Micro_Mart_-_January_7_2016_

Q

NAP putsa lot of

emphasison creating

NAS unitsthat do

far more thansimply

servingshared folders.You

can play gamesoff QNAP

units,createa virtualisation

serverand evenhookthemup

directlyto yourTV via HDMI.

Insidethis two-bayNAS

you’llfind a dual-core

2.41GHzIntelCeleron CPU

and 1GB of DDR3LRAM

(expandableup to 8GB),along

with512MBof flashmemory.

You can fit two 3.5"or 2.5"

SATA drivesin the hot-swap

cradles,whichslideeasilyinto

the unit and lock into position.

The rear of the TS-251

features a HDMIport,a pair

of gigabitEthernet ports,two

USB 2.0 portsand a single

USB 3.0 portmalongwiththe

powerand a pinholereset.

The front containsa further

singleUSB 3.0 port,the

powerbutton,a one-touch

copybutton,a stripof LED

indicatorsand,of course,the

two drivebays.

Drivingall this is a

customised,embeddedLinux

operatingsystemcalledQTS

4.1.1,withwhichyou can

configure the TS-251and set

up the RAIDconfigurations

for the inserteddrives.The

UI is large,colourfuland

extremelyeasyto use, and

offers you the abilityto tweak

the NAS unit to yourparticular

specificationor to delve

deeperinto its innerworkings

advancedmusicmanagement

and serving,a torrent

downloadstationand a built-

in anti-viruslayerto protect

yourfiles.

In additionto all that,

there’s also a VPN service,

MySQLserver, a network-

basedsurveillancestationand

serverand manymore services

via the QNAPApp Centre,

suchas the aforementioned

virtualisation,Dropbox

support,GoogleDriveSync,

Drupaland evenan app-based

versionofSuperMarioBros.

The installationof the

TS-251,withtwo drivesfitted,

is very quickindeed.Within

aboutfive minutes,we had

a pair of 1TB driveswiped,

RAIDedand were backon the

loginscreen ready for a system

updateand the installation

of someselectedapps.The

Celeron CPU and 1GB RAM

helpspushthe TS-251alongat

a rate of knotsand keepsit up

to speedevenwhenthe device

is pushedto the limitthrough

servingmedia,transcoding

and whenbeingusedas a web

and backupserver.

The addedbenefitof

beingable to plugit directly

into a TV withthe HDMI

port is a feature that other

manufacturers shouldreally

startto lookat. In short,it’s

one of the best NAS units

we’veever had to test.

DETAILS

• Price:£200


• Manufacturer: QNAP


• Website:
  goo.gl/vHbBbT


• Requirements:
  Wired networkin place,
  anymodernbrowserfor
  accessandadmin

QNAPTS-251

Two-bayNASDrives

for a more advancedlevelof

configuration.

The servicesthe

TS-251offers via the NAS

Managementfacilityinclude

the usualDLNAserver,

but withthe addedability

to hardware transcode

videoin real timefor up

to five different devices

simultaneously. There’s also a

myQNAPcloudwizard, which

can publishthe TS-251NAS

servicesto the internet. And in

additionthere’s an advanced

file synchronisationtool called

Qsync.Otherstandoutfeatures

includea backupstation,



Theinstallationof theTS-

251,with twodrivesfitted,is

veryquickindeed



9

8

Quality

Value

99

Overall

iAn extremely powerful and capable NAS drive

iThe QTS operatingsystem is the best we’ve seenon a NAS drive