ASUSTOR, Terramaster, and QNAP Introduce New NAS Units

The network-attached storage (NAS) market had a break-out decade within the 2010s, with numerous distributors attempting to get a slice of the pie. Manufacturers equivalent to EMC / Lenovo and Thecus have fallen by the wayside, and even established storage distributors like Seagate determined to drop out of the market. QNAP and Synology have held agency within the industrial off-the-shelf (COTS) NAS market meant for house customers, prosumers, SOHO, and SMB installations. ASUSTOR (backed by ASUS) has additionally been often releasing NAS models since their first product appeared in late 2012. TerraMaster launched their first NAS across the identical time, however opted to focus extra on the direct-attached storage section all through the 2010s. The model has proven renewed curiosity within the NAS market over the previous few years. Regardless of the cut-throat competitors within the COTS NAS market, some Asian distributors are trying to get a toe-hold after establishing themselves in allied markets. UGREEN, a shopper electronics model recognized for its energy banks, chargers, USB adapters, and docks has additionally introduced its entry into the NAS market, however we are going to cowl that in a separate article.

Asustor, Buffalo, QNAP, Synology, TerraMaster, and Western Digital are presently the principle choices obtainable for customers trying to buy a COTS NAS for SOHO / SMB use. Out of those, Buffalo and WD replace their {hardware} choices solely as soon as each 3 or 4 years. The others have a extra common cadence to their portfolio additions whereas persevering with to keep up software program help for the legacy models – generally even NAS models launched so far as 10 years in the past.

CES has normally been a very good platform for NAS distributors, permitting them to indicate their newest and best in each {hardware} and software program, and sometimes announce new fashions. Nonetheless, the attract has been misplaced in recent times. It began with Synology and QNAP beginning their very own convention aimed in the direction of companions / resellers and builders. Ultimately, CES turned comparatively quiet for this market section. Different enterprise conferences targeted on virtualization, safety and many others. are turning out to be higher occasions for these NAS distributors. Total, CES is now not an essential present for the NAS market. Having stated that, the remainder of this piece captures among the bulletins made within the NAS house across the 2024 CES timeframe.

On the 2024 CES, UGREEN made an enormous splash with the {hardware} choices for his or her upcoming NASync sequence. Synology’s sales space rehashed models which were round for a serious a part of 2023. A chuckle-worthy DS224+ (utilizing an historical Intel Celeron J4125) was additionally on show. ASUSTOR had a tiny presence in ASUS’s suite, and the opposite NAS distributors gave the present a miss.

ASUSTOR Drivestor Lite and Drivestor 2/4 Professional Gen2 : Arm NAS with btrfs Help

ASUSTOR has up to date their lineup of Arm-based NAS models for house / private use, and the models are already obtainable for buy. The brand new Drivestor 2 Lite, 2 Professional Gen2, and 4 Professional Gen2 use a brand new Realtek processor – the RTD1619B. This can be a quad-core Cortex-A55 SoC with the CPU operating at 1.7 GHz. The Arm Mali-G51 MP3 within the SoC is clocked at 650 MHz. This lineup takes over the Drivestor 2, 4, 2 Professional, and 4 Professional models which had the Realtek RTD1296 (quad-core Cortex-A53 at 1.4 GHz). The elevated processing energy within the new processor, coupled with a brand new SDK from Realtek, has now allowed ASUSTOR to deliver btrfs help on this lineup.

Regardless of utilizing the identical SoC, the Lite mannequin differentiates itself from the Professional mannequin by choosing half the RAM, and limiting itself to a 1 GbE LAN port (in comparison with the two.5 GbE within the Professional ones). Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Kind-A ports within the Professional fashions are positioned by a USB 2.0 port within the Lite mannequin. There are two drive bays, however the drives themselves are usually not hot-swappable. ASUSTOR is selling the transcoding efficiency of the brand new efficiency and portraying the Drivestor 2 Lite as a succesful NAS for Plex and their very own ‘LooksGood’ software.

The Professional Gen2 fashions have hot-swappable bays. Along with the {hardware} configuration updates, ASUSTOR is selling a distinct set of purposes equivalent to Portainer (Docker) in comparison with the Lite mannequin. The variations within the specs are introduced out within the desk beneath.

ASUSTOR has moved to the identical platform adopted by Synology for the DS223 and different 23-series private / house NAS fashions, maintaining tempo with the processing energy supplied by the competitors. The introduction of btrfs help on this lineup now brings simple snapshots (and a little bit of ransomware safety) to ASUSTOR’s clients at an reasonably priced value level.

TerraMaster 424 and 424 Professional: Excessive-Efficiency 2.5 GbE NAS Items with Alder Lake-N

TerraMaster not too long ago up to date their entry-level x86 NAS lineup for SOHO / SMB setups. This section was served final 12 months by the 423 sequence based mostly on Jasper Lake (Celeron N5095). The 424 sequence makes use of Alder Lake-N. With Intel selling an octa-core configuration as a Core i3 on this sequence, TerraMaster can be launching a 424 Professional using the Core i3-N300.

The specs of the three models are summarized within the desk beneath.

The TNAS working system (TOS) is presently at 5.1, with the discharge of TOS 6.0 within the close to future. Being a relatively new entrant to the NAS world, the OS and cell purposes lack the polish of the choices from established distributors, however the excellent news is that issues can solely enhance from right here. The {hardware} itself is sort of succesful, and the brand new 424 sequence is the primary Alder Lake-N-based COTS NAS that we’ve got seen for buy. Terramaster had earlier experimented with a ten GbE NAS utilizing Apollo Lake, although it was unable to saturate that interface. The corporate appears to have opted for a cheaper platform with Alder Lake-N within the 424 sequence.

QNAP Ryzen 7000 Rackmounts, Wider TBS-h574TX NASBook Availability and Utility Updates

QNAP stays busy all year long, often saying {hardware} with the most recent and best from Intel / AMD / ARM-based SoC distributors. The corporate additionally takes satisfaction in updating totally different ‘plugins’ / first-party purposes for his or her QTS / QuTS Right here working programs to extend their usefulness. Much like Synology, the main focus is slowly shifting extra in the direction of enterprise customers as a majority of their latest bulletins have been associated to their ZFS-enabled QuTS Hero-running NAS models.

On the 2023 CES, the corporate had teased their first consumer-focused hot-swappable all-flash NAS with M.2 / E1.S SSD help. The TBS-h574TX reached retail in late 2023, and QNAP uploaded a complete video detailing the utilization and options of the unit final month. After taking part within the launch webinar previous to that, my expectations have been tempered a bit. Within the 12 months since its teaser, the E1.S form-factor has not taken off as anticipated. As an alternative, we noticed distributors like Solidigm and Micron concentrate on the standard 2.5″ form-factor with U.2 and U.3 SSDs. E1.L is making extra sense for rackmount machines requiring very excessive storage density, however the common market development appears to be extra in the direction of U.2 / U.3 for each shopper and SMB / SME on-premise utilization. 2023 additionally noticed the launch of 64TB-class U.2 / U.3 SSDs, and this form-factor appears broadly obtainable for buy.

We imagine that the M.2 form-factor within the NAS is best fitted to caching and/or non-hot-swappable storage, whereas U.2 / U.3 makes extra sense for hot-swappable models. QNAP pioneered the all-flash shopper NAS with the TBS-464 and ASUSTOR’s Flashstor sequence made extra choices obtainable. The TBS-h574TX brings hot-swap into the image, however among the drawbacks of the designs nonetheless stay. For instance, not one of the SSD slots get the total four-lane functionality, although they bodily settle for x4 SSDs. QNAP contends that this is sufficient to saturate the 10GbE hyperlink, however that looks like a trade-off finest averted when it’s doable to make use of the community port together with Thunderbolt (performing in IP mode with solely 10 Gb functionality per port) to have a 30 GbE up / 30 GbE down configuration. Single-slot occupancy cannot ship full efficiency in that configuration. In any case, QNAP believes their video manufacturing home clients will nonetheless discover this unit delivering higher efficiency than different choices presently obtainable on this form-factor, and so they could also be proper on the sensible entrance.

At $1200, this Raptor Lake-based system isn’t notably low cost. Regardless of utilizing an embedded half (Core i3-1340PE) which comes with in-band ECC help from Intel, QNAP would not have that enabled within the system (hopefully it’s one thing that may be addressed in a future replace). Total, this product looks like a missed alternative for QNAP within the all-flash shopper NAS market.

Shifting on to the most recent {hardware} introductions, QNAP is focusing extra on ZFS-enabled NAS models now. The corporate not too long ago launched two rackmount models based mostly on the Ryzen 7000 sequence, and their specs are summarized within the desk beneath.

All fashions make the most of 5GB of flash storage with dual-boot OS safety. ZFS help brings in deduplication and different options essential for enterprise deployments. These are among the first NAS models to help Gen5 M.2 SSDs (albeit, with x2 hyperlinks), and QNAP advises use of their very own heat-sink on them to be used in these rackmounts. The redundant energy provide configuration can be essential within the use-case situations for these models, and the obtainable growth slots permits finish customers / IT directors so as to add 25GbE community playing cards or SAS / SATA storage growth playing cards as required. GPU pass-through can be supported, which can assist particular virtualization setups the place the VM and related storage setup run on the identical server block.

In software program information from QNAP, the corporate can be selling its machine-learning based mostly drive failure prediction device that makes use of a cloud-based engine past the standard SMART readouts. It makes use of a third-party engine and requires a license buy to be used on a couple of disk per NAS. QNAP can be touting its SSD anti-wear leveling options (QSAL) as a differentiating facet of its QuTS ZFS working system. A lot of these value-additions could assist QuTS go head-to-head in opposition to choices like TrueNAS.