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QnapTS-h 1886 XU-RP

Thisflexibleyetaffordable

rackNASboastsdualOS

support,greatperformance

andheapsoffeatures

PRICEDiskless/32GB,£2,756excVAT
fromballicom.com

Q

nap’sTS-h1886XU-RPisa
highlyversatilebusinessNAS.
This 2 U racksystemcanhouse
upto 18 drives, via 12 front-facinghot-
swapbaysandsixrearSFFbays,and
hasplentyofconnectivityoptions,in
theformof quadGigabitEthernet
portsplusdual10GbE connectors.
Theapplianceevenofferstwo
operatingsystems: on initialsetup,
thequick-startwizardpromptsyouto
choosebetweenQnap’snimbleQTS
OSandtheadvancedQuTSheroOS.
Whilethelatterismoredemanding,
theTS-h1886XU-RP hastheresources
tomatchit:thepriceaboveincludes
32GBofDDR4RAM, whichisenough
tofullyenableinlinededuplication
andgettopperformancefromthe
10GbEports.Theonly catchisthat
you’relimited to a1TBSSDcache;to
increasethisto4TB,you’llneedto
upgradetothemaximum128GB.
QTSdoesn’thaveallthehigh-end
featuresofQuTS,butitcansupporta
4TBcacheoutofthe box– and,unlike
QuTS,it supportsQnap’s Qtier 2
data-migrationfeature.
Whichever pathyouchoose,the
userexperience is verysimilar.The
twosystems presentalmost identical
webconsoles, with 130 downloadable
appsforQTSand 144 forQuTS.Allthe
keybackupappsareavailableforboth
OSes,includingHybridBackupSync
3,QsyncCentralandHybridMount

• plusHyperDataProtectorfor
  VMwareandHyper-V systems.

7.6Gbits/secforbothreadsandwrites,

whileour 22 .4GBtest folderwas

copiedata speedy2.4Gbits/sec.

Totest IP SANs,weuseda 1TBiSCSI

targetmappedtoourtest serverover

a dual 10GbE MPIOlink.Again,QTS

andQuTSdeliverednearidentical

performance, withsequentialread

andwrite speedsbetween17Gbits/sec

and18Gbits/sec.Movingtorandom

readoperationssawrespectivespeeds

of18.5Gbits/secand18.1Gbits/sec.

Wedidseeonebigdifference,

however.QuTS usesQnap’sARC

(adaptivereadcache)andZIL(ZFS

intentlog)features,whichenable

muchfasterrandomwritesoveriSCSI:

QTSachievedrates of only

0.6Gbits/sec,while QuTS

shotahead at an average

of17.3Gbits/sec.Addinga

dualSSDcachetoQTS

improvedperformance,

butonlyto4Gbits/sec.

Note,too,thatQuTS

supportstriplemirroringand

RAID-TP(tripleparity)toprotect

againstthreedrivefailures–

somethingQTScan’tmatch.And

whencreatingNASshares,QuTSgives

youtheoption to enablenative

compressionanddeduplicationto

savespace,plusWORMpoliciesto

preventdatabeingtamperedwith.

Withitsdualpersonality,the

Qnap’sTS-h1886XU-RP willappealto

a widerangeofbusinesses.BothOS

optionsperformwellandoffera wide

rangeoffeatures,anditsclever18-bay

designis idealfor SSD-accelerated

storageservices withplentyofroom

toexpand.DAVEMITCHELL

ABOVEQnapmanages

tocramanawfullotof

storageintoa2UNAS

“QuTSofferscompression

anddeduplicationtosave

space,plusWORMpolicies

topreventdatabeing

tamperedwith”

SCORE

SPECIFICATIONS

2Urackchassis2.6GHzquad-coreIntel

XeonD-1622CPU32GBDDR4ECC(max

128GB) 12 xSATALFF/SFF(front)6xSATA

SFF(rear)RAID0,1,5,6,10,50,60,Triple

Parity,TripleMirror(withQuTS)4xGigabit

Ethernet,2x10GbESFP+PCI-Ecard2xUSB

3.24xPCI-E3slots2x550Whot-plug

PSUs5yrhardwarewarranty

What’smore,bothplatformsgive

excellentperformance. Theappliance

isdrivenbya quad-core2.6GHzIntel

XeonD-1622 CPU,andthreevacant

PCI-Eslotsofferplentyofexpansion

options:they’lltakemulti-Gigabit,

10GbE,25GbEand40GbEnetwork

adapters, or 16/32Gbits/secFibre

Channelcards.

QnaprecommendsinstallingQuTS

onSSDs,sofortestingweusedapair

ofmirrored 9 60GBMicronSFFSSDs.

Fordata-storageduties, we fittedsix

Toshiba18TBMG09SATAharddisks

andcreateda massive 79TB RAID5

storagepool.Subsequentlyswitching

toQTS wasa bitofanoperation,asit

requiresyoutobackupallyourdata

andreinitialisetheappliance.

However,QTSdoesn’trequireSSDs

foritssystempool,sowejustcreateda

singlepoolfromthe Toshibadrives.

Theresultswereilluminating.

For10GbE NASperformance,there’s

nothingtochoosebetweenthetwo

operating systems:under both

systems,Iometerrecordedreadand

writeratesa shadeover9Gbits/sec,

whichiswhatwe’dexpectfrom a

business-classappliance.

Itwasthesamestoryinourfile-

copyingtests:whenwedraggeda

25GBfiletoandfroma network

share,bothOSesaveraged around

RECOMMENDED

BELOW

yours:Qnap’sQTSand

QuTSheroOSesare

bothfullysupported