Anyone ever tried the QNAP ZFS OS, QuTS hero?

[Samuel Tai]

QNAP appears to have designed a line of ZFS-based NAS systems that are very strong competitors to the TrueNAS offerings.

QNAP TVS-h1288X 12-bay NAS Review

In our QNAP TVS-h1288X review, we tear down the system to see how QNAP built this QuTS Hero ZFS NAS and how it compares to its competition

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[elvisimprsntr]

Hardly a competitor, given QNAP's historical track record of hard coded credentials, vulnerabilities, ransomware, etc. Granted, users are also partially to blame for exposing their NAS directly to the internet, but QNAP has been pushing users in that direction for years as a "feature." It's only recently QNAP has reversed course by telling users to NOT expose their NAS to the internet. Currently, still over 320,000 QNAPs exposed to the internet worldwide. https://www.shodan.io/search?query=qnap

It's the whole reason I replaced my three QNAP NAS eUSB DOMs and installed TrueNAS CORE/SCALE.

 

[HoneyBadger]

First, in terms of pricing at the time of this review, this is a $2500 unit.

Yeah, I think we're done here.

 

[Constantin]

I ordered a predecessor to this unit and returned it shortly thereafter.

QNAP keeps calling Thunderbolt-based NAS' a DAS', even though it's fundamentally Firewire over IP. Why is this relevant you ask? Well, the QNAP will take over EVERY device on the attached Thunderbolt chain like monitors, docks, SFP+ transceivers, and so on. Basically you have to dedicate one of your CPUs Thunderbolt ports to the QNAP and attach nothing else there. So this is NOT a DAS. It's Firewire over IP using a Thunderbolt cable.

Why was I sore about this? Back then, Macbook Air's only came with one Thunderbolt port. So it was either have a "DAS" and no desktop connectivity or desktop connectivity and no DAS. Thankfully, Amazon took it back. The good news is that it put me on the path to the Mini XL and from there to my current TrueNAS rig. As best as I can tell, the current T3 connection is no different than the T2 connection back then. It has to be dedicated, though you can add hard drive expansion chassis' to this string.

What's also hilarious is that this rig consumes about 50% more power than mine despite having the same number of 3.5" HDD and 2.5" SSD drives. You'd think a custom solution from 2022 could do better than my rig from 2018 or whatever. But I suppose the CPU is also more performant than my lowly D-1537 and it's likely quieter too since I insist on using a lot of industrial Noctua fans to keep my stuff cool.

 

[Etorix]

What's also hilarious is that this rig consumes about 50% more power than mine despite having the same number of 3.5" HDD and 2.5" SSD drives. You'd think a custom solution from 2022 could do better than my rig from 2018 or whatever. But I suppose the CPU is also more performant than my lowly D-1537 and it's likely quieter too since I insist on using a lot of industrial Noctua fans to keep my stuff cool.

Xeon W-1250: 10th generation (Comet Lake), the worst ever in terms of efficiency, with desktop "65 W TDP" parts known to suck over 200 W under load. More powerful than a Xeon D-1537 indeed, but what is it doing with this computing power?

 

[HoneyBadger]

As best as I can tell, the current T3 connection is no different than the T2 connection back then.

Credit where credit is due, the STH review mentioned that it's possible to use the QNAP device as a network bridge - the TB cable can carry the data traffic as well as allow for routed access via the 10Gbps ports for a faster-than-1Gbps network uplink. Might be where some of the added CPU horsepower comes in.

One of the really interesting parts of the solution is that by default, QNAP enables compression.

Every NAS-oriented distribution or appliance that uses ZFS does this. Nothing new here, as LZ4 has been shown to be essentially "free performance" for the vast majority of workloads, and negligible/no impact on incompressible data.

One can optionally enable deduplication on data sets as well.

That had better come with a great big asterisk. The unit shipped here has only 16GB of RAM. I wouldn't dream of turning on dedupe with that paltry amount of resources.

 

[Constantin]

More powerful than a Xeon D-1537 indeed, but what is it doing with this computing power?

Perhaps transcoding?

This unit seems to be aimed at the plex crowd as well as in-room SOHO use. Not cheap, not very efficient but relatively performant and quiet.

 

[Constantin]

Credit where credit is due, the STH review mentioned that it's possible to use the QNAP device as a network bridge - the TB cable can carry the data traffic as well as allow for routed access via the 10Gbps ports for a faster-than-1Gbps network uplink. Might be where some of the added CPU horsepower comes in…

Apologies for being dense, does this mean the “DAS” no longer hijacks every device on the Thunderbolt bus for itself? A lot of portables only have one Thunderbolt bus port.

That had better come with a great big asterisk. The unit shipped here has only 16GB of RAM. I wouldn't dream of turning on dedupe with that paltry amount of resources.

My counterpoint TrueNAS system had 64GB RAM specified and even that may not be enough.