II – About “Not recomended” HDD’s

III – Meaning of Notes

IV – Where to buy Qnap Compatable HDDs

I – Qnap HDD Compatibility List

Warning : You must choose right HDDs for staible Qnap performance, this is really important part.

You can find Qnap HDD compatibility table from this link;

Qnap HDD Compatiliy

When you enter that link, just press “Applied Models”at the center of website;

-The enterprise class hard drive, is designed for the 24/7 (around 5 years) mission critical business operations and exceptional performance appropriate for RAID. I strongly advise these HDDs,

-Desktop class hard drive is designed to have the performance for everyday use, and their lifetime is around 3 years (8 hours useage in a day, so its equal 1 year if works 7/24)

-Stay away from “Not recomended” Models, because they cause really strange configration problem, easly drop from RAID, easyl give “bad sector” error in a short time. Qnap should change this title from “Not Recomended” to “Stay Away From This HDDs”.

II – About “Not Recomended” HDDs;

Offical Qnap warning about these HDDs (written by Alex from Qnap support at 10 Agu 2012 at Qnap Form)

Dear All,

The WD Desktop drives (Green/Blue/Black) are not recommended for RAID volume usage, as the following issues has been realized.

1. Slow performance

2. Disk drop out from RAID easily

3. Read/write error on file system

According to the reply from WD manufacturer.

Q:Are WD Desktop drives (Green/Blue/Black) good for RAID systems?

A:You may need to know if the NAS controller works with drive that have the TLER disabled, or the TLER needs to be enabled on the drive. However, we do support these drive on computers only, but not on RAID environment, please see the RAID enabled drives in the link below: (Enterprise Drive) http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=2

We have add the WD Desktop drives as the not suggested HDD on HDD compatibility List

Note8

The HDDs have passed QNAP lab’s initial verification of compatibility. However, because the HDD manufacturer has suggested not to use the desktop HDDs in RAID subsystems and some users have reported unstable experience with these HDDs, we do not recommend using these HDDs with QNAP products.”

BR/Alex

Taken From : http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=182&t=33196

III – What is the meaning of notes next to HDDs?

Note1

When using this hard disk drive model with TS-119 Turbo NAS, the hard disk drive temperature will be slightly higher.

Note2

As suggested by certain hard disk drive providers, the hard disk drives of the same brand and series are collectively recognized as compatible with QNAP products if the largest-capacity drive has passed the compatibility test.

Note3

If you are using two 1.5TB or 2TB hard disk drives in TS-209, due to an upper limit of the logical volume capacity, you can only configure the hard disk drives as single disk volumes or RAID 1 disk volume.

Note4 (WD RE4-GP WD2002FYPS)

For improved stability, you are suggested to contact Western Digital after Nov 15, 2009 for the new firmware upgrade. Please refer to http://files.qnap.com/download/Forum/WD_New_Firmware_Release.pdf

Note5 (WD Green & Seagate Green)

These hard disk drives have passed QNAP lab’s initial verification of compatibility. However, because many users have reported unstable experience with these hard disk drives, we do not recommend using these had disk drives with QNAP products. WD10EADS-00P8B0 and WD15EADS-00P8B0 are not suggested because of slow performance and stability issues.

Note6

To use these models with NMP-1000, please click here to download the hard disk drive compatibility update tool.

Note7 (Advanced Format)

To use these models with QNAP NAS, please upgrade the NAS firmware to v3.2.5 or later (TS-109/209/409: v3.2.0), backup the NAS data to another location, and then follow this guide to re-initialize the hard disk drives to adopt the WD Advanced Format Technology. Currently these hard disk drives are not compatible with QNAP NVR.

Note8 (Hitachi 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 1TB)

Since the design of the screw position of this hard disk drive model is slightly different from others, the hard disk drives of 2-bay and 4-bay Turbo NAS may not be detected properly. Please plug the hard disk drive tray into the drive bay until it clicks into place to avoid hard disk drive detection error.

Note9 (WD Desktop Hard Drives)

The hard disk drives have passed QNAP lab’s initial verification of compatibility.

However, the manufacturer has suggested not to use the desktop hard disk drives in business-critical RAID environments because the drives may not work correctly. Please check this link for more information.

Note10 (Samsung HD204UI 2TB)

To use this hard disk model with QNAP products, please back up the disk data (if any) and follow the guide below to apply the patch for improved data integrity.

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Samsung-Internal-Drives/HD204UI-Firmware-patch/m-p/143115#M20

Note11

QNAP NAS supports a disk volume of larger than 16TB. To use these models with QNAP NAS, please upgrade the NAS firmware to v3.4.0 or later. A disk volume of less than 16TB of storage can only be expanded to maximum 16TB by online RAID capacity expansion or adding hard drives. Online RAID capacity expansion and adding hard drives are not supported for a disk volume of over 16TB.

Note12 (3TB HDD)

Not applicable to TS-509 Pro.

Note13

Please update the NAS firmware to V3.4.4 and NVR firmware to V3.5.2 for enhanced compatibility with this hard drive model.

Note14

If a HDD SMART test is performed on a drive concurrently with data access, the drive might be ejected from the RAID volume. To solve this issue, please upgrade firmware to 3.6.3 or above.

Note15

These hard drives models have passed QNAP lab’s compatibility verifications. However, some users have reported unstable experiences with these hard drives on older Turbo NAS firmware versions. Thus, we strongly suggest that users upgrade their Turbo NAS to firmware 3.7.1 or onward to improve compatibility. Users who still encounter issues after firmware upgrade are welcome to contact our tech support for direct assistance. The manufacturer also releases a new firmware version for these hard drive models. Please check this link for more information. Please be noticed this hard drive is desktop edition. To obtain the better system stability and reliability, we suggest using the business edition hard drive to build the RAID volume in the business environment.

Note16

These hard drives models have passed QNAP lab’s compatibility verifications. However, some users have reported unstable experiences with these hard drives. Users who encounter any issues with these hard drive models are welcome to contact our tech support for direct assistance. The manufacturer has released a new firmware version for these hard drive models. Please check this link for more information.

Note17

Please upgrade the NAS firmware to 3.7.1 for enhanced compatibility with this hard drive model.

IV – Where to buy Qnap Compatable HDDs

I couldnt find HDDs in Qnap HDD compatibility Where Can I Buy HDDs?

Please Contact with your local HDD Distributors from these links;

Western Digital:

http://www.wdc.com/en/buy/distributors/default.aspx?dname=&region=6&subrgn=233

Seagate:

http://www.seagate.com/www/tr-TR/products/where_to_buy/authorized_distributors/#

Samsung;

http://www.samsung.com/us/business/components/storage/hdd/distributors.html

Hitachi;

http://www.hgst.com/portal/site/en/buy/

II – Cobian Backup : Free Unofficial Advanced Backup Software

III – Offically Supported 3.th Party Backup Softwares

I – Netbak Replicator

Netbak Replicator is A Client base Free software comes with Qnap. You can backup you clients datas easly with a few steps -including their outlook and working programs-. Also you can schecule backup time, and you can isntall it all of your clients computers free.

You can download it from this link free;

http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?lang=en-us&sn=888&c=1655&sc=6711

Advantages:

+You can backup datas instantly, or daily, or every week or every hour. Also, you dont have to select Qnap as target, you can backup datas from C drive to D drive.

+It has Incremantal backup option, so only backup changed files.

+You can backup working world / excel files, or your outlook

Disadvantages :

+It doesnt work as Service base, and client copmuters must be online to backup. Ofcourse Software has an option “shut down computer after backup completes”.

+It doesnt work like Acronis or Norton, so It doesnt have Image base backup feature.

II – Cobian Backup: (My Advice)

If Netbak Replicator doestn fit for your need, you can use 3.th party software for backup;

So if you asked me what is my advice for backup, my answer will be Cobian Backup. It works like Acronis or Symantec backup. For more than 1,5 year, I advice all of my costumers Cobian Backup, and they send me “thank you for advice this free software” mails.

It’s free, it works perfect with Qnap, but its not official. Its my and My costmers (IT Managers at Turkey) Advice. Qnap doestn officially support this software yet! But if you want to give it a chance, you can download it from this link Free;

http://www.cobiansoft.com/index.htm

III – 3.th Party Backup Softwares Offically Supported By Qnap;

From : http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?lang=en-us&sn=4090

II – Qnap Enhanced read-only protection

III – Qnap System Migration Feature;

IV – Qnap Advance Backup Features;

V – How to Draw Data Loose Chance Minimum with Qnap;

I work as an Qnap technician, and I Proudly can say that I never let costumers loose any data, even Human Failed cases, so I can easly say that you cant loose data with Qnap.

Qnap supports awesome features to protect your datas;

I – Protect Your Datas With RAID Against Disk Failures

• RAID 1 (Disk Mirroring): allows one disk failure
  
  RAID 1 duplicates the data between two hard drives to provide disk mirroring. If you install four hard drives in the Turbo NAS and format each pair of hard drives as “RAID 1”, the capacity of each RAID 1 volume is 1TB (500GB + 500GB). The total storage capacity of the NAS is 2TB.

• RAID 5 (Disk Striping with parity): allows one disk failure
  
  The data are striped across all the hard drives in a RAID 5 array. The parity information is distributed and stored across each hard drive. A minimum of three hard drives is required. If you install four hard drives in the Turbo NAS and format the drives as “RAID 5”, the total capacity of the volume is 500GB x (4-1) = 1.5TB.

• RAID 6 (Disk Striping with 2 parities): allows two disk failure
  
  The data are striped across all the hard drives in a RAID 6 array. RAID 6 differs from RAID 5 that a second set of parity information is stored across the member drives in the array. The total capacity of RAID 6 disk volume is equal to the size of the smallest disk in the array x (no. of hard disks-2). RAID 6 tolerates failure of two hard drives at the same time. If you install four hard drives in the Turbo NAS and format the drives as “RAID 6”, the total capacity of the volume is 500GB x (4-2) = 1TB.

• RAID 10 (Disk Mirroring and Striping): allows one disk failure from each RAID 1 pair
  
  RAID 10 combines four or more disks in a way that protects data against loss of non-adjacent disks. It provides security by mirroring all the data on a secondary set of disks while using striping across each set of disks to speed up data transfers. If you install four hard drives in the Turbo NAS and format the drives as “RAID 10”, the total capacity of the volume is 1TB (500GB+ 500GB).

II – Enhanced Read-only Protection

What If I loose 2 HDD on RAID 5 or Loose 3 HDDs on RAID 6, is that mean I loose data?

Nope, Qnap advance read-only data protectio doesnt let you loose your datas;

III – Qnap System Migration Feature;

What If my NAS device failed/ get broken, or accidently give bad damage or burned, is that mean that I lose data?

Nope, till your HDDs are allright, you can plug HDDs to another Qnap, and all of your datas with configration comes back. This is called system Migration

System migration allows existing QNAP NAS users to upgrade the NAS to another new QNAP NAS model without the need to transfer the data or reconfigure the system. You only need to install the original hard disk drives on the new NAS following its original hard drive order and restart the NAS.

Due to different hardware design, the NAS will automatically check if a firmware update is required before system migration. After the migration has finished, all the settings and data will be kept and applied to the new NAS. However, the system settings of the source NAS cannot be imported to the destination NAS via “System Administration” > “Backup/Restore Settings”. Configure the NAS again if the settings were lost.

The following table shows the NAS models which support system migration.

Follow the steps below to perform system migration.

Some system settings will be removed after system migration due to different system design. Configure the following settings again on the new NAS : Windows AD / Some QPKGs need to be resintalled (e.g. XDove)

IV – Qnap Advance Backup Features;

Remote Replication : Backup all of your datas to another Qnap agains Disaster Recovery

External Drive Backup : Backup your datas to external drives

Cloud Backup : Backup your datas with Cloud Computing

V – How to Draw Data Loose Chance Minimum with Qnap;

I Highly Advice you to these thing to draw Loosing data potantial or System Stop

+If you have only one NAS (not only Qnap, any Network Storage Device) dont use at the center ot your system. For Qnap, as I said I never let a costumer loose data, but when system stops because of an error, It may cost a few hours or days to fix that problem.

+Even If you pay 1 million dollar cost Backup device (not only Qnap) , always work with double backup. One of my costumer told me data recovery story about a serious goverment project. They Have 2 location with 2 backup solution (this backup solution is not Qnap), and these 2 devices replicate datas on each other. One day an engineer press “Reset device” button and delete whole data on storage, and because of replication, all datas on other device are deleted too.

Qnap is really great for that kind of needs with its Remote Replication, Realtime Remote Replication, Cloud Backup solutions and External HDD backup Features. Also Qnap replication an option “delete datas on other device” option, and if you dont activate this, loosing data is nearly impossable.

+I strongly advice you to Buy 2 Qnap and replicate each other. You’ll realize when recovering a disaster and see its worth every penny on spending money to Qnap Backup solutions and wont regret for spending money on this. I’m not telling this because of working on Qnap technical support side, trust my words. When one of the NAS failed, just go with another one till broken one fixed.

+Open Network recycle Bin option for possable human mistake accidently deleted files.

+At sudden power cuts, sometimes HDDs on Qnap can be damaged. I strongly advice to Use compatable UPS device with Qnap Device.

II – Qnap Live Demo;

III – What is the Difference Between NAS Models;

IV – Meaning of Products Codes

V – Things you should Know Before Buy;

VI – Qnap RAID Size Calculator;

I – About Qnap;

Does Qnap Chinese Product?

Nope, Qnap products are made in Taiwan

Does HDDs comes with Qnap NAS Devices?

Nope, Qnap doestn comes with HDDS, you have to add HDD.

Does HDD tray, Server Rackmount kits or 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports comes Free with Qnap NAS?

HDD trays and Server Rackmount kits comes free, but you have to buy 10 Gbit expansions.

II – Qnap Live Demo

I want to see Qnap Interface. Is there a live demo?

Sure, you can login our live demo from this link;

Note : All Qnap NAS devices Web Interface is same.

III – What is the Difference Between NAS Models;

If All NAS device interface is same, what is the difference between Qnap Models;

Most important difference is data transfer rates;

For example Ts 412 U data write speed is around 40 Mb, and used at small campanies for data sharing or for backup jobs;

.

My favorite device Ts-459 P II write performance is around 100 mb, and used for file sharing;

.

Also, EC 1279 U-RP Model Data transfer rate is down below and this device is used at business for very fast data transfer process;

.

Also there are more difference like windows 2008 failover support, Wake on lan support, 1 / 2 or 10 gbit lan port support, so please check our comparison table before choose a product.

IV – Meaning of Products Codes

Please first Click on this link to see our Products;

http://www.qnap.com/static/products/comparison/All_NAS.php

You’ll see that Qnap products divided 3 parts;

High-end SMB Products are designed for professional Campanies. Highest Price.

SMB Products are designed for Medium-Size Campanies. Economic Price.

Home & SOHO are designed for small business and Home Users. Low Price.

Product Codes Meaning;

TS is shortname of Turbo Station.

First number after TS code means how many HDD that Qnap supports

Last 2 number means CPU / Ram power of the device.

U-RP code means device has rackmount case with 2 powersupply.

U-SP code means device has rackmount case with 1 powersupply.

Example :

Ts-112 means 1 HDD, Marvell 1.2 Ghz processor,256 Mb Ram and 16 Mb Flash.

Ts-412 means 4 HDD, Marvell 1.2 Ghz Processor ,256 Mb Ram and 16 Mb Flash.

Last 2 number meaning;

X10

Marvell 800/256 mb ram/16mb Flash

X12

Marvell 1.2 GHz/256 mb ram/16mb Flash

X19

Marvell 1.2 GHz /512 mb ram/16mb Flash

X19 P +

Marvell 1.6 GHz /512 mb ram/16mb Flash

X39 Pro

Intel 1.6 GHz / 1gb ram / 128 Mb Dom

X39 Pro II +

Intel Atom 1.8 GHz (Single Core) / 1Gb ram /512 Mb Dom

X59 Pro +

Intel Atom 1.8 GHz (Dual Core) /1Gb ram /512 Mb Dom

X59 Pro II

Intel Atom 1.8 GHz (Dual Core) / 1GB ram /512 Mb Dom

X69 Pro

Intel Atom 2.13 GHz (Dual Core) / 1GB ram /512 Mb Dom

X79 Pro

Dual-core Intel Core i3 2120 Processor (3.3 GHz)/2Gb DDR III ram/512 Mb Dom (For Double Processor)

809 Pro/U-RP

Intel 2.8 GHz/2 Gb Ram/128 Mb Dom

859 Pro/URP

Intel Atom 1.8 GHz (Dual Core) /1Gb Ram/512 Mb Dom

SS-839 Pro

Intel Atom 1.6 GHz/2GB Ram/128 Mb Dom

Also you can find Comparison table from this link;

http://www.qnap.com/static/products/comparison/All_NAS.php

V – Thing That You Should Know Before Buy;

+If you plan to use Qnap only for backup, or home usege, you can choose a begining device just like “x12″ series. But, If you plan to use Qnap at the center of our campany, more than 70 user plan to use it at the same time, and you need high upload / download speed (around 120 mb), I Highly recommand you to choose “x69″ series.

+Its Importand how much size that you need. Qnap use RAID system for data security and protection. Generally RAID 1 is prefered for 2 HDD supported device, and RAID 5 & 6 is preferes for 4/5/6/8/10/12/16 HDD supported devices.

Lets say you have 8 x 2 TB HDD

If you use them as single disk, your free size : 16 TB

If you plan to use RAID 5 with 8 HDD, your total free size will ve multiple of 7, so your free size is 7 x 2 = 14 Tb

If you plan to use RAID 6 : 6 x 2 : 12 TB

VI – Qnap RAID Size Calculator;

Is There a RAID Size Calculator to Learn How Much Free Size I’ll Have?

Sure, you can calculate your total free size from these links;

My favorite site is down below;

http://www.sqsdatastorage.co.uk/store/info/raid-capacity-calculator-11

“Your Total Effective Capacity“ shows how much space you’ll have after RAID setup;

Also you can use these links to calculate your free size;

http://www.raid-calculator.com/

http://www.icc-usa.com/raid-calculator.php

Dont forget that 1 Tb HDD doestn have 1000 Gb size.

1 Tb HDD means: 931.51 ‘GB

2 TB HDD means 1863.02 ‘GB

3 Tb HDD means : 2794.54 GB

+I want to warn again Incompatable HDDs, please choose compatable HDD to usage with Qnap

Qnap NAS : NAS Solutions provides you large Storage capacity and used for sharing datas.

Qnap NVR : NVR solutions provides you to use and manage IP cameras, Record and store these Records,

Qnap NMP : Qnap home multimedia solution.