As with the housing, Qnap's software displays no weaknesses and demonstrates what a modern NAS device can do. A detailed discussion of its functionality is beyond the scope of this article, but we’ll provide a quick summary: the functions leave almost nothing to be desired. Experienced users should accomplish the rapid configuration through a Web browser in a few minutes.
For inexperienced users, the Web interface of a new TS-559 Pro+ presents an installation wizard that guides the user in six steps through the initial configuration. The name of the NAS server and the IP address are entered here along with indications of which network, file, multimedia, and Web server services are to be activated. The Qnap TS-559 Pro+ accommodates heterogeneous networks and supports access to AppleTalk and NFS via SMB/CIFS. Network users can access content over an iTunes or UPnP multimedia server and Web presence is enabled by the integrated LAMP servers (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). The decision whether or not to activate only the Apache server or the MySQL server is left to the user.
The firmware supports RAID 0, 1, 5, and 6, of which the latter two can be operated with a spare drive in a hot-swap configuration. For professionals and businesses, it is possible to integrate the Qnap TS-559 Pro+ with a network as an iSCSI device. The TS-559 Pro+ supports the virtualization solutions VMware vSphere (ESX/ESXi 4.0 and higher), Citrix XenServer (5.6), and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
If you want to test the administrative interface before buying the device, we recommend taking a look at the live demo provided by Qnap. There you can use your own data to try out the system prior to purchasing it, including the administration interface, the Web file manager, as well as the download and multimedia stations.
Brief overview of specifications
| Processor | Intel Atom D525 1.8 GHz dual core processor |
|---|---|
| RAM | 1 GB DDR2 RAM |
| Flash-Drive | 512 MB DOM |
| Hard Drive | 5 x 2.5/3.5" SATA |
| HDD Bays | Five bays, connectable with hot-swap capability |
| RAID Modes | RAID 0, 1, 5, 5 + hot-swap, 6, 6 + hotswap |
| File System | ext3, ext4 (internal hard drives) ext3, ext4, NTFS, FAT32, HFS+ (external hard drives) |
| LAN Connections | 2 x gigabit Ethernet |
| USB | 5 x USB 2.0 (front: 1; rear: 4) |
| eSATA | 2 x eSATA (rear) |
| LCD Display | Mono-LCD-Display with Enter-/Select-buttons for initial configuration |
| Dimensions | 185 mm (H) x 210 mm (W) x 235 mm (D) |
| Weight | Empty housing: 5.1 kg (11.25 lbs) |
| Other | VGA connection |
| Fan | Temperature-controlled fan, 120 mm |



C'mon! I'm a knuckle-dragging FPS-player: I don't know what "SMB/CIFS protocols" stands for, let alone good for! Isn't there at lest a related article?
Ease of use. Very few users have the time, will and knowledge to build a NAS.
First off, it isn't better than a $500 Linux box. Linux requires Linux knowledge and you have to provide the software you need yourself - that costs small businesses money. This also offers failover and load balancing with its dual NIC card that you wouldn't have in a $500 Linux box.
The main thing is ease of installation. You don't need a highly technical person to get this box up and running and quickly backing up your companies data, whereas a Linux machine will require additional staff that a small business normally would not have on hand and have to pay to come onsite.
For $1000 I'd like one just to play around with myself, though it clearly is not targeted for home users.
There are ways to go with ATX cases, but that is not really comparable.
A NAS is a computer. Heck you can even build a PC put Windows 7/XP Home edition on it and turn it into a NAS all for ~$500 (and thats even with 2tb storage in raid 1, heck that is what I have done and it works great and I am even using a low power AMD CPU that is powerful enough to actually be useful rather than a pathetic atom cpu).
There is no ease of use factor or amount of time on earth that is worth $500+ dollars.
Agreed - I have been running a NAS based on an Atom processor for about two years now (but it's also a RADIUS server, SVN server, etc). However not everyone is technically capable and they are sometimes willing to pay for something off the shelf rather than putting it together themselves.
It's IMO a choice between fire and forget (if one of the thecus boxes fails the plant can replace it themselves) and an ongoing support need. For me that's worth the incremental cost.
Additionally, you'll be going with software raid if you roll your own (hardware raid cards would blow any cost advantage entirely) and then you're going to have to be really conscious of processing power required for solid performance. That means time spent tweaking, optimizing, and in component selection that will more than overtake the hardware cost differential if you cost your time at a reasonable rate.
This can be solved by purchasing a $20 NIC and adding it to the Linux system.
The important thing to note is that if you've got the time and inclination to learn to setup and administer the system, a Linux box will give you more bang for the buck compared to systems like the QNap or Thecus. the N7700's work great as a single host box (or for archive use), but I've not seen the kind of performance that could support even a 2 host cluster. You could get that out of an Openfiler box with some tweaking (though an Openfiler box with that performance would probably cost a grand or so with required peripherals like a dual nic and hot swap SATA chassis).
You may find them under $300!