TS-639 Pro Reviewed

[avvidme]

The 639's have been available for about a month now, I was hoping to find some reviews about it somewhere.

Well, I'm taking a chance anyways - and just ordered one today. I'll try to provide as best a review as possible after I play with it for a while. I'll be starting it off with 4 x 1.5tb Seagate drives (with new firmware) and using pretty well every feature it has.

Cheers
John.

 

[MoralDelima]

Good luck with those 1.5TB drives - they've been having a lot of issues. They released a firmware update, but [http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3002788&pagenumber=4]yeah[/url].

Although they do try and make up:

http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/16246

 

[lifeisfun]

I'm running 4 1.5TB Seagates in RAID for 2 months without any problems

 

[avvidme]

Doesn't seem to be an issue now. I bought the drives when they first came out and experienced issues (Had a Promise 4300N NAS - which I just returned). When I upgraded the firmware to SD1A, I put the drives on a Promise 8350 Raid controller (raid 5)and ran them through a bunch of tests, including copying 1.8tb on and off of them. I feel pretty confident with the new firmware now.

 

[Dennis Wood]

The 639 is similar to the TS509, but has only 1 SODIMM memory slot, and slightly less "horsepower" CPU wise than the 509. In our tests RAID5 writes were consequently a bit slower than the TS509, with reads being very similar.

 

[thiggins]

So you have a 639 in house, Dennis?

 

[Chaplin]

Weird that 639 is less powerful than 509.

 

[Chaplin]

So you have a 639 in house, Dennis?

Dennis, do you have ts-639?

 

[avvidme]

It arrived (Part 1 of 2)

Well, my TS-639 finally. Good thing because they're on back order until end of February I heard.

Unfortunately, I had an "issue" right out of the box. The SATA connectors (daughter board) wasn't lined up perfectly to the chassis and hard drive sleeves. They were off by probably less than 4mm, but enough to make inserting the drives a nightmare. In trying to "tap" them into the sockets, I ended up breaking the plastic SATA connector on the NAS. After spending $1k, you can imaging my heart sinking. Although the drives are in and working, I noticed all the SATA connectors are now on a slight angle due to this offset.

After emailing QNAP, and being forwarded to the U.S. counterpart, they did offer a swap, but let me know they were on back order. So they offered me another alternative of shipping me a new daughter board that I can mount myself - which was quite good of them.

Although this was an initial set back, I'm actually happy with their support so far.

To my initial thoughts: Love it. This is my 3rd NAS (sent back Netgear and Promise NS4300) and previous to this, was running both Windows based and Linux (openfiler) on a Promise 8350 SATA Raid.

Overall Construction: A lot of metal (compared to a lot of plastic with the previous). Well constructed and even taking it out of the box I already felt better about spending the $1k. The drive holders are a 1 sided bottom mount sleeve. I was hoping for a more enclosed case, but I can also see how this would be better for airflow. The 2 12cm fans in the back are dead quiet. The only sound I heard is the clicking of the hard drives - which with a fairly open metal case is somewhat amplified a bit, but not annoying at all.

Initital Setup: The initial setup can be done via software with auto discovery for both Windows and Mac (I use MACs) or through the front panel display. I did it through the front panel, including setting up the Raid 5 set an initialization - it was quite painless and took about 30 seconds in total (not initialization). The initial setup and sync with 4 x 1.5tb in Raid 5 took just over 2 hrs, which I was impressed with - with a status % complete on the front panel.

This was probably the easiest NAS (or any raid for that matter) I've setup so far. I'll post about the software in the next message.

Cheers
J

 

[avvidme]

It arrived (Part 2 of 2)

Overall impression: Tons of features, Easy to setup, GUI could be better.

This unit has a lot of features. Setup of shares, joining Windows domain, and creating iSCSI LUNs are literally seconds of work each. Although the GUI isn't very "sexy", its actually pretty intuitive and easy to find everything.

I have a few LUNs setup through iSCSI on my Windows server in probably under a minute, and was formatting. Direct attach through smb from my MACs aren't an issue, although for some odd reason I still can't see the NAS through AFP (still troubleshooting this).

Features: I've installed a few features so far that are embedded like;

Webfiler: Web sever for file access. Good GUI, straight forward, works great.
FTP/SSH: Again, easy setup, works great.
MySQL: Easy setup (couple minutes)
Joomalia!: Fairly easy setup - I'm not overly familiar with this software so still playing with it.
iTunes/Media server: Again, my bones to pick here is that it's hard coded to a specific directory - still trying to figure out how to change this. But so far, with PS3 and iTunes, no issues and see my media just fine. Play lists are easy to create on the NAS.
QDownload/Qget: Built in HTTP/BT downloader. I'm only using the MAC software so far, but again works as advertised. Very easy to throw a URL into the download manager and turn off your PC/MAC and walk away.

I have jumbo frames on, but I'm not teaming NICs yet - and I find performance to be faster than my windows file server running a Promise Raid controller. No official tests right now, but I'm very happy with performance. Certainly is night and day compared to products such as the Netgear and Promise 4300.

The system logs are quite comprehensive, with syslog options.
The unit runs quiet and cool, I haven't seen the HD's go above 35 degrees C even during initialization.
Backup features are quite comprehensive, including scheduled backups to USB, eSATA, or RSync targets. (I'll be setting up my existing Windows/Raid server as an Rsync target soon)

If I was to be so bold as to rate the unit with my own scale ( 1 to 5, 5 being best):

Construction: 5
Easy Initial Setup: 5
Performance: 4.5
Features: 5
Management/GUI: 4

Overall: A solid 4.5 out of 5.

 

[avvidme]

It arrived (Part 2.5 of 2)

PS: I'll post some internal pictures of the unit when I replace the daughterboard next week.

 

[iwod]

Well the 509 uses a Celeron where the 639 uses Atom CPU. So it is slightly less powerful. ( I wonder why they dont use Dual Core Atom )

I am wondering if the Bandwidth aggregation is supported with 639, where Dennis previously try to stick 2 Gigabyte Ethernet and achieve some 80MB/s results.

There is also a cheaper version TS439, which is hidden in their website

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=110

I think the TS439 will be very good for most Home Users. My only problem with it is that it looks too Pro... And doesn't look "Home" user friendly.

I hope they come out with a Non Pro version.... ( Minus the ISCSI and cheaper price )

 

[dje007]

avvidme

Do you have some pic's of the insides?
Thanks

 

[avvidme]

Hopefully later on tonight...

 

[avvidme]

Ok, here's some pictures!

After taking this apart to replace the daughterboard (which, btw, did solve the "alignment" issue) - I'm actually even more impressed of the overall construction of this unit. Again, a lot of metal - easy access to everything.

Following Picture is the motherboard. PCI-X slot is where the SATA daughterboard/backplane plugs in.
http://s293.photobucket.com/albums/mm65/marylou-the-crafty/qnap/?action=view&current=mbtop.jpg


Next picture is back of motherboard:
http://s293.photobucket.com/albums/mm65/marylou-the-crafty/qnap/?action=view&current=BackofMB.jpg

Picture of top of NAS. Top of picture is front, Motherboard on the right side.
http://s293.photobucket.com/albums/mm65/marylou-the-crafty/qnap/?action=view&current=topview.jpg

Picture of SATA backplane:
http://s293.photobucket.com/albums/mm65/marylou-the-crafty/qnap/?action=view&current=sata.jpg


-------------------
My 3.2TB sync has just finished (from Windows server w/RAID to TS-639). Again, I don't have official benchmarks yet - but VERY happy with performance overall. I did time a few copies, one example is 135Mb single file in 3.4 seconds. This is over 802.11n wireless btw. I'll be doing some LAN tests when I have a chance.

Cheers

 

[dje007]

avvidme,
Thanks for the Pic's, I just got my unit last night man is it quiet. In the pic it looks like there is only one memory slot that correct?

My raid 5 sync was done in 12:15 hrs for 6 x 1Tb Green drives.

1/29/2009 8:05:42 System 127.0.0.1 localhost [RAID5 Disk Volume: Drive 1 2 3 4 5 6] Resyncing done.

1/29/2009 7:50:15 System 127.0.0.1 localhost [RAID5 Disk Volume: Drive 1 2 3 4 5 6] Start resyncing.

And the unit only uses 60W power nice.

 

[avvidme]

Yep, only 1 mem slot. But it can take a 2GB stick (not sure about 4gb).

Yep, great unit!

 

[dje007]

Yep, only 1 mem slot. But it can take a 2GB stick (not sure about 4gb).

Yep, great unit!

What a pain in the neck to get to the memory, yeah I change it out last night for the 2Gb, then booted off ubuntu memory stick and ran memtest. No issues running nicely. Atom Processor N270 on the motherboard be nice to see it on a socket.

 

[corndog]

Here are my NASPT numbers on my 509 and 639 using both SAMBA and iSCSI.

Note - factory RAM only on both NASes

 

[Amlethae]

What a pain in the neck to get to the memory, yeah I change it out last night for the 2Gb, then booted off ubuntu memory stick and ran memtest. No issues running nicely. Atom Processor N270 on the motherboard be nice to see it on a socket.

Did you have to do anything special to boot off an Ubuntu stick? Did you ssh into the box or did you have to plug in a monitor and keyboard? I'm interested in trying this on my 639 but I'm not near it at the moment.