Many of the reviews on this site deal with pretty nice, reasonably powerful NAS devices. It seems from checking the manufacturer's websites, and also noticing the "comments in passing" in the reviews on this site, that many of these devices have an eSATA port sitting quietly on the back, ostensibly "for capacity expansion". Prime Examples of this are the Thecus N5200Pro, the QNAP TS-509 Pro, and the Synology DS508
I wonder if it is time to give these eSATA ports a test? Some examples of questions would be:
These are some of the possibilities. I think it's time we gave those eSATA ports a try to see what they're capable of. What do you think?
I wonder if it is time to give these eSATA ports a test? Some examples of questions would be:
- Port Multiplier Support - would it be possible to connect, for instance, a SansDigital TR4M-B in JBOD mode or a Sonnet Fusion D400Q to any of these NASes and turn a 5 bay NAS into a 9 bay NAS?
- Single RAID support - would it be preferable to connect the same TR4M-B above in RAID mode or a Sonnet Fusion D800RAID to this eSATA port and run it as a gigantic external disk?
- Performance - Given either of the above scenarios, would the performance of the eSATA setup be comparable to the internal array on these NASes?
These are some of the possibilities. I think it's time we gave those eSATA ports a try to see what they're capable of. What do you think?