Review: QNAP TS-470

Introduction and build

With a price tag of just over £700 (around $1,180, AU$1,270) before taxes and without any disks, the QNAP TS-470 is a far from cheap four-bay NAS appliance, very much aimed at the small business rather than home user market. Even then it's expensive and for that money we expected a quality product with lots of extras beyond basic network file sharing. We weren't disappointed, but felt that some of the options were beyond the needs of the intended small business audience.

Quality shows

We knew we were dealing with a quality product as soon as we unpacked the TS-470. Weighing in at a substantial 10 pounds (4.5kg) it's both solid and extremely well built, designed to sit on a desk or shelf with power delivered through an external AC adapter. Power consumption peaks at just over 62W dropping to around 30W in standby and there's a single large fan for cooling which, even when pushed hard, makes the QNAP appliance quiet enough for use in an open plan office – although you wouldn't want to sit next to it.

The QTS operating system needs to be loaded onto the appliance before you can use it and we particularly liked the way this can be done via the cloud, simply by browsing to the URL printed on the label on top of the device and entering the unique key provided. The required software is automatically downloaded and quickly configured using a startup wizard, with the only negative being the need to then update to the latest release, rather than installing this version to start with.

We were using the business-ready QTS 4.1 operating system which, with its desktop look and feel, is very much like the DSM software employed by market leading rival Synology on its DiskStation products. Equally easy to learn, this provides support for both cross-platform file sharing and iSCSI SAN connection to remote servers, and is packed full of features to manage storage as well as take backups of the NAS appliance itself and servers and desktops on the LAN.

The QNAP appliance can also act as a domain controller on a Windows network and, just as with the Synology platform, host additional apps to further extend the available functionality. Some, like a web server and antivirus scanner, come pre-installed. Others, like the WordPress CMS and QNAP's own Surveillance Station app for use with network cameras, need to be downloaded from the QNAP App Centre and may require additional licensing.

Storage options

Add-on apps are all well and good, but the main reason for buying the TS-470 is storage, with four disk bays located at the front with lockable slide-in carriers to take either 3.5-inch or smaller 2.5-inch SATA disks. Some sellers bundle disks with the appliance but we chose to fit our own, opting for 4TB Western Digital Red drives expressly designed for NAS use. In theory this gave us 16TB of raw capacity but, as with similar appliances, the default RAID 5 configuration applied by QNAP's QTS operating system takes a fair chunk of that to protect against drive failure.

A set of default shares is created during setup, but adding to these and managing access rights is very straightforward, and you can now build storage pools made up of multiple arrays from which virtual volumes are provisioned.

We tested on a Windows network and, although four Gigabit network ports come as standard on the TS-470, for our initial tests we connected just one to a suitable switch which, using the Atto benchmark, enabled us to record read and write throughput rates of around 118MB/sec. That's about as much as you can expect on a single Gigabit link, and when copying real files this figure fell to around 90-100MB/sec depending on file size (large files being quicker to copy).

With a 2.6GHz dual-core Celeron processor the TS-470 is capable of delivering this kind of throughput across all four Gigabit interfaces, with a choice of port trunking options to make setup easier. Most of these, however, had little effect on throughput with the best dependent on having a compatible switch capable of supporting the 802.3ad link aggregation protocol. An alternative and easier solution would be to connect each of the four interfaces to a different VLAN for concurrent access by multiple workgroups.

Faster and bigger

Another option is to swap out Gigabit ports three and four, which are on a plug-in adapter, and fit a dual-port 10GbE card instead. This would certainly improve throughput, but requires the purchase of a card costing almost as much as the original appliance. Not to mention a 10GbE network switch and 10GbE interfaces in selected servers and workstations to take advantage of the extra bandwidth. Few small businesses are likely to see this as a cost effective option.

Similarly, it's possible to forgo the extra network ports in favour of a QNAP SAS card enabling up to two 16-bay disk racks to be attached to the TS-470. However, we doubt many small businesses will take up this option which is, again, costly and seems a little out of place on a desktop NAS.

Some may well opt to take advantage of SSD caching, accessible if SSDs are installed instead of hard disks in up to two of the four bays. However, some caution is needed as this reduces capacity and will only improve performance for applications with heavy I/O requirements. It had a negligible impact on our simple file sharing tests.

Verdict

We liked

The TS-470 is an impressive desktop NAS with an enviable build quality that inspires confidence in the technology contained within. Performance is well up to expectations and can be further enhanced either by applying a choice of port trunking options across the four Gigabit network ports or by upgrading to 10GbE.

Storage can be expanded and with two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports the TS-470 is well equipped to support external backup devices and printers.

Cloud-based setup is a great feature and the latest QTS operating system is both functional and easy to get to grips with. Add in some of the optional apps and you can effectively replace a general purpose server with the QNAP appliance.

We disliked

Price is the biggest drawback with the TS-470, as similar NAS appliances are available for a lot less. The 10GbE network option initially seemed like a good idea but that, too, proved expensive, putting it beyond the budget of many small businesses. Moreover, those that can afford it are more likely to be after rack-mount rather than desktop storage products.

The SSD caching option is another nice touch but can seriously lower capacity and may not deliver as much of a boost as expected.

Final verdict

It's hard to argue against the QNAP TS-470 as a fast and very functional small business NAS appliance with storage expansion and networking options more usually associated with enterprise products. Unfortunately these add further to the already high price of the basic appliance and are unlikely to appeal to more than a handful of more demanding buyers.

Make no mistake, the QNAP TS-470 is a good NAS product that performs well, and it has lots of useful functionality beyond basic file sharing, but others can do much the same for less money.

A quick and very capable four-bay small business NAS with lots of features beyond basic file sharing plus a couple of enterprise-class upgrade options.

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