QNap TS-859U-RP Turbo NAS review

IP SAN performance was also good with the Iometer utility reporting a high raw read throughput of 104MB/s for a 50GB target. The virtual disk feature wasn't as impressive. Copying the video clip to and from a 500GB remote network share on the TS-439 test appliance returned much lower read and write speeds of 35MB/s and 21.5MB/s.

Power consumption is quite modest as we measured a draw of 70W with the four-disk RAID-6 array under load. With the drives in standby mode this dropped to only 48W. With both power supplies installed, you should enable the redundant power mode in the web interface as this will cause an audible alarm to sound if a supply fails.

There's a veritable feast of extra features, although many of them are aimed more at consumers. These include iTunes and UPnP media servers, as well as the Multimedia Station for publishing photos, videos and music in web galleries. Potentially more useful is the ability to host your own web sites and the ability to access stored files remotely using either secure FTP or a web interface.

The Surveillance Station works with up to eight IP cameras and offers live views which can be recorded directly to disk. We had no problems using the Surveillance Station with a selection of Axis cameras, but if surveillance is a priority, then we would recommend checking out Synology’s NAS devices which have more IP camera-related features.

Workstation backup is handled by the distinctly dated but functional NetBak Replicator program which runs scheduled backups of selected files and folders to the appliance. Scheduled block level replication to other QNap appliances is also available, as are managed backups of local folders to attached USB and eSATA devices.

For the price, the TS-859U-RP can’t be faulted for features as it has them in abundance. We’re not convinced businesses will find a use for them all, particularly the multimedia functions, but it’s very easy to use and overall performance is very good.