A few questions before I purchase

[Wafflebird]

OK a few follow up questions for you folks. When I am looking at the drive in the storage manager it is only showing me like 2.7 TB available in the one volume. But the storage pool shows the 5.45 TB space but shows it half used. The manual clearly states that if I try to expand or otherwise add space it will wipe the drive. I am not near to running out of space but I was under the impression I would have 5 + TB of space to use, which could have been my unintelligent assumption (We know what happens when we do this right). At this point I have done nothing that could not be undone but I do not remember seeing any indication that I was only going to have half of the available space of the drive????

Per the manual either creating a new volume or expanding it will "Erase all data on the disk". I really do not want to do this.

Am I missing something, did I miss something in the initial set up?

One thing could be the allocation when reviewing the "Storage Pool 1" i see "Allocated" and "Un-allocated" and the two of these make up the entire size of the drive. Does this mean that all of it is available to me? It shows it in one line and I have the warning @ 90% full for the moment.

 

[sfx2000]

OK a few follow up questions for you folks. When I am looking at the drive in the storage manager it is only showing me like 2.7 TB available in the one volume. But the storage pool shows the 5.45 TB space but shows it half used. The manual clearly states that if I try to expand or otherwise add space it will wipe the drive. I am not near to running out of space but I was under the impression I would have 5 + TB of space to use, which could have been my unintelligent assumption (We know what happens when we do this right). At this point I have done nothing that could not be undone but I do not remember seeing any indication that I was only going to have half of the available space of the drive????

Per the manual either creating a new volume or expanding it will "Erase all data on the disk". I really do not want to do this.

Am I missing something, did I miss something in the initial set up?

One thing could be the allocation when reviewing the "Storage Pool 1" i see "Allocated" and "Un-allocated" and the two of these make up the entire size of the drive. Does this mean that all of it is available to me? It shows it in one line and I have the warning @ 90% full for the moment.

We talked about this in PM's - you need to grow the volume in the storage pool... it's not creating a new volume, it's growing the existing one... Anyways, explore your options first before committing data to the QNAP - you need to really feel comfortable with those options...

Tinker about - see what the performance is, see what options are there...

 

[htismaqe]

TimeMachine has never been officially supported by Apple on SMB fwiw - doing a SparseImage there, it's asking for problems - TimeMachine can be hosted on AFP...

I'm not talking about using the SMB share as a Time Machine destination. I'm talking about using Disk Utility to create a compressed image (DMG file) of my Time Machine drive and copying it to the NAS.

For that matter, I get that error with any file over 25GB using SMB, using drag-and-drop in Finder. If you Google it, you'll find thousands of references to similar issues.

 

[Wafflebird]

OK figured out the expand volume scenario, quite easy once I dove into the manual, I was over complicating it but wanted to make sure I was on the right page as a lot of things were telling me the drive would be reformatted. The processor has never hit more than about 35% the ram is running between 35-47% most of the time. I have been doing a little bit here and there on it between lawn care and other weekend functions so learning but really loving it and loving the Hybrid Desk Station functionality as well. I have a really nice Logitech keyboard and mouse combo, plugged it in and worked like a charm no driver installation, nothing but smooth sailing. I have not begun to scratch the surface yet but really loving it. I have asked for the Crucial 16 GB Ram kit for Fathers day (I also snuck in a hint on another 6TB HGST drive, but don't expect that as it is a big chunk of $, never hurts to ask though).

I do not feel I am up to beginning the review yet as there is a great deal to learn. I did run into an issue on my work PC. I tried to install Qsync on the laptop (Windows 7 pro machine) and I kept getting errors when trying to install it. This is a big reason I bought the NAS, to be able to keep my work files up to date and access them remotely. I will try again when QNAP Technical support is open and call if I still run into the same issue.

I have remotely connected to the NAS with my phone, really a cool feature. Temps are still A-OK ,CPU and System 109F and HDD @ 113F currently. CPU has been up higher when working but still in the middle of the bar graph when looking at it on the mobile app so I think my placement of it is going to be OK.

Two questions do you guys have your NAS set to hibernate or sleep at night generally? And am I correct in thinking that I will gain nothing by connecting more cat5 cables from the switch to the NAS? I only have on PC connecting to it currently and that pc can only push so much at a time. I know it has 4 ports but would anything be gained by connecting more cables through a simple 16 port unmanaged Gigabit switch?

Thanks,

 

[L&LD]

Unless you configure the switch and the NAS to use the multiple connections, do not plug in more than one LAN cable between them.

I do not let any equipment sleep or hibernate, but I do let the drives spin down.

 

[htismaqe]

I do not let any equipment sleep or hibernate, but I do let the drives spin down.

Same here.

 

[sfx2000]

Unless you configure the switch and the NAS to use the multiple connections, do not plug in more than one LAN cable between them.

I do not let any equipment sleep or hibernate, but I do let the drives spin down.

His NAS support Virtualization Station - and there it will need a dedicated port for the Virtual Machine... but that port, if used for VM, is not available to the NAS or other apps on the NAS.

I don't spin the drives down...

 

[sfx2000]

I have remotely connected to the NAS with my phone, really a cool feature. Temps are still A-OK ,CPU and System 109F and HDD @ 113F currently. CPU has been up higher when working but still in the middle of the bar graph when looking at it on the mobile app so I think my placement of it is going to be OK.

What's the ambient air temp?

Here - it's 77F, the drives are at 93F, CPU temp is 104, chassis is 109...

 

[sfx2000]

This is free space... no AC

 

[sfx2000]

I have asked for the Crucial 16 GB Ram kit for Fathers day (I also snuck in a hint on another 6TB HGST drive, but don't expect that as it is a big chunk of $, never hurts to ask though).

I would go for the drive first, then worry about the RAM upgrade - you likely don't need more than 8 - QTS is pretty memory efficient.

 

[Wafflebird]

First off hats off to all of you, thank you sincerely for all of your assistance and guidance................................................. if all online forums could be like this one.

Just as an update as the review is still a ways off:

I think I might have an issue with my Swap memory system. It was maxed out earlier and QNAP said for me to reboot and I did, since then the swap memory has slowly crept up from 4 MB to now it is up to 517 of 517. They said that if it stays that way I will need to contact them and they will need to remote in and see what is going on. This bugs me a little.


I was transcoding earlier and copying a large section of files over and the CPU temp got up to 159F. As soon as the transcoding stopped it cooled right down but that seemed a little high. Right now the NAS is generating almost 10K worth of thumbnails and my readings are:

CPU 127 this is higher than it normally runs sometimes as low as 104, I think only when pushed will it heat up, I have the "Smart Fan" enabled.
System 118
HDD 118

One of the features I love, my videos are buried in all the file folders that I had on an external HDD's,once copied over the Video Station is awesome as it has direct access to all of them, and only video, that is really nice as it breaks it down by year and month.

QSync is now up and running, I had an issue with it and QNAP remote logged in and basically all it needed was to stop and restart the process, it was like it started to work but never really did anything. Took quite a while to transfer all of my work stuff over (60+ gigs) but now it is copied and I will now do all of my updates and saves in that file system and it will always be backed up. I had been a little disappointed as the transfer speeds I had been seeing were nothing to write home about but the transfers were of tons of small files and I know you are not going to see blazing fast speeds there. When copying some larger video files over this evening I saw quite a few "Over 100 MBPS" transfers which made me smile, it will move at speed when asked to do so with the proper material.

All of the remote apps I have used so far (Qfile, Qmanager, Qremote, Qnotes which really works well with the Galaxy Note 4 stylus, how it makes out my hand writing so well heaven only knows but man as soon as it is on my phone it is on the NAS, now that is cool) just simply work 100% properly which is nice. We always wonder if something is going to be "As Advertised" and WOW is all I can say. I did have to change the port on the NAS as my router and the NAS were trying to use the same port, but now I can log-in no problem. This is really a mature OS with really functional apps, the QNAP team deserve some credit as far as I am concerned.

The only "Concern" is the swap memory issue. I will check it in the AM and see if it is still full and if so I will call them and have them see what is going on, again a little bummed on this but I am sure it can be rectified. You can just sit and literally watch it tick up, up, up every few seconds till it is full. Only took a couple of hours for this to be the case after the reboot. The possibility exists that it could have something to do with the thumbnail generation and I will thus let it run its course (down to about 5400 left at this point) and see if the swap memory is still full. If you are up to it could any of you explain what this swap memory is supposed to do and how it is supposed to act? The QNAP tech said it had nothing to do with the actual system RAM, well the second tech said this, the first said it did have something to do with it. Looking at the System status they appear to be separate to me.

The maximum CPU use I have seen was when transcoding a 1080P video and it got to about 70% while transferring a ton of files and creating thumbnails (which was when the CPU got hot). When playing HD over KODI the CPU does not even get to 10% on average. I think this system is pretty stout and I am very pleased overall with the unit.

Many thanks as always.

BC

 

[sfx2000]

I wouldn't worry too much about the swap memory - utilization will be high for a bit while media station is indexing and creating thumbnails...

I'm mildly concerned with those temps, but let it finish sorting things out and see where it lands...

 

[Trexx]

OK good morning, I have a couple of questions. I did the bad block scan last night and it finished. I have the 6TB drive in there but when I look at the system information I get conflicting reports. When looking at the system health I see that 212 MB are used but it only shows 2.69 TB available? When I look at the storage manager I see Storage pool 1 listed at 5.45 TB but it shows basically 50% of it used. So basically it is split up into half based on what I see. I am thinking I should have 5.45 TB of space. Does this have to do with how I set it up by allowing all 3 file transfer types? Looking at the system status and Disk usage it says available 2.69 TB of 2.69 TB?

Also how many of you enable the Antivirus on your machines, the one that comes standard with it?

I will have more questions as I go along but really scratching my head on the amount of storage available.

After installation of several programs my ram usage is up to around 37%. I am thinking of asking for the Crucial 16 Big ram kit for Fathers day, any thoughts on this?

Temps after being in the entertainment center (in a separate area as indicated earlier not in with all the rest of the stuff, good ventilation and no noticeable heat around the unit after all night running) all night and running are @ 114 each system and HDD, processor is at 127 F.

Protocols supported (SMB/NFS/AFP) has no effect on how space is carved. Most likely due to something you did when setting up your volume. Did you setup iSCSI space??

Remember 6TB really isn't 6TB due to drive manufacturers counting in base10 (1000) vs base2 (1024). Then when you add filesystem overhead on top of it you lose some more.

There are 2 antivirus options you can use, ClamAV (free) or McAfee (paid). I have ClamAV enabled on mine since I tend not to run AV on my Mac. There is also a Beta Malware package as well that has NO GUI, but I installed it for good measure as well.

 

[Wafflebird]

Well the swap memory was still 100% utilized this morning well after it had finalized the indexing. I restarted it and have done basically nothing with it and it is @ 0% .

Temps are currently:

CPU 111
System 114
HDD 114
Does those reflect an adequate cooling allowance? It is not in free space but has good ventilation. HDD is a tad higher than yours but still seems to be in good tolerance levels? I will say that the CPU gets hot fast when transcoding but then cools right off. I had heard that transcoding makes it work, when transcoding a 1080P video from my Galaxy I saw the cpu @ about 70% and temp up @ 150. As stated as soon as it stops it cools down quite briskly.

Ram usage is hovering @ about 27% CPU currently @ 0%. I am thinking that I will be receiving the 16 gig that I asked for as a Fathers Day present.

 

[sfx2000]

The HDD team is 20 degrees higher than mine - and I've got 4 7200RPM enterprise level NAS drives spinning :O

With regards to the swap memory - remember QTS is Linux, and it's fairly common for it to use all the memory available, it's different than windows, and doesn't indicate a problem, unless you're hammering swap all the time...

How much RAM do you have now? I really can't see going more than 8MB for typical home usage... I went with 8GB because I run a couple of VM's on the box, and they do lock down memory when the VM's are in use/running...

 

[sfx2000]

Oh man... If I knew that the i3/i5/i7 based models were like this, I would have recommended that one buy it with the RAM one might need, rather than go with a smaller number... seems like the DIMM slots are on the same side as the CPU, and this might require a bit of disassemble effort to get at, basically removing the backplane, and removing the mainboard to get access to the slots...

The 453 and 463 series, the slots are on the backside, easily accessible...

Below is from an 870...

 

[sfx2000]

I'm not talking about using the SMB share as a Time Machine destination. I'm talking about using Disk Utility to create a compressed image (DMG file) of my Time Machine drive and copying it to the NAS.

For that matter, I get that error with any file over 25GB using SMB, using drag-and-drop in Finder. If you Google it, you'll find thousands of references to similar issues.

Ah... I know which issue you're talking about - and yes, that one is a pain for SMB on Macs... but again, OP doesn't have a Mac, so he's likely ok to turn off the AFP, along with the NFS servers...

 

[sfx2000]

I did have to change the port on the NAS as my router and the NAS were trying to use the same port, but now I can log-in no problem.

For some reason, this really stuck out as a possible security concern... the NAS and the router have different IP's on the LAN of your Router/AP/Gateway thingy...

1) Are you allowing remote config on the router?

2) I certainly hope you're not port forwarding anything from the NAS to the public internet - this is not a good thing... either directly or via uPnP...

 

[sfx2000]

How much RAM do you have now? I really can't see going more than 8MB for typical home usage... I went with 8GB because I run a couple of VM's on the box, and they do lock down memory when the VM's are in use/running...

If I recall - back earlier in the thread, you ordered the 4GB version with the i3 chip...

I'd hold off on the RAM upgrade, and go for the second 6TB drive if it were me... and perhaps consider a small SSD, let's say 128GB Micron or similar, to tinker about with SSD caching, as Read Performance can be improved there with QTS 4.1.3...

Checking QNAP's site, they have not updated the HW Manual for this model, so there are no step-by-step on the RAM upgrades, and if it's anything like the TS-*70 series, it's non-trivial to get at the DIMM slots on that board, unlike some of the other desktop models..

 

[Wafflebird]

sfx,

All I did was change the port # to one that is different than the router. When I would try to remote in to the NAS on the myqnapcloud I would get the router login and not the NAS. I have updated the router password as well as have the NAS password protected. If you think there is a concern with this please let me know. I have not forwarded anything as far as I know just did this.

The TVS-471 is not as challenging to change the ram on as the x70 series. based on the guide online from QNAP.

If you go to the specifications section on the x71 series and click on the installation guide for the ram the x71 series is on the very bottom of the page. Both appear to be rather accessible without removing anything other than the case and drives.

Swap memory is behaving well now, since the second reboot it has not gone back into "Free climb" mode. I did transfer 100+ photos processed from Lightroom over yesterday just as a test and it did not do go back into free climb.