Sum ‘n’ substance:

Thumbs up: Rugged construction; loads of handy features; very fast throughput speed; smart web-interface; supports hot-swappable RAID configurations.

Thumbs down: Boot time is lengthy; noisy exhaust fan; no LCD screen provided; complex to set-up and requires networking know- how while using it; it is expensive.

Inside the trunk: Intel atom 1.6 GHz; Dram of 1GB; flash memory of 128 MB; supports a maximum capacity of 4TB; data transfer rate of  300 Mbps; storage controller: hard drive and RAID; controller interface type: serial ATA 300;  Data link protocol (connectivity): Hi-Speed USB , Gigabit Ethernet; Transport protocol FTP , NTP , SMB , DHCP , TCP/IP; integrated network adaptor; power supply of AC120/230 volts.

The whiz kid speaks: To maximize the benefits from  the NAS sever, the Qnap dual bay packs a lots of features, provided you don’t mind spending on separate Hard-drives and also possess a fair amount of networking know- how.

Razzle-dazzle: The rectangular cabinet has a brushed metal finish to it and the construction is pretty sturdy and rugged. The TS-239 can support to SATA hard disks each having a maximum capacity of 2TB each. That brings the capacity to a grand total of 4TB. The initial setup of the TS239 requires a Phillips screwdriver and the firmware and the instruction manual.  The tech enthusiast or a geek as some might call them will have a ball of a time installing it, while the regular folk might have a tough time to get it up and running. The removable front access drive trays are neatly organizes and each tray comes with a latch to prevent accidental or unauthorized access. On the front panels you have the high- speed ports and the copy button which copies the entire flash drive. There is no LCD provided but the TS-239 come with a VGA output which can be connected to a monitor. At the back, there are two more USB ports and e-SATA ports and each supports additional storage (for backup purposes) and can also support keyboards and mice.

Inside dope:
The QNAP TS-239 can function like a full ledged computer. It has a huge list features that require the internet. to use the web interface the Nap’s software is included or you can simply type the devices IP address in the browser. The intuitive web interface is reliable and is some what similar to the user-interface of the Windows operating Systems. The QNAP also consists of basic NAS server features that allow you to use it as a FTP server. Then the list continued with an iTunes server, a DNLA media server, a Print server (supports three printers).

The other exceptional features included the Download Station, a Surveillance Station, an in built iSCSI target service, AES 256-bit volume-based encryption and dual-Ethernet. All the features worked brilliantly but don’t expect the dual- Ethernet to increase the speed, coz it doesn’t, it does however, help in managing the load. the TS239 supports the STMB protocol and the MAC operating systems as well.  As far as performance goes the TS239, was simply excellent. It clocked speeds of 292.4Mbps in reading and 176.6Mbps in writing, which is much faster than the My Book World Edition but falls short when compared to the Synology DS209+, which clocked speeds of 322Mbps for reading and 240Mbps in writing.

Nitty- gritty: An honest opinion about the QNAP TS230 would be that, there are no actual complaints about it as such, but I’d like to point out that it is steeply priced at $500, without any storage. This means you have to buy your hard-drives or other storage capacities separately which will increase your budget, incredibly. Plus you may need a crash course in networking (add that in your budget too). Other than that, it offers a good feature list with an outstanding performance.

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