Qnap TS419P question

[Sofasurfer]

Hi Guys,

I'd like to buy a 4bay NAS(preferably by Qnap) which is not the absolute high-end because I'll be mainly using it as a data safe with streaming capabilities(1080p high bitrates) and not in small office environment with multiple user accesses etc.
So I believe one of the "cheaper" NASes should do it for me.

So I stumbled over the 419P which fits to my goal to have it stuffed with 8TB(I'm aiming at 6TB Raid-5) and this for less than 1000€.

My concern is the read speed under Raid-5 which could be a bottleneck(seeing the thread for the 410 which seems to do the job with significantly weaker hardware).
But still I'm looking for figures in the net and can't find anything.

What I found are the numbers from Qnap(http://qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=134) which are probably not for raid 5 and are usually clouded by marketing and the very helpful chart from smallnetbuilder(http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190)

But unfortunately in that chart there is no 419P but only the 219P.
So I hoped that the figures for the 219P could be somehow comparable.
But when I check qnap's HP for the 219P(http://qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=122) you can see that they provide numbers that are significantly higher than the 419P although they have the same HW and the 419P has to ethernet ports.

So has anyone a proper explanation for it or am I missing sth?
Are my concerns complete bullshit and should I just buy that thingy ;-)

Thanks for anyone who has read my lengthy crap.

[Hi-Jack]

The reason for different performance is off course 419P runs on RAID5 which is not the same as the 219P on RAID0 or RAID1... RAID5 is slower due to parity... Both network outputs by the way don't enhance performance, they are there for one to operate as the backup for the other or balance the load between both nicks on systems that are under heavy load... (performance gain is negligible)

[Sofasurfer]

I thought of this possibility too, but threw it away when I saw that speeds for the 259 Pro (http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=143) (Raid-1) and the 459 Pro (http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=144) (Raid-5) are nearly identical.

and for those the Raid mode is explicitly mentioned in the screenshots in contrast to the x19Ps

[Dennisg_nl]

I'm running a 419p with raid 5 (4x 1,5).
Together with a Dune Prime 3.0 I don't experience any stuttering in 1080 material.
Even 1:1 BR rips.

[Sofasurfer]

thanks dennis,

have you done any benchmarking regarding read/write performance in your setup?
If so which setup are you using(Raid mode, HDDs).

I'm just at the brink of buying it.
It seems you can have better Raid-5 performance with an Intel device for ~200€ less. But I think when spending so much money you can invest a little in usability and utility stuff where Qnap seems to be the best.

[Dennisg_nl]

No benchmarking. It would like to do that, but don't know how and never took the time to figure this out.
I'm running a Raid 5 on an EXT4file sys with 4x 1.5TB Seagate ST31500341AS. But I wouldn't buy these disks again. Just google them and you'll know why. My friend bought one recently with 4x 2TB Spinpoint disks. Don't know the type, but these function good. Look for some disk advice in the Qnap forum.
I must say that the Dune also does some nice buffering for the 1080p material. So I don't know how it functions with an other media player.

For the rest I can really recommand the Qnap. It works like a charm!
Just waiting for the new firmware so that I can also operate it with my iPhone ;-).

[Sofasurfer]

I will purchase it most likely with Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 which are according to THIS (http://www.otest.co.uk/d/linkfeedback/frame.html?feedbackUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tomshardwa re.co.uk%2FHDD-6Gbit,review-31814.html&objectId=199540&toUrl=%2Flink%2Fmagazine-linker%3Fc3_id%3D2546%26amp%3Bt_id%3D199540%26amp% 3Bdest%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.tomshardware.co.uk %252FHDD-6Gbit,review-31814.html%26amp%3Bm_id%3D397%26amp%3Bpos%3D3127&objectType=4) review at Tom's Hardware Guide not completely bad and offer a decent performance and very likely good stability/lifetime(conservative/old 5 platter design). And they're one of the cheapest QNAP supported HDD considering GB per €.

For benchmark tests I'm a newby, too but checkout THIS (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1132/7/) article. Whcih gives a little overview on which tools they use.

I'll try it too once I have bought my NAS.

[Hi-Jack]

I thought of this possibility too, but threw it away when I saw that speeds for the 259 Pro (http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=143) (Raid-1) and the 459 Pro (http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=144) (Raid-5) are nearly identical.

and for those the Raid mode is explicitly mentioned in the screenshots in contrast to the x19Ps

Those run on a total different chip and memory. If the CPU can handle it, the bottleneck becomes something else... You can't compare the newest series with the older ones.

[Sofasurfer]

Oh sorry, I didn't check that properly. I was under the impression that the last two digits of the model's name are the series number.
And series share the same HW(CPU/MEM).

[Hi-Jack]

It is the last two digits referring to the series and in case of X59 series, performance on all units is similar. Comparing to RAID1 and RAID5 on the X59 series or the older units is however not a match as one has to know where the bottleneck is in performance. On the old units, likely CPU... on the newer units the CPU is powerful enough to not be the bottleneck so likely there it becomes the hard drives, raid performance, software limitations and so on...