Auf Wiedersehen Frankenstein, hello QNAP

My homemade server running Ubuntu started to experience strange hardware issues (random crashing, etc). Over the course of a year I replaced and fiddled with memory, motherboard, and hard drives yet still I had random crashes (would even randomly crash running memtest, so I ruled out a software issue). Since the server was my home NAS, I began to rethink the idea of maintaining unreliable hardware (and throwing money away left and right).

Out with Frankenstein, enter the QNAP TS-459 Pro II Turbo NAS. Fitted with four WD 2TB drives in RAID-5 my new QNAP has been extremely reliable, quiet, energy efficient (measured 39W at load!) and space-saving! Frankenstein was a huge server tower, the new QNAP is a tiny 18x18x24cm block that rests nicely under a cabinet. And quiet enough to be unenclosed: fan noise is imperceptible, yet faint hard drive noise can sometimes be heard if the room is totally silent. The QNAP is connected to a CyberPower UPS (as are my internet modem and router). The UPS and NAS fit nicely under a cabinet in the living room:

The QNAP’s web GUI is less than perfect (I find it slow, illogical, and limiting) and as I subsequently found out, the command-line configuration is also less than perfect. But the reliability, quietness, and “it just works”-feel of the QNAP so far has me quite happy. That said, going from a completely configurable linux server to a more closed system like the QNAP was going to take some getting used to. I plan on writing a series of posts documenting the changes I make to my new QNAP to customize it to be my perfect little AFP NAS.

Stay tuned, more to come!