QNAP is good value-for-money

[fribse]

Having used QNAP for years on end now, I've gone through the TS-401, the TS-509, the TS-639 and latest the TS-659 Pro II.
So far I have no regrets, it's stable, it does what is needed and most of all, if curiousity gets the better of me, I can venture into a myriad of addons. I also have a small survailance unit running, and running unattended for a lot of years as well, it has even given us the possibility to prosecute for vandalism once.

The real challenge is to find the right unit for the job, it's all a question of weighing CPU power against power consumption and disc capacity.
The x10 series are very powerconservative, but is also quite low in CPU specs, no problems for running the NAS, but putting heavy addons on the unit is not a good idea.
Moving to the x39 and x59 series gives a bit higher CPU load, while still keping the power at a reasonable low level.
If real CPU power is needed, a model with an Intel CPU is needed, ie. the x09, but that uses quite a bit more power.
Keeping that in mind, I've had my own website running as a Joomla installation with MySQL, and webtrees (geneaology) software running on the units without any problems, maybe except the TS-401 which was a bit small for MySQL servers.

I've used or tried a lot of the addons (QPKG's) offered both by QNAP and third parties, I've also tried (so far without luck) to create my own QPKG for creating automated database backups, it's so easy to work with the unit as a lot of functions are standard linux funcionality, and no blocking is made for the user to modify the unit.

I've also introduced the large QNAP's at my joby, so at the moment we have 12 TS-809's running here for use as backup storage, and on quite a few of our sites we have VS-4008 running for survaillance. The unis are absolutely up to professional standards and requirements.
Very easy to integrate against, and the VS-series has a huge amount of supported cameras.

Of course it's the never ending race on features for some between QNAP and it's competitors, but I have the impression that QNAP has changed it's focus a bit from just pilling features on, to making sure that the features work properly before they are released. QNAP doesn't have to be bleading edge, with all the caveats that entail, let the competitors hurt with that, but having the sound quality as a base to build on is essential.

[sgatke]

Hi Fribse

Thank you for your brief walkthru of the different Qnap models.
I am really glad to hear that other companies are also using Qnap units for backup storage. The units are so easy to set up and are very reliable. Combined with the quite attractive pricetag and the wealth of possibilities available, Qnap units are an excellent choice not only for home-use but certainly also for professional business use.

Cheers.