QNAP TS-659 Pro II Review
by Ganesh T S on September 19, 2011 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- NAS
- QNAP
The TS-659 Pro II supports PC-less installation. As soon as it is powered on, the LCD display indicates the status of the unit. On an average, the unit took around 3 minutes to complete booting up. Various characteristics such as the Volume Configuration (RAID type) and Networking Configuration could be set up using menus on the LCD display. Depending on the network environment, it might not even be necessary to install and use the QNAP Finder software. We will cover our testbed setup in a later section. In this section, we will look at the various features available in the administration web interface.
The TS-659 Pro II has a web server service which is disabled by default. Hence, visiting the IP of the NAS through any web browser automatically leads to the administration web interface. Otherwise, it can be explicitly entered into by visiting the URL with the 8080 port number tagged on. The gallery below presents screenshots from the initial pages.
The default login and password combination is 'admin'/'admin'. The flow interface also links to other services, customer support and online help wikis. The initial screen shows a list of available wizards which aid the administrator in getting up and running with creation of users, user groups, shared folders etc.
Next, we look at the various options available under System Administration. Under General Settings, one can explicitly set the server name and administration port (default is 8080). Under Network Configuration, one can configure the settings for the GbE ports. The two NICs can be configured in a number of ways to provide adaptive load balancing, fault tolerance or just dynamically aggregating the bandwidth.
One of the more important options under the Hardware subsection is the ability to enable write caching for EXT4 formatted volumes. This needs to be disabled if the NAS is used in virtualized environments. There is also the option to turn off the buzzers for various types of events. In addition, the user has control over the fan speeds. Power management options, system logs and firmware update support (direct from the Internet or from the local disk) wrap up the System Administration section.
The Disk Management section provides options to manage the volumes and inspect the current configuration of the physical disks and logical volumes. RAID management allows operations such as capacity expansion and bitmapping on the already existing logical volumes.
The HDD S.M.A.R.T subsection helps the user in checking up on the S.M.A.R.T status of the disks and also allows for periodic scheduling of S.M.A.R.T tests (a feature not supported by Synology). The iSCSI subsection allows for enabling the iSCSI service and includes a Quick Configuration Wizard to get a iSCSI target and LUN set up. The firmware also includes an iSCSI initiator to configure virtual disks (i.e., iSCSI targets resident in another network appliance).
The Access Rights Management section provides options for Active Directory support, configuration of users and user groups, shared folders and managing user disk quotas.
The Network Services section provides options to configure Samba, Apple Filing Protocol and NFS. FTP, Telnet / SSH and SNMP settings can also be modified. The web server service can also be enabled and configured in this section. uPnP and Bonjour services can also be enabled.
The TS-659 Pro II provides a rich set of application servers as evident in the gallery below.
The Web File Manager provides an AJAX interface to the file system on the NAS. The uPnP media server also enables the unit to act as a DLNA server. Multimedia Station organizes the photos and videos in the NAS in a single easy to use page. A caveat for the users is that the Multimedia Station doesn't use the same login credentials as the one used for the administration. The surveillance station supports upto four IP cameras. The streams can be viewed in real time or recorded for archival purposes.
The firmware web interface also supports a host of other options like configuring backups on the Amazon S3 service and ElephantDrive. The One-Touch Copy button in the can be configured to either copy from the USB drive to the NAS (default behaviour) or copy over a specific directory in the NAS over to the USB drive. The button can also be disabled if necessary.
The TS-659 Pro II can also be configured as a network UPS slave. QNAP also provides the MyCloudNAS service (dynamic DNS) which helps users to access the unit over the Internet. Users can also configure the various services which are visible over the MyCloudNAS service. Of course, the appropriate router ports need to be opened up, and the firmware provides options for auto configuration. The last section allows the users to check up on the information about the system, the currently turned on services and monitor the resource usage.
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Death666Angel - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
Hey! I just wanted to post a quick comment regarding this:"The redundancy helps in data recovery, in case of media failure of any other unforeseen circumstances."
Really, RAID only helps in case of a media failure. Most other "unforeseen circumstances" (which btw really aren't unforeseen...) cannot be helped by a RAID:
- unintentional deletion of a file
- virus
- power black out
- mainboard/PSU failure which fries the system
There are a lot of things that a RAID can do nothing about and need to be taken care of separately. I'm sure you know that, but the statement above made it sound differently. :-)
geniekid - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
++Better to have data on two separate machines running no RAID than on one machine running RAID if data backup is your goal. RAID was designed primarily for enterprise use to minimize downtime when a drive fails - and even then, any serious business will have an offsite backup. In home use, the time-cost for replacing the hard drive on a non-RAIDed machine and then copying data from your backup machine is well worth the data safety you get from having that backup machine.
That said, external AND internal hard drives are both *relatively* cheap, so should be not-too-hard to get the benefits of both RAID and backup in home use :)
ganeshts - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
I agree with your points :) But, the mainboard / PSU failure doesn't mean that data is lost. Please check out my LG N2A2 review, where I recovered data from a 'fried' system using UFS Explorer.I believe UFS Explorer can still be used here, but one needs to feed each disk into the rebuilding computer, make an image, and then recover after making UFS Explorer recognize all the images. I didn't check this out because I don't have a test system handy with ~6 TB worth of free space. Will try to redress in future :)
mino - Monday, September 26, 2011 - link
MoBo/PSU failure might easily take the disks with itself either by corrupting data or physicaly damaging them.Not to mention no way ofe getting them back withou getting identical mobo even if data was not touched AND hoping the new firmware will not zero them on sight ...
DeviousDog - Monday, September 19, 2011 - link
True!!! But data storage and backup are two different things. As the article states RAID helps with media falure.Just need to correct this
» unintentional deletion of a file - QNAP has a network recycle bin, so if you do delete a file it is not deleted. Only the soft link is deleted until you empty the recycle bin.
» virus - QNAP has an addon AntiVirus product, but then you should use Access Control Lists to protect data from virus and deletions.
» Power Black Out - Anyone that has a NAS, and does not have a UPS attached is a fool!!
» mainboard/PSU failure which fries the system - Use a UPS which has a clean line filter so the main board does not get a spike, even if it did fry the system. QNAP uses a software RAID so pull it out and put in another QNAP and re-apply the firmware and you are up and running again.
I agree though.. RAID is RAID it is not data protection (too a point) it is physical media protection for the RAID volume if a hard drive fails. That being said, there is nothing stopping you from making a 4 bay RAID 5 and then having a 1 or 2 bay RAID 0 on the same box for backup.
I have a TS-859 Pro + for personal use, I have a 5 Bay RAID 5 which is backed up onto the same QNAP which has 2 Bays holding 2 x 3TB drives in a RAID 0 for backup.
DeviousDog - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Oh.. forgot to also state, I then backup my box to another rsync server located at my brothers house through a VPN. Additionally I backup data to a cloud service for highly important stuff (photos), all of which the QNAP OS supports.Death666Angel - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
All your points are very valid, as well. :DBut the article made it sound as though just having the redundancy is all you need. That was my main beef, as such a statement might lead the uninformed to set up a RAID array, put all their beloved old childhood photos and videos on it and then be surprise when there is a power outage which messes up all their data.
Yes, you can protect against black out, electrical spikes, viruses, unintentional deletion etc. But by other means than a RAID.
That was my point. Not that RAID is inherently dangerous. But that such a broadly worded statement is false and can lead uninformed people into dangerous situations. A brief 2 - 3 sentence paragraph about this stuff would suffice to enlighten most people to the problem, I think. :D
DeviousDog - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
RAID is good (except RAID 0), the article does state it protects against media failure, meaning the physical disk. With the size of Hard Drives increasing any NAS in a RAID is a good choice, keep your data off your desktop or laptop, how many times have I seen people loose all the family photos due to a Drive Fault, this alone is a good reason to buy a NAS.However you shoud be Paranoid about your Data, back it up and store it out of your house. Its all good having a 6 Bay unit filled with 3TB drives, but then how do you back that data up... another NAS or rsync server.
You should always think that someone will break in and steal your NAS, or even fire or flood.
mino - Monday, September 26, 2011 - link
... in beef, as such a statement WILL lead the uninformed to...Fixed for ya!
CherryBOMB - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
I have two QNAP;s as well 809's.photobucket.com/albums/xx165/goldcoin1/P9200347.jpg
for those who do not know the three latest firmwares have been 3.3 , 3.4 , and 3.5 In 3.4 they implemented RAID 10 capability.
Details of the firmware updates below.
3.3> http://www.qnap.com/fw_v3/
3.4> http://www.qnap.com/fw_v34/Default.aspx?lang=eng
3.5> http://www.qnap.com/fw_v35/features.asp
IMO QNAP is the way to go.