| QNAP TS-419P Turbo NAS 4-Bay Network Storage Server |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Network | |
| Written by Olin Coles | |
| Thursday, 19 November 2009 | |
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QNAP TS-419P ConclusionAlthough our rating and final score are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at different points in time. While we do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that would render our rating obsolete. Please do not base your purchases solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating at the time of publication. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate. The first area we rate is performance, and in regard to the QNAP TS-419P Turbo NAS 4-Bay server we consider all other NAS products in comparison. The QNAP TS-419P is a read-oriented NAS server, with very good performance in fetching small to large files. Our best read-from performance was 50.3 MB/s using Jumbo Frame on a single-disk setup, and 41.7 at normal MTU. Write-to performance was decent but less impressive, and offered 32.3 MB/s with Jumbo Frame and 25.6 MB/s without it. Asking the QNAP TS-419P to combine three hard drives into a RAID-5 array didn't help matters, and the read performance dropped to 43.5 MB/s at 9000-MTU and 37.0 without Jumbo Frame. Writes did worse, and with Jumbo Frame it scored 21.7 MB/s and 20.0 MB/s without. Although the QNAP TS-419P shares the same 512MB of DDR2 and Marvell 6281 'Kirkwood' controller chip as the single bay TS-119, it seems that having three disk bays makes a small difference. QNAP took a new approach on the appearance of the TS-419P, and the end result is a very strong product destined to command any environment it's placed into. The Titanium-colored brushed-steel chassis is more than enough to protect against impact damage, while the textured flat-black bezel will avoid fine scratches unlike glossy plastic surfaces. The titanium finish is both attractive and fingerprint friendly, while the front bezel looks good and maintains straight-forward ergonomics. An external AC power supply 'brick' is easily replaceable if there's ever a problem, but thankfully QNAP offers a warranty for those willing to be patient with their service.
If you're familiar with storage area network devices or large pedestal storage servers, then the TS-419P will be a welcomed appliance to the network. With four SATA drive bays worth of storage, there will be enough versatility for two RAID-1 sets or a single RAID-5 or -6 array. QNAP includes two network interfaces for separate networks or redundant failover connectivity, and two eSATA ports for adding additional external storage devices to the NAS. The vented drive trays help focus airflow through the chassis, and the vent holes along the left will prove helpful in keeping the entire using cool. The real credit for functionality is the GUI user interface, which turns a simple NAS into several different shades of workstation and server computer. There's a lot of value in the QNAP TS-419P Turbo NAS 4-Bay RAID server for the corporate Enterprise environment, and as of late March 2010 the TS-419P was listed at NewEgg for $599.99. Considering the cost to performance ratio, along with the wealth of features the entire Turbo NAS series provides, the TS-459 Pro is a great jack-of-all-trades network storage appliance with top-level transfer speeds. For storage-centric environments that need the absolute best, QNAP offers the TS-809 Pro is still available for $1700 without drives. SOHO users might not need four or more drive bays, and home users could feel more comfortable with the single-bay QNAP TS-119 for $300. We've tested all of these QNAP network storage solutions, and user interface allows nearly unlimited possibilities. The QNAP TS-419P Turbo NAS server is going to be an excellent alternative to small data clusters or a file server stuffed with drives. The additional functionality should certainly not go overlooked, because it could save your company money in other departments or cut the cost of buying additional equipment for your home business. The TS-419P offers four bays of SATA storage, allowing RAID configuration possibilities most other all-in-one products cannot offer, and satisfies the storage-space intensive corporate market as well as SOHO power-users at the same time. If you're an IT professional looking to offer a network-attached mass-storage server with redundant data arrays and network failover features, the QNAP TS-419P is great for storage-centric operational needs with a low startup cost. Pros:
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