QNAP Intros AMD-Powered TS-x73 NAS Series For SMBs

[Julio Urquidi]

Available in 4-bay, 6-bay and 8-bay models, the new SMB targeted TS-x73 desktop NAS series is powered by AMD’s RX-421ND quad-core 2.1 GHz CPU, and is available with either 4 GB or 8 GB DDR4 configurations (all models are upgradeable to 64 GB of RAM).

The QNAP TS-x73 series includes:

• TS-473-4G (four-bay, 4 GB DDR4 RAM)
• TS-473-8G (four-bay, 8 GB DDR4 RAM)

• TS-673-4G (six-bay, 4GB DDR4 RAM)
• TS-673-8G (six-bay, 8GB DDR4 RAM)

• TS-873-4G (eight-bay, 4GB DDR4 RAM)
• TS-873-8G (eight-bay, 8GB DDR4 RAM)

Each model has two PCIe slots that can be used to add wireless networking, 10GbE networking, graphics cards, or QNAP’s own QM2 slot-based M.2 SSD cards. The TS-x73 also includes two onboard M.2 SATA SSD slots for caching, but can also be setup to run RAID 5 when used with a storage-populated QM2 M.2 SSD PCIe card.

Interfaces on each TS-x73 NAS include four GbE ports, four USB 3.0 ports, two microphone jacks, one line-out and one speaker jack. Storage expansion is also possible by adding two 8-bay UX-800P or 5-bay UX-500P or four 10-bay REXP-1000 Pro expansion enclosures from QNAP. For virtualization, the TS-x73 series supports VMware, Citrix and MS Hyper-V and can run VMs using Windows, Linux, UNIX and Android OSes, as well LXC and Docker containers.

All TS-x73 models (TS-473, TS-673 and TS-873) are available now. Pricing is as follows:

• TS-873-8G-US - $999
• TS-873-4G-US - $899
• TS-673-8G-US - $899
• TS-673-4G-US - $799
• TS-473-8G-US - $799
• TS-473-4G-US - $699

 

[Dave in NM]

Interesting CPU choice, wonder why they chose this one. Why not Ryzen 2000 series?

 

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

Interesting CPU choice, wonder why they chose this one. Why not Ryzen 2000 series?

well their ryzen amd models are the x77 and the newer ts-1677x

Qnap doesn't always release the very latest cpu. It's usually 1 year or more older. When they released the X77 series, the amd ryzen was still considered very new, that is the fastest i've seen them release a new cpu. It was good they waited a few months, because there were all sorts of bios updates for a new microarchitecture being done by Amd to sort out ram and performance issues all over the news. Maybe that is why they don't always release the very latest usually.

If you want the ryzen cpu model, the x77/x77x is the way to go.

Here is a comparison between the cpus
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/926/AMD_R-Series_RX-421ND_vs_AMD_Ryzen_7_1700.html


If they gave the ts-x73 series the amd ryzen gen2 cpu, it would cannabalize into their x77/x77x series sales which is already marketed for ryzen cpu already.

the ts-x73 isn't about having the latest, it's about having a more than capable device at a more affordable price compared to their other better models.

if you need more cores for vm or anything very cpu intensive needing better multi threading performance, or with max possible transcoding streams, x77/x77x is better. if you just want plex to work on the cheap, ts-x73 is great.

out of all the nas brands, it would seem qnap release the most hardware models yearly. they already released a lot of new models already this year, so maybe something like a Ryzen 2000 or newer refresh would be something to expect in 2019 or 2020 is my guess.

 

[Threska49]

well their ryzen amd models are the x77 and the newer ts-1677x

Qnap doesn't always release the very latest cpu. It's usually 1 year or more older. When they released the X77 series, the amd ryzen was still considered very new, that is the fastest i've seen them release a new cpu. It was good they waited a few months, because there were all sorts of bios updates for a new microarchitecture being done by Amd to sort out ram and performance issues all over the news. Maybe that is why they don't always release the very latest usually.

If you want the ryzen cpu model, the x77/x77x is the way to go.

Here is a comparison between the cpus
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/926/AMD_R-Series_RX-421ND_vs_AMD_Ryzen_7_1700.html


If they gave the ts-x73 series the amd ryzen gen2 cpu, it would cannabalize into their x77/x77x series sales which is already marketed for ryzen cpu already.

the ts-x73 isn't about having the latest, it's about having a more than capable device at a more affordable price compared to their other better models.

if you need more cores for vm or anything very cpu intensive needing better multi threading performance, or with max possible transcoding streams, x77/x77x is better. if you just want plex to work on the cheap, ts-x73 is great.

out of all the nas brands, it would seem qnap release the most hardware models yearly. they already released a lot of new models already this year, so maybe something like a Ryzen 2000 or newer refresh would be something to expect in 2019 or 2020 is my guess.

Fact it's BGA will keep it at it's current level.

 

[sfx2000]

Interesting CPU choice, wonder why they chose this one. Why not Ryzen 2000 series?

Single chip solution - and as somebody mentioned - BGA...

Good performer for this purpose. High performance, low cost.

Ryzen 2K solutions are a bit longer as AMD is focused on the laptop space there.

 

[claykin]

Interesting CPU choice, wonder why they chose this one. Why not Ryzen 2000 series?

Same CPU as the TVS-x73 series which has been out for 1+ year. So, my suspicion is the TVS series will see a new CPU soon.

I'm a bit concerned about this hardware platform. The TVS series has suffered from issues with failed RAID disks. Usually drive #3 on the 4 bay units. Its obviously a hardware issue, not disks. QNAP has never officially acknowledged the issue AFAIK.

 

[damian]

Hello,

I am in the market for a NAS. I have never purchase one, my experience with NAS extends to setting up a FREENAS in an old computer. What are your thoughts regarding QNAP value / performance? Do you have a favorite NAS? What do you like about it?

Thank you,