Introduction:

Qnap TS-409 Pro

It’s pretty easy to describe Qnap, their motto gets their message across clearly. “Backup to avoid disaster”. Network access servers, external hard drives. The song “These are some of my favourite things” always springs to mind. They market data security, and Qnap makes a point to focus on video surveillance, a combination that just makes sense.

Qnap TS-409 Pro

Features

A welcome

Over the last year or so, I have had the opportunity to use and review many different Network access servers, and external storage systems. I’ve watched the price of these units take a nose dive, the features list double and the numbers of companies competing follow closely behind.

Packing

Plastic wrap

Manuals and parts

I see a NAS server as common place, almost a required piece of hardware these days. But if you’ve never heard of them, here is a quick intro.

NAS (Network Attached Storage) are servers that you plug into your network, and use to store/backup your files. Generally, there is a web server built in that allows you to configure and monitor the status of the drives, and manage who has access to your files. Most are compatible with windows/mac  networking, and also have FTP servers. The features added after than can vary, but most now include media servers, RAID, Print servers and almost anything else you would want in a small standalone file server.

For my own introduction to Qnap, they have sent the TS-409 pro. It is a 4 bay NAS, with all those basics I’ve just mentioned.  The guts of it are powered by a 500MHZ CPU, with 256MB of ram, and 8MB of flash memory for the operating system. 500 Mhz might not seem like a lot these days, but the low power usage, optimized design is more than enough when you pair it up with a custom light Linux installation.

Stuff

Front door

Sleds

Features:

I’ll let Qnap’s website list the rest of the 409’s features instead of rewording them all myself. But even then, this is only a small part of the feature list. If you need some bathroom reading, go finish the list off on their website here. For the rest of the hardware specs, go here.

        FTP Server

Having troubles with sending large files by e-mail due to the limited capacity? You can establish your own FTP server by using TS-409 Pro. You can manage the access authority of the FTP server and share your files with your friends or customers easily in a few steps.

      Encrypted Remote Replication

Encrypted remote replication provides high level of data protection. Files can be backed up from TS-409 Pro to other QNAP NAS products in remote locations. Advanced options including data compression, block-level incremental backup, and data synchronization are supported to optimize the bandwidth and time for data backup.

      Web Server with Built-in phpMyAdmin

With the built-in phpMyAdmin, Joomla! and dual support of MySQL and SQLite, SMB & SOHO users can easily set up their own web server. With the editable php.ini support, there is no need of going through all the hassles of setting up a web server. You can either develop programs by yourself or download a variety of open-sourced applications, such as online shops, forums, blogs, etc., over the Internet.

      MySQL Server

TS-409 Pro is the most affordable choice as a standalone database server for system integrators. It can be flexibly applied in various deployments such as a database server of another web server in remote site or as an additional backup database server to achieve system redundancy.

        Printer Server

You can share your printer device over the network by simply connecting USB printers to TS-409 Pro's USB port (Max. 3 sets) and enabling the printer sharing function.

The key function of UPS is to provide the power for a period of time during power failure. TS-409 Pro supports both APC and MGE UPS devices which help users store the data in time and avoid critical data loss when power outage occurs during data transfer.

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