Home Reviews Peripherals QNAP TS-269 Pro review

QNAP TS-269 Pro review

1086
0
qnap ts269pro product
qnap ts269pro product

Most businesses and homes still need a place to store digital files. Documents, photos, videos and more increase month by month.

The QNAP TS-269 Pro is a 2-bay NAS and is based on a dual-core 2.13 GHz Intel Atom D2700 `Cedar View’ processor, it comes with 1 GB of DDR3 RAM (Expandable up to 3GB) and support for hot-swappable 2.5 and 3.5″ SATA drives

The QNAP TS-269 Pro is a lot more than just a NAS. It also includes Cloud Storage and a remote backup solution as well as being digital home entertainment storage centre. It also has its own mobile apps called QMobile and VMobile, both compatible with iPhone and Android devices.

The enclosure offers iSCSI/IP-SAN storage with a variety of apps and plug-ins that can be used in either a business environment or at home. It offers outstanding virtualisation opportunities through VMware and Citrix capabilities and is compatible with Microsoft Hyper-V environments.

Inside the box you get the TS-269 Pro; CDROM; Two Ethernet cables; quick install guide; 8 hard drive screws (6×2.5″ HD screws as well); power cord and adaptor and two keys for locking the hard drive bays.

The QNAP TS-269 Pro can either take 3.5″ and 2.5″ disks without the need for an adaptor. There are two Ethernet ports for link aggregation to improve speed and offer failover support should a connection fail.

There are dual USB3 and dual USB2 ports on the rear along with a single eSata connector. There is also a HDMI connection while not functional at present it is for video out and would allow a display connection for easy access and setup in the future or perhaps as a standalone monitoring station when using IP cameras. Although the spec sheet says this is reserved for `maintenance’.

On the front of the device you have status lights for the HDDs, Ethernet and eSata. A power button and a one touch button coupled with a USB2 port. Here you can plug a flashdrive in, hit the button and create a fast copy of its contents.

The build quality of the TS-269 Pro is one of the best we have seen. The unit feels very durable and well-constructed in hand. Outside the black fascia, the sides are constructed out of silver brushed aluminium One side of which features inconspicuous ventilation. The bottom of the NAS has rubber feet to decrease vibration.

The hot-swappable containers slide in and out easily and hard drives were easy to secure. These containers then lock into place to avoid accidental removal and theft. The unit itself sports a lock hole for securing it.

The QNAP TS-269 Pro is actually easy to setup, following the steps on the CD

Alternatively, plug the NAS into the network, find out its IP address, type the address into a web browser and follow the onscreen prompts.

After loading the latest firmware from QNAP’s website, you can choose how the hard drives are to be setup. The TS-269 Pro supports single disk configurations, as well as JBOD, RAID 0 and RAID 1 – all of which are easy to set up under the Disk Management tab.

They also give a simple description of what the configurations mean. Like many other NAS devices, the QNAP TS-269 Pro comes with data backup software called QNAP Remote Replicator. This works really satisfactory and has numerous options to suit most backup needs.

The latest version of the software, V3.7 further improves the device’s feature set and providing new added value features for business users. They boast Windows ACL support adding high-tech shared folder permission capabilities to support IT managers with a large number of users and have really developed the user folder experience.

 

Rather than having to create user personal folders one by one, now whenever a user logs in for the first time a folder is automatically created and subsequently setup as a mapped drive if required. Saving time and subsequently money.

There are several apps available for managing the unit and its contents. Qfile allows you to browse and manage files of varying formats while Qmanager allows you to remote manage the unit.

One feature in particular is the MyCloudNAS service that streamlines the process of publishing contents in the Turbo NAS from the internet. It provides a web-based portal for file management and access, and supports backing up important data from the Turbo NAS to other cloud storage providers such as Amazon S3, ElephantDrive, and Symform. This is a great feature that allows the user to make backups to the cloud. Providing redundancy against loss, theft, fire etc.

The Surveillance Station Pro supports over a thousand IP Cameras, and is compatible with ONVIF/PSIA specifications. Administrators can buy additional licenses to increase the number of channels based on their surveillance needs. Also, iOS and Android( users can install the VMobile app to monitor the surveillance channels anytime and anywhere with the functions of camera live view, motion-detection recording, PTZ control, instant event notifications, video snapshot, and advanced playback and search functions.

The TS-269 Pro is one of the best performing devices we have seen in a dual bay enclosure to date. It brings a copious amount of power in the form of the new Intel Atom D2700 Cedarwood 2.13GHz chip coupled with 1GB memory. Rated for up to 220MB read/write, actual performance will vary according to set up and hard drives.

If you are looking for a powerful and well-built server to provide your business with the reliability it needs, the TS-269 Pro is one to go for. Custom-built PC server may come in cheaper, the superior software and feature set of the unit more than makes up for this, especially in the ease of setup and speed of deployment.