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This evaluate first appeared in challenge 345 of PC Pro.
Though one in all Qnap’s home devices, the Qnap TS-262 is surprisingly effectively specified for a two-bay gadget. It has simply the one Ethernet port, so no redundancy, however because it’s a 2.5GbE port relatively than gigabit you keep away from one potential bottleneck. On condition that this normal is changing into an increasing number of in style on client switches and routers, it’s good to see this quick connection.
Should you do want extra velocity, there’s a 10GbE port improve obtainable by way of the PCI-E slot, which is accessible when the case is unscrewed. That’s the one time you’ll want a screwdriver, as all the things else is accessible by way of screw-free entry.
For instance, come out each of the laborious disk caddies and also you’ll see that twin M.2 2280 NVMe PCI-E Gen3 slots can be found. These use a easy clip to carry the SSDs in place, so are straightforward to take care of. Exhausting disks merely slide into the slot.
As with all Qnap NAS devices, the TS-262 runs its QTS operating system so is appropriate with the complete vary of providers that this offers, together with the flexibility to create your personal private storage cloud. There’s an Intel Celeron N4505 processor and 4GB of RAM (non-upgradable), which ought to show sufficient for even heavy use.
There are some additional options you don’t usually discover on rival NAS gadgets, together with an HDMI 2.0 output. When paired with the appropriate distant management, this NAS may be changed into a media streamer, taking part in video straight from its laborious disk. You probably have a big assortment of movies, this is perhaps your only option, however a sleeker possibility is to put in a media server and stream straight from the NAS.
Operating over a normal gigabit Ethernet connection, the Qnap TS-262 fell behind the Synology DS723+, after we benchmarked utilizing 22TB laborious disks and twin 1TB NVMe drives. Nevertheless, improve that connection to 2.5GbE and issues get higher, significantly with bigger file sizes: working the ATTO benchmark with 2MB recordsdata, the TS-262 jumped from 100MB/sec learn speeds to 210MB/sec.
There was little distinction within the PCMark 10 Storage take a look at, which makes use of totally different file transfers and is much less depending on connection speeds.
Synology’s methods are arguably simpler to make use of, however if you would like extra easy file and media sharing, regionally and by way of the cloud, then this NAS is great worth and quick, significantly when its 2.5GbE port is used.