Qnap TS-559 Pro+: Familiar Network Storage With A New CPU

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It’s a good idea to use two CPU cores to speed up multiple drives in RAID 5 or 6 arrays and it’s even better to increase clock speeds. We put Qnap's TS-559 Pro+ with an Atom D525 dual-core CPU to the test: is it any faster than devices with Atom D510?

Benchmark Results: Multimedia

For a better overview, we summarize the results sorted by RAID modes. For the purposes of comparison, we include the Synology DS1010+ in our charts, which we ran with firmware version 3.0.

In a direct comparison to its predecessor, the 1.66 GHz Intel Atom D510-equipped TS-559 Pro, the 1.8 GHz TS-559 Pro+ demonstrates an increase of just under 5 MB/s. In the other RAID modes, our testing also returns elevated data transfer values. However, as these range from 0.6 and 3.8 MB/s, they are not significant compared to the overall transfer rate.

More distinct differences are observable when looking at sequential reads. In RAID modes 0, 1, and 5, the speed increases by about 5 MB/s due to the higher processor clock speed. In the RAID 6 configuration we noted an increase of almost 17 MB/s. Apparently, the faster processor has more of an impact at double redundancy.

When transferring many small files ranging from four bytes to 102 KB, we see that the "+" model consistently delivers higher transfer rates than the Atom D510-equipped model. The increases were between 1.1 MB/s (RAID 1) and 2.7 MB/s (RAID 5) and are therefore not at all significant.

More benchmark results can be found in our image gallery.

Marcel Binder
Marcel Binder
32 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hmp_goose
    I remember a time when teh Internet was going to have hyperlinks embedded in articles for clowns like me to look stuff up with.

    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?
    Reply
  • barmaley
    Ok, I don't get it. Can someone explain to me why this $1000 device that comes with no storage is better than a $500 Linux box you can build yourself that will do everything this does and more plus it will come with tons of storage too...
    Reply
  • Did you do Gbit Link Aggregation for the tests? Seeing as it has 2 of'em?
    Reply
  • sharpless78
    barmaleyOk, I don't get it. Can someone explain to me why this $1000 device that comes with no storage is better than a $500 Linux box you can build yourself that will do everything this does and more plus it will come with tons of storage too...
    Ease of use. Very few users have the time, will and knowledge to build a NAS.
    Reply
  • aaron88_7
    barmaleyOk, I don't get it. Can someone explain to me why this $1000 device that comes with no storage is better than a $500 Linux box you can build yourself that will do everything this does and more plus it will come with tons of storage too...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.
    Reply
  • aaron88_7
    Oops, I meant to write this is better than a $500 Linux box
    Reply
  • dealcorn
    I am not aware of any 5 bay hot swap itx case that could be used as a basis for a diy project with comparable functionality. Chenbro can get you to 4 at the cost of no pcie support. No pcie means no esata with a supermicro atom itx board.

    There are ways to go with ATX cases, but that is not really comparable.
    Reply
  • radiumburn
    but with that $500 linux box you will force yourself to learn something.. and in the end isn't it all about the pursuit of knowledge! haha well I admin a few linux servers so I'd save the cash and make my own for myself/work instead. On that note if you want I will make them for $999 and free shipping with initial phone setup!!! save a dollar!
    Reply
  • a-nano-moose
    How can you compare them when you are using different hard drives than the earlier tests?
    Reply
  • cknobman
    Sharpless78Ease of use. Very few users have the time, will and knowledge to build a NAS.
    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.
    Reply