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QNAP TS-469L High-performance 4-bay NAS Server for Home & SOHO Review

Storage/NAS by stefan @ 2013-03-13

The TS-469L is another powerful NAS from QNAP aimed at home and small business users, equipped with a HDMI interface that can be connected to our Full-HD TV. Thanks to its HD Station function and it’s modules, we can transform the server into a fully-featured media center for browsing the web, playing media content with XBMC or even for navigating through the Turbo NAS OS interface, without the need of using a PC. As extra bundle, we can acquire separately the useful QNAP Media Center remote or extra RAM for a total of 3GB.

A Closer Look Part II

On the top side of the chassis we will find two stickers; one comes with the Intel Atom logo and the other lets us know of the HDD boot sequence:

In the front we will find four HDD trays already preinstalled into the bays, a LCD display placeholder (yes, only a placeholder since this model does not come with it, but the chassis frontal frame remains with the same design), some activity LEDs and several buttons:

The small LEDs are for Status, LAN, USB and eSATA interfaces:

The Power button is located near the Copy button with an USB 2.0 port:

On the left side of the NAS we’ll find a ventilation grill:

The right side does not come with the same ventilation holes:

As the ASUSTOR NAS, the TS-469L has the power supply located inside the chassis; this model uses a 90mm as opposed to the 120mm we have found on the ASUSTOR:

The QNAP NAS comes with plenty of connectivity options like two eSATA ports, 4xUSB 2.0 and 2xUSB 3.0, two RJ45 ports, one VGA and one HDMI for video out. The Reset button and a Kensington lock port are also located here:

On the bottom side of the chassis we will find 4 rubber feet:

Comment from jmke @ 2013/03/13

excellent review and also very interesting product. It can almost replace a dedicated server with all the extra functionality (itunes server, rsync, external backup, time machine,...)
especially interested in the XBMC plugin, how well does it work?

Did you try to play some notoriously difficult high Mbps samples?
http://www.auby.no/files/video_tests/

the first one in the list is a killer

Birds mkv 1080p h264 high profile 4.1 40mbps none none Direct bluray (or hddvd) remux
(comes from BBC Planet Earth HDDVD/Bluray series)

Comment from Stefan Mileschin @ 2013/03/13

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

Hi John,

I have tried some HD movies, but also some 1080P rips and they worked without a flaw. Haven't tried though very high bitrate movies so far

Comment from Stefan Mileschin @ 2013/03/13

Update:

Ran Birds -> no issues
Ran hddvd -> no issues
Ran Monsters -> no issues

Comment from jmke @ 2013/03/14

excellent news that!

that XBMC $99 Ouya console at this stage seems to have issues with certain codecs: http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/f...onsole-103422/

Comment from Stefan Mileschin @ 2013/03/14

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

excellent news that!

that XBMC $99 Ouya console at this stage seems to have issues with certain codecs: http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/f...onsole-103422/

Indeed, the Ouya seems to have very high GPU/CPU usage even in the dashboard screen of the XBMC, which usually means that the hardware is not that powerful (had the same experience with the Android mini-computers that I have tested in the past).

Comment from jmke @ 2013/03/14

in the menu's high CPU usage doesn't mean video playback will be bad, as soon as the video started, it can talk to dedicated acceleration hardware and CPU usage will drop. Check in the youtube the 1080p MKV H264 sample, it plays fluently http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...4j9hfLE#t=375s , I hope XBMC can tweak the android edition to make the Ouya a valid alternative for a complete HTPC.

if they fail, this QNAP certainly seems to be more than capable of the job

Comment from Stefan Mileschin @ 2013/03/14

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

Software support must be indeed offered, otherwise Ouya could not handle HD video at all without the GPU kicking in. I had the same experience with the two Android systems, and when running video it was like playing a slideshow (when the video ran, the GUI was also sluggish and it was also difficult to exit playback). Considering how fast Chinese HDMI sticks with ARM evolve (and their mini-PC form factors), it will be hard for Ouya to keep-up hardware-wise. These mini-PCs are in the $70-75 dollar range, so about the same as Quya without the controllers.

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