Considering QNAP TVS-472XT - a few questions

[Louis Car]

I currently have a TS-453 pro and it's getting near its end-of-support date so was considering getting the TVS-472XT as a (semi) future proofed replacement.

I have a few questions as I'm not too up on networking in general so if anyone can clear up some thoughts I'd be grateful.

1) Have been also considering the Asus AX86U which I note has a 2.5G port but somewhere I remember it being a problem with the 10g port on the Qnap. Does anyone know about this?
I also know that this port isn't that useful since my only goal is to get faster transfers between PC and NAS and that will need a card in my PC (or a motherboards with 2.5g support), a 2.5g switch.

So am I right in thinking that a router that only had 1g ports would be just as useful given I have to go through that?

2) I have no idea how to wire up between pc and switch where the pc and Nas can communcate @ 2.5g and also both connect to the internet. Can someone just give me some illustration of how this would go or is it fairly simple?

Main concern though is eventually making sure the 10g port on the NAS can be configured to work well with a 2.5g connection. I'm a home user so aspiring to a 10g connection is not that important for me and at the moment it seems like it'd be quite costly to implement.

 

[avtella]

Unless your NAS's 10Gbe port supports NBASE-T (2.5/5 Gbe) modes it will only work at 1/10 Gbe modes, so if you connect a 2.5/5 Gbe client to a standard 10Gbe switch port or Nic it will only operate at 1 Gbe.

If you had a or were to get a 2.5 Gbe cable router, connect the 2.5 Gbe LAN port to a 10Gbe NBASE-T switch and any wired clients to the switch. This way all LAN devices wired/wireless can take advantage of faster than gig speeds and it takes care of the 10Gbe port issue on the NAS.

Router with 2.5 Gbe Port -> (NBASE-T) Switch -> Your NAS/PC/etc

As you have realized it can be expensive with the combined cost of a NBASE-T router and 10Gbe/NBASE-T switch. Other option is to get a $300 QNAP Qhora Wireless Router which has 2x 10Gbe LAN ports or a Zyxel Armor 5 Router that has a 10Gbe port and eliminate the switch altogether. 10Gbe NBASE-T switches can be had for around $250.

Overall unless doing a lot of large file transfers or having a large number of parallel users really using up the 1Gbe link to the NAS I personally would not bother with the expense upgrades if your current setup is meeting your needs.

 

[Louis Car]

A lot of that flew right over my head. Ok I don't know if the "NAS's 10Gbe port supports NBASE-T (2.5/5 Gbe) modes" - I'll have to enquire about the TVS-472XT as whether this does or doesn't.

What I expected or rather, hoped, was that these standards would be downward compatible but it appears that that isn't necessarily the case.

Your point about the 1Gbe link is fair though, I don't have too much of an issue however, I have 2 external drives connected to the NAS and I use a filesyncer to make use of extra space on one of those - ie. often then having to access the NAS to get to the External HDD.
In this scenario it can be quite slow even though the external drives are connected via USB 3.

Having said that I can live with the speeds but again I'm thinking ahead and eventually with a few things in place can increase the speed maybe in the future.

Thanks for your input, I'll email Qnap about the NBASE-T 2.5Gbe modes. I would have hoped they'd have thought of this on that model since it's not by any means a top end business model (I think half way) - so they should consider technology typically available to the home user.

 

[avtella]

Advertising for that NAS says “5 Speed” (ie 100Mbps/1Gbps/2.5Gbps/5Gbps/10Gbps) for the 10Gbe port so it does support NBASE-T (2.5/5Gbe modes), so you don’t need a switch as an intermediary between your potential AX86U purchase and the new NAS.

 

[Louis Car]

Advertising for that NAS says “5 Speed” (ie 100Mbps/1Gbps/2.5Gbps/5Gbps/10Gbps) for the 10Gbe port so it does support NBASE-T (2.5/5Gbe modes), so you don’t need a switch as an intermediary between your potential AX86U purchase and the new NAS.

Yes I found that too.
Unless I'm missing something though I'd still need a switch to communicate with the NAS at 2.5Gbe from the PC. There is only one 2.5Gbe port on the Asus Ax86u and I'd need 2, one for the PC and one for the NAS

 

[avtella]

Then you’d want a switch in between.
The QNAP Qhora router has 2x 10Gbe NBASE-ports so that’s also an option, for around $330.

 

[Louis Car]

Yeah it's quite expensive and I've seen some complaints already. I've had Asus routers and like the fact that you can put enhanced firmware on them. I don't mind using a switch but as in my OP don't quite know how it should be wired so both NAS and PC get internet access and the 2 devices can connect at 2.5Gbe between them.

 

[avtella]

If you want to go the router/switch route, just connect your router’s 2.5 Gbe port to the switch along with your NAS and PC (also to the switch), simple as that. Also note that in this case any transfers between PC and NAS would go directly via the switch. The router and it’s 2.5 Gbe port would not be used unless transfers were occurring between say wireless clients connected to the router and the NAS or PC which would be on the switch side.

 

[Louis Car]

If you want to go the router/switch route, just connect your router’s 2.5 Gbe port to the switch along with your NAS and PC (also to the switch), simple as that. Also note that in this case any transfers between PC and NAS would go directly via the switch. The router and it’s 2.5 Gbe port would not be used unless transfers were occurring between say wireless clients connected to the router and the NAS or PC which would be on the switch side.

Ok so both PC and NAS would get on to the net via the 2.5Gbe connection from the switch at (ISP speed obviously) and the PC and NAS take advantage of 2.5Gbe transfer speeds.
That seems simple enough. Thanks for that.

I also had a thought that this can be done by doubling up but I've not tried it.
eg. My current NAS has 4 Ethernet ports and my PC currently has 2. Is it possible then to connect 2 ports from both ? I know the NAS supports trunking but not sure about the PC.

Thanks for clearing up the switch stuff

 

[avtella]

Yeah you can do teaming, it will double your bandwidth but note that a single target transfer between PC and NAS would still be limited to speed of 1 port. Teaming is more useful when having multiple connections/transfers going on in parallel.

 

[dosborne]

With your current and future qnap gear, be sure to read about the latest vulnerability.

QNAP Qlocker Ransomware

A ransomware has been infecting QNAP NASes this week. I've personally had to deal with two of my customers who got affected, and tomorrow I'll have to contact all my other customers with QNAP products to ensure they are secure. https://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=160886 Make sure you...

www.snbforums.com

Also, in some usage scenarios, port trunking, teaming or aggregation can result in slower access, so in general, it is better to upgrade bit by bit until you get enough components at higher interconnect speeds. Personally, I've tried trunking on a couple snaps and other devices, but never got a performance bump so reverted to a different setup (multi homes devices) that I found met my needs better by segmenting the traffic but YMMV.

 

[Louis Car]

With your current and future qnap gear, be sure to read about the latest vulnerability.

QNAP Qlocker Ransomware

A ransomware has been infecting QNAP NASes this week. I've personally had to deal with two of my customers who got affected, and tomorrow I'll have to contact all my other customers with QNAP products to ensure they are secure. https://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=160886 Make sure you...

www.snbforums.com

Also, in some usage scenarios, port trunking, teaming or aggregation can result in slower access, so in general, it is better to upgrade bit by bit until you get enough components at higher interconnect speeds. Personally, I've tried trunking on a couple snaps and other devices, but never got a performance bump so reverted to a different setup (multi homes devices) that I found met my needs better by segmenting the traffic but YMMV.

@dosborne and @avtella
Thanks - am aware of the Ransomware alerts and have updated all my apps and firmware (current device ). I also have limited the NAS exposure to the outside world and I don't need to access it from outside my home. Still get login attempts to the web UI.

Is Port trunking and teaming interchangeable (the same thing)?
I thought it was a way to make use of 2 lines to switch when one buffer is full. May have misunderstood.

Anyway I install the RT-AX86U today and it's so far working well.
I have to save up a little more for the TVS-472XT which is more than I expected to pay for a NAS. I could go cheaper but as I say - I am hoping for a little more future proofing even though some of the features may not be used.

Thanks for all your advice and help btw, it's much appreciated.

 

[dosborne]

don't need to access it from outside my home.

Do you need to expose it (i.e.do you need to access the gui yourself remotely)?
If you do, you should consider access via VPN instead as it is more secure (you vpn into your local network, then pull up the nas gui).

If you don't, then disable remote gui access to close off this potential access point.

Trunking, aggregation, etc are all the same. Different manufacturers have picked different names. I'm not familiar with "teaming" but it sounds like an equivalent.

 

[Louis Car]

Do you need to expose it (i.e.do you need to access the gui yourself remotely)?
If you do, you should consider access via VPN instead as it is more secure (you vpn into your local network, then pull up the nas gui).

If you don't, then disable remote gui access to close off this potential access point.

Trunking, aggregation, etc are all the same. Different manufacturers have picked different names. I'm not familiar with "teaming" but it sounds like an equivalent.

I had gone as far as to install VPN but haven't tried it yet.
The qnap is a bit quirky when it comes to stopping remote access. In fact you can't directly stop the UI login from QTS. You have to stop port forwarding and I didn't want to disable upnp on the router.

To add to the wierdness , I have installed Openssh which is now on port 22 and not exposed to the net and assigned different ports to the embedded SSH. This does have a setting that will disable remote access however, if you do that for some odd reason Openssh stops running too.

Finally found that the way to do this is to stop Qnap from requesting ports to the router which is done from the qnapcloud app.
I think all is good as now .

I'll figure out the rest of VPN soon to give me a way to get to the NAS when away.

 

[zero7404]

I had gone as far as to install VPN but haven't tried it yet.
The qnap is a bit quirky when it comes to stopping remote access. In fact you can't directly stop the UI login from QTS. You have to stop port forwarding and I didn't want to disable upnp on the router.

To add to the wierdness , I have installed Openssh which is now on port 22 and not exposed to the net and assigned different ports to the embedded SSH. This does have a setting that will disable remote access however, if you do that for some odd reason Openssh stops running too.

Finally found that the way to do this is to stop Qnap from requesting ports to the router which is done from the qnapcloud app.
I think all is good as now .

I'll figure out the rest of VPN soon to give me a way to get to the NAS when away.

been a while since this thread, found it since it's similar to a post i put up today ....

if you already got this hardware you mentioned, I can chime in on the VPN aspect. I don't yet have the QNAP NAS I ordered (TS-453D), but I am aware QTS has a VPN feature. I've already setup a VPN on my AX86U and that has been working very seamlessly with any device I have OpenVPN installed. Just follow the instructions in the OpenVPN app to get the certificate you need to generate from the Router. Once you have that added to the OpenVPN client and the VPN service is running on the AX86U, it's really painless to open a VPN directly to your router from anywhere you have internet.

I use this method right now, and when i am away from home and need to get in to my LAN to do something, just go into OpenVPN client and turn on the switch. takes a second and then I'm connected.

I don't know your use case, but in my case, I can access anything on my network by punching in the LAN IP address I want to get to in a mobile browser. I can admin my router, my NAS, do ssh on either one with Terminus, as well as get to other devices.
For file exchange, just use the native app on your mobile that allows you to map the NAS using it's IP. on iOS, I mounted my NAS and can access the shares from iOS Files app. i haven't explored more than this, but anything you can do from within your LAN you can do with the AX86U VPN + the OpenVPN client. pretty handy and so far I trust it, strictly relying on the router's firewall for LAN security.