The Device
In renewing its TS-x59 series and specifically the TS-559 Pro, it was easy for Qnap to avoid mistakes. Take the quality casing and the interior of the previous series, add a mature and proven firmware, and exchange the processor for a newer model running 133 MHz faster. The move is of course evolutionary in nature, and it's a fairly logical step forward. From Qnap's perspective, simply adopting a new processor makes sense; it didn't incur any development costs, and the existing firmware is ambivalent to whether its commands are executed by an Atom D510 or an Atom D525 running slightly quicker.
The Processor
The remaining question is precisely how much of a benefit is offered by the Intel Atom D525 dual-core processor. Considering the 133 MHz clock speed increase on the TS-559 Pro+, the boost to data transfer rates seems rather low. Quantifiably-higher transfer rates are mainly achieved in RAID 6 operation and where the transfer of data happens sequentially. But if a TS-559 Pro+ replaces a TS-559 Pro in a real-world environment, we'd bet that the difference wouldn't be noticed. Whether or not the processor makes itself evident depends on the application and user profiles; it's too small of a change to impress, though.
Recommendation
Currently, the TS-559 Pro and the faster TS-559 Pro+ are listed on Qnap's Web site. Both devices are also available from online vendors, and a closer look reveals a price difference of about $100 between the two.
Already priced up around $1000 without storage, these five-bay units are expensive. Near-term, users who've been toying with the idea of buying a TS-559 Pro will want to weigh the lower price with slightly lower performance in certain situations. Long-term, though, the TS-559 Pro will likely disappear (it was already deactivated on Newegg's site), only leaving the newer unit. It's 1.8 GHz processor doesn't offer any speed miracles on Windows networks, but a higher clock is always welcome, especially when it comes to the little Atom CPU.
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!