Qnap NAS seems perfect but I have some questions?

[Loftprojection]

The QNAP TS-101 offering is perfect for my needs but I'm quite confused with all the information I can find about it. Maybe some of you can clarify some of it.

- There seems to be problems with the TS-101 power/memory and the latest version of SS, is it better to get the TS-201, does it have the required hardware to run SS correctly?

- Is the TS-201 noisy? I saw on a picture it has a fan so I'm quite nervous about that, the TS-101 doesn't have one so I'm confident it's probably very low noise.

- If I go with the TS-201, can you set it up so that you can split your music on the two disks inside the TS-201 and SS sees all of it or is it like on your PC, if your music is not all under the same directory of the same disk then you need two instances of SS?

- I'm in Canada so can I buy from the Qnap Canadian distributor and then download the SS drivers from progressiveav or does progressiveav sell to Canadian customers?

Thanks much.

[Ian_F]

I was in a similar boat to you and opted for the TS-101. I must say I'm very happy with my choice. A great piece of kit. It does SO much more than just run SS.

I'm not running the latest version of SS but the one before - 6.3.1. I have no issues with speed and can't see a reason to move to the latest version.
Browsing via the remote is fine, even using the web interface is acceptable, although not as fast as SS on a quick PC but still perfectly acceptable. Perhaps it depends on the size of your library? I have some 4000 songs (300 albums) ripped in FLAC and it works fine.

I did consider the TS-201 but read reports (on this forum) that it's not appreciably quicker running SS. As you say it does have a fan too. The TS-101 is silent apart from the noise of the drive spinning. Once it's gone to sleep it's obviously totally silent.

From what I read you can set the disks for the TS-201 as "one large disk" or as RAIDed ones.

In terms of SS, you can download it from the Progressive website. They provide full instructions on how to install it. Even an idiot like myself managed it!!

Re the TS-101, if you ever run out of disk space or want RAID you can attach an eSATA/USB drive to it.

Perhaps in a year's time the latest version of SS will be just too much for the TS-101 to handle but unless the current version falls over then I'll stay with the current version.
IF I just have to have the latest version then I'll get a new NAS. I'll still keep my QNAP to backup all the PCs on my network etc. so it won't go to waste. Hopefully by then other NAS devices will be on the market and we'll all be spoilt for choice!

Hope this helps.

[Loftprojection]

Hey thanks Ian. I'm also running SS 6.3 at the moment and haven't upgraded to 6.5 because I don't see a need. I basically never use the SS on my PC, it just starts at boot and I use my SB for playing music so unless there was a big bug in 6.3 for playing music I don't intend on upgrading...

I'll have to search a bit more but if what you say is true and the two disks in a TS-201 can be seen as one big disk by SS then I'll probably go with that one. My current collection is just a bit bigger then yours but I like to keep everything in .wav format and I keep buying CDs all the time so I would buy the TS-201 with a 500gig disk and when it's full I would have the option of getting a second one without having to have a new enclosure and usb connection... I guess I'll have to deal with the noise if it bugs me!!!

Anyway, thanks for helping me, appreciated.

[Ian_F]

To save hours of fruitless searching you could just download the user manual from here: http://www.qnap.com.tw/download_deta...ct_name=Manual. Page 72 is particularly relevant ;-)

From memory, my collection is just over 120 gig so you should have a bit of headroom before you run out of space on yours.

[Loftprojection]

Hey Ian, you were right, the TS-201 even has several methods of combining it's internal disks together to make it one big disk. I don't understand why these Qnap devices are not more popular considering that they are a good bit cheaper then the other NAS solution I wont name! I'll download the manual of the TS-101 to see if there is some interesting functionality that the 201 has that would not be in the 101 aside from the two disks versus one.
Have you seen somewhere the hardware specs for memory and maybe processor of those two devices? Wonder if the specs are really different between the 101 and the 201...

[Ian_F]

Wonder if the specs are really different between the 101 and the 201...

Can't lay my hands on the info at the moment but I thought the only difference was the TS-201 has twice the RAM. It doesn't make much difference to SS performance tho. Search in these forums for more info.
The TS-201 also has hot-swappable drives but no eSATA support.

EDIT: Just found this: http://hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx
Search for "QNAP TS-101 and TS-201 NAS Servers"

[entity00]

Unfortunately TS-201 is *NOT* silent and the fan keep spinning up and down regardless of disk activity (yes, you understood, it spins up and down even though the HDD's are in sleep mode...).
This is by design.

I have a question: when you install Slimserver on the QNAP, is the web administration tools and all the standard stuff still available?
I mean, does the slimserver erase everything to get itself properly installed ?

Thanks in advance.
Marco

[Ian_F]

I have a question: when you install Slimserver on the QNAP, is the web administration tools and all the standard stuff still available?
I mean, does the slimserver erase everything to get itself properly installed ?

Everything else is still there. The SS install is in _addition_ to the standard QNAP stuff. The only thing which gets, sort of, stomped on is the multimedia station, since both it and SS share the same port - 9000. BUT, you can just change the port which SS uses from 9000 to something else to be able to use both.

[entity00]

And do you know whether you can freely use MySQL (e.g. to install a VBulletin instance) or not?

Thanks in advance.
Ciao,
M

[rSi]

M

you can install mysql on a TS-101, see the following url, but i dont think the 101 would handle a large site

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...ght=qnap+mysql

HTH

Si.