[clug] QNAP universal home server

[James Polley]

I've got a TS-409 Pro - earlier model with an ARM processor and only half
the ram. I don't use it for much more than a NAS, and I've got the default
firmware, but I'm quite happy with it.
Initial setup is a little tricky: the device ships with just a small
bootstrap OS in nvram, and the real OS on a CD; once you plug in disks,
you're meant to run a windows/mac app to push the real OS across the
network. I had some trouble getting it to work (the mac app at the time was
flaky, and I don't have a windows machine handy), but underneath it's built
on all the familiar unix building blocks - so a pinch of telnet and a
smattering of tftp had it up and running in no time. I used the instructions
at
http://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/Initializing_TS-109/-209/-409_series_through_Linux,
which were quite simple.

The built-in OS has a nice web interface and does everything I want from a
NAS/media server/download station. It uses its own little packaging system,
which only has ~8 pre-packaged applications - but one of those gives you
OptWare (
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Optware/Packages?from=Unslung.Packages),
which has a large variety of packages.

The big thing that sold me on QNAP over similar devices from other
manufacturers is their support of the open platform. They don't just
grudgingly acknowledge that there's a linux thing hiding under the web
interface somewhere - they quite actively encourage people to hack at it.
Just take a look at the forums under "THE OPEN TURBOSTATION (MODDERZ AREA /
THE LAB) <./viewforum.php?f=82&sid=2dd08540fec61e10ae54ee75c75b27ee>".

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Michael James <michael at james.st> wrote:

> Strolling the computer fair yesterday
>  and John Kostakos of Vistra* told me about the QNAP TS-439 Pro.
>
>         http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=110
>
> It's yet another little 4 slot NAS box, BUT ...
>
> It uses an Atom 1.6 Gig processor so it's as low power as it can be.
> This model has hot swappable slots for 4 full sized SATA disks.
>
> The atom processor still gives you enough compute power to run
>  routing, firewall, DNS, web cache (squid), media centre, web server, etc.
>
> Looks well built, has a bit of a Linux community around it.
> I'm not sure what distro the supplied software is based on
>  (source available) but people are have installed Debian on it.
>
> Sounds like something I've been looking for for a while.
>
> Anyone had any experience with these or interested?
>
> michaelj
>
> * despite the unfortunate name he avoids Windows.
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