| Article Index |
|---|
| QNAP TS-209 Pro 2-Bay NAS Device |
| 2 - Setting Up/Features |
| 3 - Server Functions |
| 4 - More Features |
| 6 - Conclusion |
| All Pages |
A new NAS (Network Attached Storage) device from the folks at QNAP Systems comes with 2 bays for Serial-ATA hard drives, RAID capability and enough
built-in services to make many big servers totally obsolete. Here at OzHardware we take a closer look.
Appearance and Design:
The design and appearance of the TS-209 Pro is almost identical to QNAP’s older TS-201 model which was also a 2-bay device. So they haven’t done too much in the design department to give us something new and exciting, but rather they’ve stuck with their old faithful design.
The front facia of the TS-209 is a glossy black plastic item with a small control and status light panel at its base which includes a single USB port, while the rest of the unit is comprised of a grey powder-coasted metal chassis and body that when coupled with the two hard drives inside does pack quite a bit of weight, so it’s certainly not a portable solution. Thankfully it is a very rigid device, so stacking books or other computer equipment on top won’t be a drama at all.
At the rear of the TS-209 Pro the picture is dominated by a 7cm exhaust cooling fan, which is a great inclusion to keep the two internal drives cool with air being drawn in through intake vents on either side of the case. Also at the rear we have the usual power and LAN connectors, as well as two USB ports (in addition to the one we already have on the front) for connection to external hard drives, flash drives or even printers. There’s also a K-Lock (Kensington Lock) hole so you can secure this to the desk and stop someone walking off with it.
All up it’s not a bad looking unit, and somewhat deceptive as to its capabilities - which we’ll talk more about later – it looks like just a simple hard drive box, but what it can do is quite impressive.
Setting Up/Features:
The hard drives are installed by removing four thumb screws from the front of the unit and removing the facia completely. Once you gain access to the inside of the unit, there are two drive slides held in by thumb screws. The thumb screws are a nice touch, and make for a completely tool-free installation. With the screws removed you can extract the drive slides/bays, install your standard 3.5-inch Serial-ATA hard drives with a few simple screws and slide the bays back into place. Your drives are now installed.
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By default the TS-209 Pro will be setup to automatically receive an IP address via DHCP, so initially you’re not going to know its address, but thankfully QNAP include a small and simple piece of software that will find it on your network and enable you to log into the device through your web browser for all your configuration needs. If your network doesn’t include a DHCP server, then it does now, as the TS-209 can provide that service.
Logging in through the web interface is a necessity - at least when setting it up for the first time - so you can choose how to setup your hard drives. They can be set either as single drives, a linear volume, RAID 0 or RAID 1. Setting up a striped RAID 0 array for the extra speed would only be useful if you intend on having many clients accessing the device at once, otherwise it’s probably a bit too risky for your data. A mirrored/RAID 1 array is my preferred method for the TS-209 Pro, it gives data redundancy and security, and if a drive fails with the TS-209 Pro in RAID 1, there’s no need to shut off the unit to replace it. Simply slide the old one out, new one back in, and the device will rebuild the array off the old remaining drive all without a single moment’s downtime, that’s quite impressive I think, and ideal for a business environment.
Once you’ve got the drive/s sorted, there’s many other options for you to fiddle with... umm, I mean configure, in the TS-209 Pro’s web interface, such as setting up different user accounts and quota’s, network settings for both LAN and Web services just to name a few.
QNAP describe the TS-290 Pro as a 12-in-1 NAS server, with the following services:
- File Server
- FTP Server
- Backup Server
- RAID-1 Mirroring with Hot-Swap
- Remote Replication
- Web Server
- MySQL Server
- UPnP Media Server
- Print Server
- Photo Sharing
- Download Station (Bit torrent, FTP and HTTP)
- iTunes Server
So we’ve got quite a list there, even though some of the items listed above are pushing the friendship a bit when it comes to being claimed as services – I think RAID capability is a hardware feature, not a service – maybe I’m picky. Anyway there’s certainly a lot on offer from this little device. The TS-209 Pro is able to run all these services thanks to an in-built 500MHz processor, a Linux based Operating System and 128MB DDR2 RAM to keep it kicking along smoothly. All this comes in at a price of around AU$500 plus the cost of the hard drives, and in many instances you could see the TS-209 Pro replacing a proper Windows/Linux file server, especially for small businesses and SOHO use.
There’s quite a diverse list of features indeed, allowing you to run a website or forum with a MySQL database straight off the TS-209, as well as more multimedia based functions such as the Media server to enable streaming media over your network, and the iTunes server so anyone on the network with iTunes software can hook in to access the music library, so there’s something for everyone and they’re all very easy to log into from your browser or the appropriate software suite, so long as you know the IP address.
A great inclusion with the TS-209 Pro which we’ve seen with other QNAP devices in the past (such as the TS-109) is the inclusion of a download manager. Instead of taking up your time and computer resources downloading your torrents, or even FTP/HTTP downloads, you can now hand them off to the NAS device to do it for you and store them on the network drive for everyone to access (or just yourself if you so choose) and even choose how long you’d like to seed the torrents after it completes – and you all seed your torrents don’t you?!?
The USB ports on the TS-209 Pro allow you to plug in almost any external storage device, such as external hard drives, flash drives, even USB card readers and either share them over the network automatically, or back them up to the TS-209’s hard drives by way of the ‘one-touch copy button’. There is a designated folder setup within the QNAP’s drives by default just for this function. We tried this with a standard 2.5” external hard drive and about 40GB worth of data, and it was horrendously slow, running at about 2-3MB/s. Needless to say it took hours to complete the backup. Why it was so slow I really don’t know, accessing the USB hard drive through the TS-209 Pro via the network is as fast as you’d expect it to be at around 10MB/s (my notebook only has 100Mbit network even though the QNAP has Gigabit so 10MB/s is as good as you’ll get), perhaps it does this backups as very low priority, even when the device isn’t being used for anything else? I really can’t explain it.
The USB ports can also be used to replicate the data on the TS-209 onto an external drive for additional data redundancy, or you can connect a USB printer into the TS-209 and have it act as a network print server, yet another handy feature for the home or office.
For basic access to the TS-209 Pro’s network drives/directories, you can simply browse to the device through windows networking and map the desired folder as a network drive. The TS-209 Pro can be accessed by Windows, Mac and Linux environments all at once, with the ability to share files between all the operating systems, so basically if you have a computer, you’ll be able to access it. Providing you’ve been given an account and password of course.
The ‘Pro’ version we are looking at today differs from the standard version is just two areas. Firstly the Pro version is about AU$40 more expensive, and secondly it includes Active Directory Support, so you can get the TS-209 Pro to connect to and become a member of your office Domain, and grab all the users and access rights from the domain controller, helping it to seamlessly integrate into your office network. If you don’t need this function then you’d simply buy the standard TS-209 instead, as everything else is the same.
{mospagebreak title=5 - Security}
Security:
There’s more than enough security features built-in for both user security and data security to satisfy any administrator setting one of these up in a small to medium business environment. If you run a domain then as mentioned you can hook it onto the domain so it’s only accessible to members but even if you don’t run a domain there’s still plenty on offer.
For starters there’s the usual username/password protection, you can also specify which IP addresses are allowed to access the TS-209, or of course, which IP addresses are NOT allowed to access it.
I think physical security is slightly lacking on the TS-209 Pro, yes there is a Kensington Lock port at the rear so someone doesn’t run of with the device, but that won’t stop someone opening it up by means of the thumb screws on the front of the box and walking off with the drives from inside. Some sort of key-lock setup would have been a smart inclusion to help protect the internal drives.
Data security is well taken care of, with RAID capability for data redundancy (if using RAID 1), the ability to easily replicate the data onto an external drive, or you can even have the TS-209 replicate itself onto another QNAP TS-109 or TS-209 device over the network or even over the internet (hope you have a big data allowance from your ISP for this one), there are plenty of options to make sure you don’t lose your data.
Conclusion:
For what I believe is the rather low sum of just AU$500, you get an extremely feature packed and capable NAS device with the TS-209 Pro from QNAP Systems. It’s so full of features that chances are you won’t actually make use of all of them, but at least you get the choice.
The TS-209 Pro is easy to setup for a basic file sharing operation, or you can go very in depth and almost get lost amongst all its options for security, data backup, networking options, drive options etc... The list just goes on. It’s certainly a very powerful device.
The network performance of the TS-209 Pro is excellent with its Gigabit Ethernet port and even though we were only using standard 7200rpm desktop Serial-ATA drives, I couldn’t fault their speed at all (expect in the previously mentioned USB copy mode). Good backup software is included to help you back up your PC files without fuss, though you don’t need any software to access the device, just a Windows, Mac, Linux or UNIX based PC.
I think the TS-209 Pro definitely has the potential to replace a lot of small business server systems out there in the market, as many businesses use very little of their server’s capabilities, and only use it for file/print sharing, and given the TS-209 will consume just under 30W of power when it’s in full operation, it’s a much greener choice than a server system that consumes hundreds of watts and barely gets used.
The only downfall I can find for the TS-209 Pro is it lack of physical security. Some sort of lockable front panel or door would really help put people’s minds at ease.
And don’t forget, this is available in ‘Non-Pro’ guise for around $40 cheaper if you’re not going to use the Active Directory Support – Something to keep in mind.
OzHardware Rating – 9/10 – Excellent!
This product can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
We intend to buy 2 bay NAS hardware in higher numbers. Please send us the specifications, ASAP.
Specification Requirement
512 MB Non-ECC Memory
900GB usable space after configuring RAID I
One 10/100/1000 Ethernet port
CIFS/SMB for Windows
NFS v2/v3 for Linux and UNIX
HTTP/S for Web browsers
FTP/S
Shares ,Local users
Active Directory/Windows Domain support, network logins
DHCP or static IP address assignment
NTP server synchronization
System configuration backup and restore
Email alerts and event logs
SNMP
Warranty - 3 years onsite comprehensive
Please revert ASAP.