QNAP Virtual QTS Now Available On TS-x77 NAS Series

[Julio Urquidi]

vQTS allows QNAP customers to run multiple instances of QTS on a single NAS device. Initially available for QNAP’s AMD Ryzen-powered TS-x77 series of NAS products, vQTS lets QTS instances operate alongside other virtual instances running Windows, Linux, Unix and/or Android operating systems, all within the same NAS-encased virtual environment.

Based on QNAP’s Virtualization Station solution, vQTS virtual instances run within a multi-tenant environment, letting departments have their own QTS system to run applications and services separately from other QTS instances. Administrators can also allocate dedicated hardware resources (CPU, memory, storage and networking) to each QTS instance, segregating usage within the virtual machine. Finally, by using iSCSI or NFS, vQTS allows processes to run on a TS-x77 NAS while using storage on a separate NAS device, if needed.

QNAP vQTS is now available for the TS-1277-1700-64G, TS-877-1700-16G and TS-677-1600-8G.

 

[RMerlin]

I sense a "Yo dawg, I heard you liked QTS, so..." meme coming

The idea of virtualizing QTS itself opens a good bit of potential. One could probably use a single high capacity NAS among different business divisions and separate their QTS configuration this way.

The next step might possibly be QNAP starting to licence out QTS as a software product rather than a hardware product. That would definitely be interesting to see. Reminds me of Nitix from Network Integrator (I used to sell and support their products, before QNAP and Synology appeared on the market).

Too bad IBM pretty much killed Nitix when they bought out the company. Licensing cost went through the roof, and the technical support also went downhill.

 

[chipped]

I sense a "Yo dawg, I heard you liked QTS, so..." meme coming

The idea of virtualizing QTS itself opens a good bit of potential. One could probably use a single high capacity NAS among different business divisions and separate their QTS configuration this way.

The next step might possibly be QNAP starting to licence out QTS as a software product rather than a hardware product. That would definitely be interesting to see. Reminds me of Nitix from Network Integrator (I used to sell and support their products, before QNAP and Synology appeared on the market).

Too bad IBM pretty much killed Nitix when they bought out the company. Licensing cost went through the roof, and the technical support also went downhill.

Better off using Synology DSM, they had this feature ages ago and they use a superior filesystem, BTRFS. They use their own LVM though because the BTRFS one is dodgy (File System is rock solid though).

Plus there is a boot loader to run on your own hardware, search "Xpenology Jun Loader". I've deployed it to 3 home servers (1st Gen i7, 3rd Gen i5, 4th Gen i5) and its rock solid. Way better than FreeNAS, Rockstor and unRAID which I tried previously for years.

 

[RMerlin]

Better off using Synology DSM, they had this feature ages ago and they use a superior filesystem, BTRFS. They use their own LVM though because the BTRFS one is dodgy (File System is rock solid though).

When it comes to my data, I prefer tried-and-true over bleeding edge. I've been burned by ReiserFS back in the day (back then every so-called expert pointed out how much better it was than ext2). So, ext3 or ext4 is what I prefer to use.

Plus there is a boot loader to run on your own hardware, search "Xpenology Jun Loader".

That's not an entirely legal solution however (if it's the same thing I've read about a few years ago).

 

[mikeekimmike]

QNAP has terrible EOL policies. I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them.

Synology - 5years++
QNAP - 3years(MAYBE)

 

[RMerlin]

QNAP has terrible EOL policies. I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them.

Can you elaborate? So far, even the oldest QNAP I have in production use for a customer (a TS-259 Pro) still gets security updates from QNAP, and the product was deployed 5 years ago. So definitely more than 3 years.

 

[mikeekimmike]

Can you elaborate? So far, even the oldest QNAP I have in production use for a customer (a TS-259 Pro) still gets security updates from QNAP, and the product was deployed 5 years ago. So definitely more than 3 years.

Ahh. Perhaps they changed it. I have a TVS-EC1080+

You are right, it is more than 3 years. However the OS and security updates are not the same. I think this is still very poor.

http://www.storagereview.com/qnap_l..._rexp1000_pro_highdensity_expansion_enclousre

It was launched July 2014, IS updates run till 2019. ~5 years.

https://www.qnap.com/en/product/eol.php

I dunno, I think it was just angry at some of the customer support. They told me to turn off my SSD's because they were getting to hot. Lots of other little things.

All in all, I'm glad QTS can be virtualized.

 

[RMerlin]

Ahh. Perhaps they changed it. I have a TVS-EC1080+

It's possible. They even starting selling warranty extensions a year or two ago, so they seem to be adjusting to the business market.

 

[sfx2000]

I sense a "Yo dawg, I heard you liked QTS, so..." meme coming

Inception was my first thought

 

[TheLostSwede]

QNAP are really arbitrary with regards to hardware support. Some devices have 5+ years of software updates, others get 2-3 years. It really depends on the CPU/SoC and how many units were sold.
Last year they killed support for all their Marvell Kirkwood based garbage, which shouldn't have been made as long as it was. However, they also killed support for a bunch of 32-bit x86 stuff too at the same time.
My concern with all of the "consumer" NAS makers is that they're still quite lax about security updates, as it can sometimes take them months to get patches out, or they do some half assed patch that doesn't really work. QNAP has done a lot of dodgy patching and back porting in the past and most likely still are. However, they have at least become a CNA and so has Synology, so someone at the companies have at least realised that they need to patch major issues more quickly.

 

[mikeekimmike]

QNAP are really arbitrary with regards to hardware support. Some devices have 5+ years of software updates, others get 2-3 years. It really depends on the CPU/SoC and how many units were sold.
Last year they killed support for all their Marvell Kirkwood based garbage, which shouldn't have been made as long as it was. However, they also killed support for a bunch of 32-bit x86 stuff too at the same time.
My concern with all of the "consumer" NAS makers is that they're still quite lax about security updates, as it can sometimes take them months to get patches out, or they do some half assed patch that doesn't really work. QNAP has done a lot of dodgy patching and back porting in the past and most likely still are. However, they have at least become a CNA and so has Synology, so someone at the companies have at least realised that they need to patch major issues more quickly.

Yes. Security updates are SLOWWW. It's why I only let them sit behind on a router VPN.

Good observation about the arbitrary support, I'm glad I wasn't going crazy.

 

[Threska49]

When it comes to my data, I prefer tried-and-true over bleeding edge. I've been burned by ReiserFS back in the day (back then every so-called expert pointed out how much better it was than ext2). So, ext3 or ext4 is what I prefer to use.



That's not an entirely legal solution however (if it's the same thing I've read about a few years ago).

Open Source so I don't see why not?

 

[RMerlin]

Open Source so I don't see why not?

Synology's software is not open sourced. It also contains licensed components that can only be legally used on a Synology NAS.

 

[Threska49]

Synology's software is not open sourced. It also contains licensed components that can only be legally used on a Synology NAS.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/?source=navbar

Like a lot of devices (those routers you're working with) it's a mix between GPL and proprietary.

 

[sfx2000]

Synology's software is not open sourced. It also contains licensed components that can only be legally used on a Synology NAS.

Concur... there's a fair amount of GPL, but then there is some special sauce...

Xpenology is interesting, but it's essentially a pirate fork. It's akin to running AsusWRT on Netgear HW...

 

[sfx2000]

The idea of virtualizing QTS itself opens a good bit of potential. One could probably use a single high capacity NAS among different business divisions and separate their QTS configuration this way.

The next step might possibly be QNAP starting to licence out QTS as a software product rather than a hardware product. That would definitely be interesting to see.

Good point about tenants with multiple customers on the same NAS device.

As you mention - moving QTS into the cloud might be interesting.

pfSense has been moving in that direction for some time - the QNAP solution has it running as a VM - FreeBSD running along side a linux kernel - yeah, that's a big deal, and kudo's to them.

At some point, one can run things as a container - my old project does just that these days, the new devs have implemented OpenWRT as a docker container on top of the BSP we developed... so inception perhaps, but it also provides some level of security.

Namespaces are a good thing with linux - QNAP has done a great job with KVM, and performance is good, their container support needs some work, as they've a few steps behind Docker (which is the tech of choice for them)

 

[Threska49]

Concur... there's a fair amount of GPL, but then there is some special sauce...

Xpenology is interesting, but it's essentially a pirate fork. It's akin to running AsusWRT on Netgear HW...

I imagine they get around the whole Psystar thing, by having one download an original .pat from Synology. The situation's not much different than "Hackintoshes" and games on emulators.

 

[RMerlin]

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/?source=navbar

Like a lot of devices (those routers you're working with) it's a mix between GPL and proprietary.

Yes, and the parts that have a proprietary license cannot be used on non-licensed hardware.

 

[mikeekimmike]

Has anyone tried running Proxmox in QTS? I'd MUCH rather have a real Hypervisor over virtual QTS's

 

[sfx2000]

Has anyone tried running Proxmox in QTS? I'd MUCH rather have a real Hypervisor over virtual QTS's

Proxmox and QTS's Virtualization station both use KVM as the hypervisor. Promox tightly binds KVM along with LXC - LXC is there with QTS, but they use Docker to manage containers.

Different answers to the same question - nothing to say that QTS could support Proxmox as a front-end, but it might break some of the QTS special sauce with their virtual network management..