QNAP TS-531X High-performance 5-bay NAS Review

Storage/NAS by stefan @ 2017-01-05

The TS-531X NAS from QNAP was designed for low power consumption and can be successfully used in both home and SMB environments thanks to its multiple connectivity options (10 Gigabit SFP+ LAN ports for fast access in business environments, while the two RJ45 Gigabit LAN ports are ready to be used on a broad range of machines). The NAS does have an Alpine AL-314 Quad-core 1.4GHz ARM Cortex A-15 Processor at its heart and the pre-built models do arrive in 2GB and 8GB configurations; the system also does come with no less than three USB 3.0 ports for connecting external devices, has a free expansion slot and we can install up to 5 3.5’’ or 2.5’’ drives on it.

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Product Features Part I

Quad-core CPU, 2GB/8GB RAM and hardware-accelerated encryption

 

The TS-531X is equipped with a quad-core Annapurna Labs, an Amazon company Alpine AL-314 1.4GHZ processor by Amazon® and 2GB/8GB DDR3 RAM (upgradable to 16GB). Coupled with SATA 6Gb/s, two 10GbE SFP+ LAN ports and two Gigabit LAN ports, the TS-531X delivers up to 1723 MB/s throughput. The TS-531X also features hardware-accelerated encryption to deliver up to 298 MB/s throughput with AES 256-bit volume-based data encryption, boosting system performance & security while ensuring the safety of sensitive business data stored in the NAS.

 

10GbE-ready with built-in 10GbE SFP+ ports

 

The TS-531X provides not only two Gigabit Ethernet ports but also two 10GbE SFP+ ports to fully support 10GbE high-speed networks, delivering lightning-fast throughput for businesses that demand higher bandwidth for virtualization and fast backup & restoration for an ever-growing amount of data. The extra PCIe slot allows for the installation of a third 10GbE port for flexible high-speed network deployment. Coupled with its large storage capacity potential, the 10GbE-ready TS-531X is perfect for companies to store massive amounts of data and excel in fast data transmission.

 

SSD cache acceleration

 

The TS-531X supports SSD caching to greatly boost the IOPS performance of storage volumes and increase operational efficiency. It is perfect for improving the overall workflow of IOPS-demanding applications and allows the best of both cost and performance by combining SSDs with HDDs.

 

VJBOD: Maximize storage utilization across multiple QNAP NAS

 

Besides using expansion enclosures, there is an additional option to expand NAS storage capacity. QNAP VJBOD (Virtual JBOD) is network-based JBOD, allowing you to expand the storage of a QNAP NAS with multiple QNAP NAS units. The TS-531X offers great potential for economically expanding the storage of other QNAP NAS with VJBOD, and to create virtual storage pools and volumes on virtual disks for operating NAS services.

 

Rapidly deploy IoT apps with Container Station

 

QNAP Container Station exclusively integrates LXC and Docker® lightweight virtualization technologies, allowing you to operate multiple isolated Linux® systems on the TS-531X as well as download apps from the built-in Docker Hub® Registry. It supports container import/export and permission settings, and features an informative dashboard and flexible user interface for you to manage multiple containers. What's more, Container Station provides an ideal platform with countless hands-on containerized apps for developers to easily apply, rapidly develop, and conveniently deploy IoT applications. Simply search for "IoT" in Container Station, acquire proper containers, and create your diverse IoT applications.

 

QmailAgent: a mailroom center for your private cloud

 

QmailAgent is an online email client that helps you manage multiple email accounts, allowing you to access all of your emails and to easily switch between different accounts. It provides complete functionality for composing, reading and organizing emails. You can even attach files, photos and documents directly from the TS-531X when composing emails. iOS® and Android™ users can use the QmailClient app to quickly check multiple email accounts with mobile devices, and to browse & send emails using the QmailAgent on their TS-531X. You can use QmailAgent together with Qsirch, which supports searching through the .eml files stored on the TS-531X, to make searching through and managing massive amounts of emails much easier.

 

Qcontactz: easily manage huge amounts of contacts on the NAS

 

Qcontactz is a dedicated app for centrally storing and managing contact information for colleagues, business partners, family, and more. A near-limitless number of contacts can be stored on the TS-531X, with the ability to sort them into groups and to encrypt sensitive/confidential contact information. Qcontactz supports manually adding contact information and importing from multiple Google accounts, CSV files, and vCARD 3.0 files. Qcontactz can also export contacts as CSV or vCARD 3.0 files. Important and frequently-used contacts are also automatically learned by Qcontactz for greater organization, and a smart search function is provided. Qcontactz offers snapshot backups that enable you to revert to a previous version of your contacts list according to your needs. A companion app for iPhone and Android phones is also available for transferring contacts from your phone to your NAS and to remotely access all of the your contacts stored on the NAS.

 

All-new Notes Station 3: handy private cloud notepad featuring collaborative writing function

 

The revamped Notes Station features an optimized interface for a smoother user experience. Notes Station allows users to collectively write documents and helps users to track changes by keeping the revision history of documents. Notes Station provides useful image-editing tools, helping you create well-designed documents. You can also create sharing links to share documents in real time. Documents can be encrypted to prevent unauthorized access, and snapshot backup is provided to retain different versions of documents edited at different time periods. With its importing/exporting and full-site backup functions, Notes Station supports backing up your documents to local or remote QNAP NAS.

 

Note: Notes Station 3 will be available from QTS 4.3.

 

QTS - Simple and efficient

 

Thanks to the intuitive QTS user interface, your NAS experience is smarter, smoother and spectacular. Its modern flat design streamlines loading times, and the intelligent desktop allows you to quickly find desired functions, create desktop shortcuts or group shortcuts, monitor important system information on a real-time basis, and open multiple application windows to run multiple tasks concurrently, bringing greater working efficiency. QTS breaks the barriers of devices, platforms and geography to bring optimized cloud experiences to you.

 

Cross-platform file sharing, centralized data storage

 

The TS-531X supports SMB/CIFS, NFS, and AFP protocols for file sharing across Windows®, Mac®, Linux®/UNIX® networks. Data, logs and ISO images of CDs and DVDs can be centrally stored on the TS-531X and protected by an integrated antivirus solution. The Windows AD® and LDAP services enable system administrators to configure user permissions by using an existing Windows AD server, LDAP server or built-in LDAP service. The TS-531X supports SAMBA v4 and can act as a Windows domain controller to manage privilege settings.

 

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