TS-419P Questions (Newbie on NAS)

[jderosa3]

I just purchased the TS-419P Turbo NAS (I should have it in hand in a couple of days). I run a small home based design firm (graphic/multimedia design), my wife does interior design and I use a PS3 for media streaming... I thought this was a good purchase.

I have a couple questions about this device:

1) I have roughly 2.5TB of data I will be transferring to this device from my local machine. I have a gigabit ethernet network and although it is fast it will still take days to copy this data to the NAS.

I see that there are eSATA ports on this. Can I hook up the external drives from my local machine to this so that I can transfer this data quickly to the NAS. Then disconnect them.

I am hoping there is a way to quickly get this data to the NAS without having to wait forever to transfer the files.

2) I am loading this NAS with 4 Samsung F2 1.5TB drives and will set it up in RAID 5. Let's say hypothetically one of the drives go bad. I understand I can hot swap out the bad drive and then it will automatically recalculate the data back to it. In this case I bought and extra identical drive...

but what if I want to upgrade to 2TB drives... do they have to be the same brand? Can I hot swap them one at a time without downtime?

3) Can the RAM be upgraded in this device? (I am a RAM junkie... I tend to just max it out... is that wrong?)​

I apologize for the lack of insight, but I am new to these devices and I want to make sure I am getting the correct info before I begin.

This community seemed to be the best out there. So thank you all for contributing - this seems like a great place to learn.

 

[hothead]

I have similar questions

thanks for posting your questions... I am surprised that there are no responses.

Maybe the newbie questions are not considered that important...

 

[thiggins]

I recommend always trying the vendor's forums first. But thanks for asking here anyway.

1) I have roughly 2.5TB of data I will be transferring to this device from my local machine. I have a gigabit ethernet network and although it is fast it will still take days to copy this data to the NAS.
I see that there are eSATA ports on this. Can I hook up the external drives from my local machine to this so that I can transfer this data quickly to the NAS. Then disconnect them.

You can do this using the Web File Manager. But I'd try a test folder copy first over the network and direct-attached. You might find the network copy faster.

2) I am loading this NAS with 4 Samsung F2 1.5TB drives and will set it up in RAID 5. Let's say hypothetically one of the drives go bad. I understand I can hot swap out the bad drive and then it will automatically recalculate the data back to it. In this case I bought and extra identical drive...but what if I want to upgrade to 2TB drives... do they have to be the same brand? Can I hot swap them one at a time without downtime?

First, you should use only drives on the recommended list.
Replacement drives don't have to be the same make/model.
Yes, you can swap one drive at a time to expand capacity. But this takes a long time since the volume must rebuild each time. You don't get the expanded capacity until all drives are swapped.

3) Can the RAM be upgraded in this device? (I am a RAM junkie... I tend to just max it out... is that wrong?)

Not without voiding your warranty. http://qnap.com/faq_detail.asp?faq_id=645

 

[hothead]

You can do this using the Web File Manager. But I'd try a test folder copy first over the network and direct-attached. You might find the network copy faster.

!! And I just settled upon the qNAP because of the eSATA connections.

Not without voiding your warranty. http://qnap.com/faq_detail.asp?faq_id=645

Doh!

 

[hothead]

One month later on the 419P

As a newbie contemplating spending so much on a technology that I had never worked with, I think that the little details were freaking me out.

I would have to say that this unit installed easily, and after a few days of loading it with data, performs perfectly with a mixed network: OSX, XP and Vista. Streaming is a breeze, access times (both read and write) are excellent, and I can easily recommend this unit to a newbie like me intending to use it for its intended use: in home, not enterprise networking.

I did find a couple of bottlenecks where I thought that I had Cat 5e cable, but only had Cat 5. It made a huge difference when I built and replaced the new cables.