Putting the QNAP T-1079 Pro NAS to the test

A couple of weeks ago I started trying to get a QNAP TS-1079 Pro network attached storage (NAS) device set up.

Just to remind you: The QNAP TS-1079 Pro is a desktop-style NAS device that runs an embedded version of Linux on a dual core Intel i3-2120 Processor at 3.3 GHz with 2GB of DDR3 RAM. It has 10 drive bays allowing up to 30TB of storage set up as JBOD (that's "Just a Bunch Of Disks") or in any of the usual RAID configurations.

IN PICTURES: Best NAS boxes for less than $1,000

The TS-1079 Pro is a well connected device; it has two Gigabit Ethernet ports with an optional dual-port 10 Gigabit or 1Gigabit network card along with two eSATA ports, four USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 ports. The device also supports iSCSI, making it VMware, Citrix and Hyper-V ready.

A feature of the TS-1079 Pro I was trying to test is QNAP's MyCloudNAS, essentially a custom Dynamic DNS service for QNAP products. Through a "wizard" accessed on the QNAP device you select a subdomain of MyCloudNAS.com and, if that is available, which services you want to be visible from the Internet.

These services can include both or either unsecured (HTTP) and secured (HTTPS) access to Web-based device administration and file management services, as well as a Web, multimedia streaming, FTP, Telnet, SSH, SFTP and RSync servers.

And if all of that isn't enough for you, you can also install any of QNAP's Qpkg applications. Qpkg is a software package management system similar to Linux package managers such as yum and dpkg but, claims QNAP, "QPKG is designed and fine-tuned for running on embedded Linux systems."

Among the packages available under Qpkg are the XMail SMTP server, the Gallery image management application, a terrific systems performance measurement package called iStat (which I'll discuss in a future Gearhead), OpenLDAP, the Tomcat Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages server, the Asterisk IP telephony system, the Python subsystem, the WordPress blog app, the Joomla content management system and the SqueezeBox streaming audio server.

Anyway, as I discussed last week, after wrestling with a definitely subpar DSL gateway that AT&T had supplied that not only didn't support UPnP but also couldn't be coerced into port forwarding for devices it didn't "see" on the network, I swapped it out for a D-Link DSL-520B ADSL2 gateway and, voila! The QNAP MyCloudNAS wizard found the gateway, used UPnP to configure port forwarding, and everything was running without any fuss.

I tested remote access via MyCloudNAS to the TS-1079 Pro by logging in from a PC in my son's house down in the San Fernando Valley using Teamviewer 6 (an excellent product), and then launching a browser and connecting to the MyCloudNAS subdomain I'd set up. It worked perfectly! I'm not used to things working quite so painlessly.

Of course, MyCloudNAS might not be everyone's first choice for Dynamic DNS so the TS-1079 Pro also supports a number of other DDNS services, including dyndns.com and no-ip.com.

As for what else the TS-1079 Pro can do, that is one long list. Beyond delivering really speedy NAS service and running a wide range of applications, the device also provides backup services including Rsync and Time Machine, media serving, IP camera video storage, RADIUS authentication and Syslog service, and antivirus service.

The TS-1079 Pro is really impressive product and, priced at $2,600 without drives, is great value considering its performance (which is fantastic) and its functionality. I'll give the QNAP TS-1079 Pro a Gearhead rating of 5 out of 5!

Gibbs is remote in Ventura, Calif. Access him at gearhead@gibbs.com.

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

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