QNap TS-412 Turbo NAS review

Once you start looking at four-disk NAS enclosures, you tend to find much sturdier hardware than you typically get with smaller domestic models. This is certainly the case with the solid metal chassis of QNap’s TS-412 NAS device. It also has a few more connectivity options than smaller NAS devices, having a USB2 port at the front, three more at the back, two LAN ports and a pair of eSATA ports.

Once the TS-412 is powered up and connected to your network, you can use the QNap Finder application on the supplied installation disc. This searches for the NAS on your network and takes you through setting it up via the NAS device’s web interface. After formatting your disks, you’ll be prompted to select and install the NAS’s firmware. You can either install it from the disc or download the latest firmware from QNap’s website.

After the firmware’s installed, you’re prompted to configure the NAS’s basic settings, including its name, password and optional services, such as FTP, UPnP or iTunes media streaming, and a web server. You can also choose between JBOD or RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, or 10 volume configurations. Once everything’s installed, you’ll have to use the excellent web interface to set up your services, including shared folders, which are often already set up on NAS devices. Fortunately, doing so isn’t much trouble at all thanks to a handy wizard that walks you through every step of your share’s configuration and security.

The administration interface’s main screen gives you a selection of shortcuts to the features that you’re most likely to need, from user management to external device management and a handy wizard to set your NAS up as your very own cloud storage server that’s accessible from anywhere. A wider range of options is available via a tree-style menu pane on the left.

From here, you can control the application servers running on the NAS, including services such as media servers and BitTorrent clients. You can also share USB drives and printers connected to the NAS, enable advanced network options such as SSH logins and security certificates and control a variety of backup options to secure data stored on the NAS.

As you’d expect from a four-bay business NAS device, the TS-412 is quick. With the drives set up as RAID 1 pairs, we saw average transfer speeds of 12.5MB/s for small files and 41.8MB/s for large ones. In RAID 0 mode, small files transferred at 52.3MB/s and large ones at 14MB/s.

The TS-412 Turbo NAS is currently available from Amazon for just £253. That’s less than its sibling two-bay QNap TurboNAS TS-219P II. It’s a fantastic price, but it’s not clear how long this will be in place. The NAS’s usual price of £442 is still good, but not such a brilliant deal.