with that thought let me know.

The way I see it I could go with the following below options. I know you guys are much more versed in this than I am. Just to recap my goals are for having quick access on the fly to all of my work files, photography back up and raw and processed file storage as well as movie/music file serving and playing via home network streaming and remote file streaming via cellular network, I would say pretty much in this order. I will also delve into the many other programs that are out there as I educate myself but do not, as has been mentioned, want to load the system up with garbage programs either.

Options below, and I know you can't make the purchase for me, I am asking for your genuine feedback based on my needs and the $ available. I know I can upgrade the ram but lets just stay with the base systems as they are laid out for the sake of discussion and I will have one or two options with me upgrading the ram. I know how easy it is to swap/install new ram. Also bear in mind that I will be possibly starting off with one drive from a cost perspective and will be adding drives later, I have multiple backups of my files already so don't worry too much about the one drive aspect to start off with. Having one drive will allow me to really see how the system works and let me understand how much the varying file types will take up when copied to the NAS.

Now I know there are a lot of options here but this is one of the great things about QNAP, they have so many different options to offer, which as you can see gives me a ton of possibilities.

Options:

Go all in for the device and go with the TVS-671 8 Gig quad core 3.0 and a 6TB WGST for the purchase price of $1900, so I would have to cone out of pocket a 150 or so which would probably not be the best bet but it would get me the "Top Dog' for the moment in regards to the NAS itself. The only way to get the I5 machine is with the 8 gig of ram so I can't buy the I5 with less unless I am wrong.

TVS-671 I3 4 gig machine and 1 HGST for $1545 with adding 8 gigs ram = $1797

TVS-471 I3 4 gig and two HGST drives for $1640

TVS-463 8 gig with THREE HGST 6TB for $1640. This way I could start off with a real RAID system from the start.

TS-453 Pro 8 gig with THREE 6TB for $1565. This way I could start off with a real RAID system from the start.

TVS-663 8 gig two HGST for $1593 I could have a RAID 1 this way to start

TVS-863+ 8 gig with 1 10 gig port pre-installed 1 HGST 6TB $1496, I really don't see me upgrading my home network anytime soon to 10 gig, those switches are expensive.

TS-653 +8 gig of ram purchased to install and 2 HGST 6TB $1453

TS-853 Pro 8 gig with two HGST 6TB for $1736 I priced the 2 gig and then buying 8 gigs to install and the price difference was only like $20 so I'll leave it at that.

I like the thought of a 6 bay or 8 bay NAS for future storage capacity. I also have to say I cannot imagine ever filling one of these up at the same time even at 4 bays as the capacity is astounding. I have not however started copying moves yet and as stated earlier we have a "BUNCH" I would say several hundreds of DVD's and Blu-rays as well as a couple of thousand songs. Understand I am not trying to overspend, I am just after the maximum I can get that will provide me something that will not have to be upgraded in 2-3 years. This is my reservation with one of the 4 bay units which could be illogical thinking. Also in looking at reviews and such I am thinking that 4 gigs of ram on any of these machines may be more than enough for my planned usage, I have no plans of running any VM's (Although the android VM might be interesting if we can play some of the games on it on the network at home) or the like, the most taxing thing I can think of happening is playing possibly 3 movies at one time via network or possibly cellular, while maybe copying files to/from it. This is the most taxing thing I can think of that the system would encounter.

I know I am talking this to death but hopefully you can see my quandary and your help up to this point has been really, really informative and appreciated. Just so you know it is my plan to write a review up on whatever I purchase and will post it here. I do not have the same technical level of most here but I could write it from a layman's perspective and discuss what my usage criteria were at the time of purchase, why I purchased what I did (which you will be playing a part of here), and how it has fulfilled those needs as well as other things I discover along the way. I have two really good cameras and can take some good quality photos for the review.

As you can see already............................................ I'm not afraid to type........................................ a lot......................................................... right?

Ok... will try to shorten this up some.

All the models you listed support HDD expansion with a secondary disk chassis which will add 5 or 8 drives (via USB3 connection). Now there may be some performance penalty doing it that way vs internal (QNAP Presales maybe able to answer that part) but it does give you space expansion options even for the 4 drive NASs. You also have the option of doing a rolling space upgrade by replacing drives (1 at a time) with bigger drives in the future. So in my case I could upgrade my 3TB drives to say 6TB drives later inplace if I wanted to.

In terms of space usage, it really depends on the sw/trandcoding settings that you are using, but it is not uncommon to consume say 2GB for a STD Def Movie, and say 7-8GB+ for a HD Def Movie. Those #'s are just for the main movie, being ripped/converted off the DVD/BlueRays. Music will be trivial in terms of it's space usage compared to the video.

In terms of running 3 movie streams at the same time, you may need to deploy the 1Gb NIC teaming to be able to do that (depending on resolution/devices/etc.), but can always try it without to start with and add it later.

If you are not planning on using VM's, then CPU probably has less impact overall to your performance (unless you are enable storage encryption) for your use case. Your NW/Disk performance will be your limitting factor. 10Gb NW is NOT cheap yet for home use, so if you are just using 1Gb connections the x53/x63 will be fine. The video ripping/conversion will be running on your desktop/laptop and then you will just upload the final file(s) to the NAS.

The only reason I updated my QNAP recently was I wanted real-time transcoding which my older Qnap didn't support (too old of an intel cpu). I didn't really notice any major performance change otherwise over the 3 years I had my 1st QNAP. Remember this isn't a desktop replacemnet, but a purpose built "appliance".

OK most likely final question on this subject, ordering tomorrow. I am still a little torn between the X53 Pro and the X71. The X53 is a quad core processor @ 2.0 GHz with boost up to 2.41 GHz while the middle X71 is a 3.5 GHz dual core processor. Based on my previous comments regarding usage criteria (Remote file server for work files utilizing a Qsync folder on the work PC and a Galaxy Note 4 for retrival, Raw and processed photo back-up and a remote movie and music server in that order for those of you who do not want to have to go back through the thread) will I honestly see much of a difference in the performance of the two? I am looking at the 8 gig X53 versions.

I am still undecided on what model to get, the quad core TVS-671 is a little out of my reach unless I step down the HDD size from a 6 TB to 4TB which I am considering. I know I can go up in HDD size later. This combination would put me at the absolute top of my budget for this however.

Trexx I am taking your comments into account above and am thankful for them I am just at the end point here and trying to decide on the best model for me. I know you may want to shoot me at this point which is understandable. Remember I will possibly start out with one drive and then add later as I have the resources and after I have familiarized myself with the system keeping multiple back-ups in the process.

So the options I am considering are:

Go a little cheaper cost wise and go with the TS-453 Pro 8 gig and 2 HGST 6TB $1272 or the 653 pro 8 gig and one HGST 6TB for $1213
Next step up cost wise TVS-671 i3 4G and one HGST 6TB $1551
Final choice TVS-671 i5 8 gig and one HGST 4TB drive $1761 with the plan to do a rolling space upgrade down the road, maxing out the budget but getting the best box.

Please forgive the post as I know it may seem I am asking the same question, but I kind of have it narrowed down here and am in hopes of maybe a little more input. As has been stated these are not PC's but more of an appliance so to speak. Maximum budget would be the final option listed. Long term usage and space are the ultimate goal for me. No plans to upgrade the home network to 10 G but you never know as the cost comes down which it will eventually. In speaking with QNAP pre-sales they are finalizing storage bays for the X71 series now which will allow for expansion for these models.

I look forward to your input on this and thanks again.

It really depends on what your needs are...

8-bay NAS's are probably overkill, but a 6-bay gives you options that one doesn't have with a 4-bay NAS... e.g hot-spares and perhaps SSD for caching outside of a 4-disk RAID 10/5/6 layout...

Going with the i3 over the J1900 - two big cores will always outperform 4 small cores (IvyBridge vs. Silvermont), but in transcoding, the J1900 uses QSV and has a dedicated h264 block, but generally, the big cores in the i3 will keep up...

More RAM is always good, but consider base, and upgrade the RAM yourself - QNAP does consider this a user item - just use RAM from a tier1 vendor (Crucial comes to mind), and you should be fine...

I've got a 453Pro - no regrets... 4*3TB drives in RAID10, pretty good performer all around...

HTH...

sfx

SFX thanks for the response if possible can you help me out with your response a little, as I am not that technical on the individual processors. Based on looking and your response the X53 uses the quad core J1900. I am a little lost on the QSV and h264 block information, what does this mean in a little more layman terms. Then there are the 3 (They really make it difficult by making so many options but at the same time hats off to them for having as many options as they do) processors on the 671.

I guess I can boil it down, it is between the i3 and i5 671 for me at this point. The difference is $210 at the end of the day. The i5 looks like a really strong processor but I wonder if I will see the benefit of it in my usage plan. It comes with 8 gigs of ram already which is some of the cost and the rest is the processor. A quick check on the processor says that they are about $81 difference in price between the i3 and i5. 8 gigs of ram come in at around $55 so they are making a little bit of a premium on these parts but I really am not overly concerned with this.

Specifically on the i5 machine if I went with a 4 TB drive initially is the rolling storage upgrade a painless one? I have read the online users manual on doing this, but text and real world are some times a little (and sometimes a lot) different. If I start with this and then get a 6TB drive I obviously will copy from the 4 to the 6TB drive, and I know that I can have both the 6TB and the 4TB in at the same time although it is not recommended. The thing that concerns me is the potential loss of power during this process. I will obviously have a backup to all my pertinent data so not the end of the world.

In reading further on the capabilities I have also determined that I can use it further for work. Let's say that I have a customer looking at a certain machine I can make a file with all the pertinent data and share the link with them which is pretty cool as much of this type of data will be way too large to e-mail with videos etc.

I guess let me ask it this way, If I get the i3 or the 653 machine and only use it for file store and remote access and will not ever have more than 3 streams going at the same time (if ever) will either be more than sufficient? I really cannot see taxing the system any more than this at least at this point. And if you were forced to choose between the two based on my usage which would you choose?

I want to be covered but do not want to overspend. The HGST's are more expensive but based on input here that is what I want to go with.

I am almost there, just trying to make sure I am buying right. As stated I will do a review on the system, I will not be able to test it completely until I have more drives but at the least I can do a review of the system as a whole and then update it as I get more drives.

Thank you,

Wafflebird said:

SFX thanks for the response if possible can you help me out with your response a little, as I am not that technical on the individual processors. Based on looking and your response the X53 uses the quad core J1900. I am a little lost on the QSV and h264 block information, what does this mean in a little more layman terms. Then there are the 3 (They really make it difficult by making so many options but at the same time hats off to them for having as many options as they do) processors on the 671.

Click to expand...

When I talk about "Big" vs. "Small" cores - it's that the x86 realm has split - outright performance, regardless of power, is the Big Core realm - e.g. IvyBridge/Haswell on Intel, and PileDriver/Bulldozer in the AMD space...

Small Cores - to compete against the ARM chips, Intel and AMD, they did the Bonnell/Silvermont (Intel) and Bobcat/Jaguar/Puma (AMD) cores - they tend to use much less power than the big cores, and they approach the Instructions/Watts efficiencies of the ARM crowd...

So when considering x86 - a J1900 Celeron, which is a 4 small core Silvermont running at 2.0GHz (turbo up to 2.4), is roughly equivalent of a Haswell 2 core Big-Core Celeron 2957U running at 1.4GHz in a multiple threaded environment...

But... the Haswell based 2957U will crush the J1900 in a single threaded task...

And a Core i5-4260U - which runs as a base same as the 2957U, will crush both based on similar base clock speeds and Thermals (the 2957U and the 4260U are 15 watt TDP parts, the J1900, with four cores is a 10 watt TDP part). But the 4260U is a $300+ chip at present, compared to the J1900 and 2957U as 50 dollar parts...

The Intel Baytrail parts, based on Silvermont, they use Intel Gen7 graphics, which include QuickSyncVideo (QSV) and it's pretty fast at transcoding, similar to the "Big" cores, but they also include a dedicated H264 block outside of the CPU/GPU combo that is even faster...

That being said - the J1900 is a perfectly fine CPU for a NAS box, and likely the reason why QNAP chose it - it's a decent performer all around... Going to a Core i3/i5, one will see some apps run a bit faster, depends on the use-case at hand...

And FWIW - the i5-4260U costs about the same at the OEM level as a i7-4790 Quad Core on the desktop...

OK so all I have to do is press the "Place order" button on Amazon. Between the great help here and the QNAP pre-sales team I have decided to go with the TVS-671 i3 @ 3.5 GHz machine. I cannot fathom ever needing the i5 NAS. Spoke to the QNAP pre-sales folks one last time and was very specific on my usage criteria and they were in agreement with me that the i5 would be overkill. I cant justify the $250 more on my end. They felt that the lowest peocessor machine would be fine but I am more comfortable with the i3 myself. So I will start with the TVS-671 and 1 6TB HGST. I will keep you posted. Many thanks for your patience and input on this.

BC

SFX if you had to choose between the 653 Pro 8 gig or the i3 471 which would you choose considering my usage? Still conflicted a little, I am thinking the 653 would be more than enough plus it is 6 bays.

Thanks,

BC

Well... I have the 453Pro, and it works pretty well...

If you had to balance the i3-based TS-471 vs. the J1900 based TS-653 - I think the value solution is in favor of more storage, and more flexibility with that storage.

The only nit I can think of is that the TS-x53 series will not be doing 10GiGE... but at the moment, it's not a must-have feature.

Ok just placed the order on my phone, TS-653 pro 8 gig and 1 HGST 6TB, will be home tomorrow to accept, many thanks for the patience on this, I'm sure I'm in for an education on this. I could have gone for the 4 Bay and in the end it might have been more than enough, time will tell. Looking forward to installing it and using it. I can see it taking a few weeks to get to grips with it as much as I am in constant motion with my job. I will need to utilize this thing a lot to justify the expense, one of the reasons for all of the back and forth. Many thanks to all who have helped me out here as well as a big thumbs up to the QNAP pre-sales team, I bet I have called them 10-15 times, always answered the phone, never tried to over sell me and made me aware of the caveats on the AMD machines. I was really looking at Asustor but called a couple of times and NEVER got anyone on the other end of the line. Synology lost out due to the reports of plastic tray vibration issues and no HDMI. I am Excited!!

I think you will be very happy with your choice once you get it all up and running. I would pick up a 3-5TB External USB3 drive right away though for backing up your NAS. QNAP's backup manager is a pretty good application overall.

I am on both of the QNAP community forums listed below so feel free to reach out here or there if you have questions.
qnap.community
forum.qnap.com

Well there was an issue with the initial order, I got confirmation from Amazon, but the bank did not see the charge, backed it all out and reordered but I went with the TVS-471. After looking at storage space available and considering the growth of drives (IE the 8 TB will soon be the new 6 so to speak) and knowing that QNAP is working on expansion cases for the 71 series combined with what will most likely be price reduction on 10 G networking gear over time I changed my purchase decision. Basically I have nothing now and anything will be better than what I have now. I expect several years of use out of this box and like all things it will eventually need to be updated. At that time I will have a much better sense of my actual storage needs and can make a better informed decision then. As promised I will do a review on the device. It will obviously not be as technical as all of the great sites out there like this one but I will do my best.

Expecting delivery on Thursday

Enjoy the TVS-471 - it's a nice box, it really is... The 471 with the i3-4150 is a nice box...

When you do your walk-thru - make it a separate thread, and put some backstory on the reviews here on the primary site, similar to what I've done with the TS-453Pro here...

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/qnap-ts-x53pro-follow-up-to-the-primary-site-review.24173/

sfx

And for what it's worth - and this is what makes choices a bit of a challenge with QNAP's current product line up... so I get it...

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/413/Intel_Celeron_J1900_vs_Intel_Core_i3_i3-4150.html

The i3-4150 is a Desktop 2C/4T Haswell chip - for a NAS box, it's pretty good, perhaps overkill... it's power hungry, with a 53w TDP compared to a 10w TDP on J1900... better graphics core so should be good for things that depend on that.

The rest is pretty much the same sausage... just watch the heat - at normal work, it should be fine, but when pushed, it will heat up quite a bit for the duration of that task...

SFX thanks. I was not aware of the vast TDP difference in the two in all honesty, I guess if I was up a little more on the tech I would have realized this. I usually do not struggle with a purchase such as this as I usually am in the "Know" about a product. I only really found one TVS-471 review out on the net by an individual who did a good job but not super technical like the reviews done here and elsewhere. I am/was considering putting the NAS in my entertainment center which has glass doors on the front and not terrific ventilation in the back. It would reside in the same area as a Yamaha 9.2 receiver, Direct TV Genie DVR, Xbox 360, google TV box, Wii, Blu-Ray player and my 16 port network switch. This area obviously will have a higher ambient temperature so this might not be the best choice. It would allow me to have easy access to the HDMI connection of the Yamaha but I can get a longer HDMI cable if need be. I also could put it in another enclosed area to the side of the main entertainment center area behind a solid door and pnly a small vent/wire pass through hole. This again raises the questions on operating temperature, but it would not be in close proximity to any other heat generating equipment and this would allow for me to still easily connect to the Yamaha.

Now the HDMI was a big reason I went with QNAP but both the receiver and my Panasonic plasma are both DLNA certified and the Panasonic is a "Smart" TV so I know I could connect to the NAS without the HDMI but I would loose some of the wanted functionality of having it connected to the TV and using Chrome etc. I would really like to connect it to the receiver/TV directly as this (HDMI) was one of my initial prerequisites for my ultimate choice. I also will be utilizing the front USB copy function a lot for photography back up etc. a lot as well so ready access to the box will be important.

My initial plan was for a 4 bay unit and I think I just got a little overzealous and started looking at 6 bays. knowing that 8TB drives are out there (and at the same time understanding the caveats of the large drives) I can simply see no way of ever maxing out this 4 bay box. I could be wrong and if so I know that in 3-4 years, whatever a standard NAS box will be, will be much more powerful than the 471 so I can just go through this process again but at least then I will be much more knowledgeable about my needs and the products on offer then.

For my review I have a fairly simple set up with a set of 1 G switches and the home theater set up mentioned above, I don't really have a way to do all of the measurements that the full blown sites do with link aggregation, so I will present it from my simple needs case and hopefully do it justice.

The whole power consumption difference is now making me once again question my decision, maybe the TS-653 pro would have been the ultimate better choice and it was a little cheaper...................... AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never have I struggled with something like this before.

You all have been most helpful and my sincere thanks for seeing me through to here. I am sure once it gets here and I get settled in with it I will be fine......................... Well as fine as I can be anyway.

Stick with the 471, you'll be fine - at idle, the power consumption and heat between the J1900 and the Core i3 is about the same - and you'll have more resources when you need them.

Wafflebird said:

I am/was considering putting the NAS in my entertainment center which has glass doors on the front and not terrific ventilation in the back. It would reside in the same area as a Yamaha 9.2 receiver, Direct TV Genie DVR, Xbox 360, google TV box, Wii, Blu-Ray player and my 16 port network switch.

Click to expand...

Hmmm... just to share a comment - the TS453Pro, while quiet, it is not dead-silent, the fans do have some noise to them, and drive access is definitely noticeable.. it's about the same level of noise as my Dell Core-i7 Desktop tower...

Adding it to your media center - not recommended, as you've already mentioned some ventilation concerns, and the NAS box is going to add to that head-load - and heat is the drive killer..