I am a real user and had this for 3 months which was agonising. Performance is there but if you are worried about uptime this is a product not for you.
Read on:
Bought an N4200 and a disk kept dropping.
Upgraded disks to a different model, copied all data back on...disk still dropped
Replaced a single disk that kept dropping...issue reoccurred
Took it back for repairs and Motherbord, DOM and internal SATA cables were replaced and still a disk kept dropping from the RAID. (Basically a new unit now) HDD was on the compatibility list.
Each time a disk drops and I re-seated the HDD, the RAID will rebuild, iSCSI access lost and in two cases corrupted some of my running virtual machines on vSphere ESXi 4.1. The virtual operating systems (Server 2003 and 2008) blue screened on boot up and I had to restore the OS from a backup. (This device is also VMware certified!)
From there, each time a disk rebuild occurred I shutdown my VM’s first until the rebuild completed (average 15 hours).
Upgraded to the latest firmware and this possibly gave me a new issue. When performing a storage vMotion on the VMware side, and at the same time a file copy was in progress to a NAS share, the storage vMotion will crash. The iSCSI drivers were upgraded in the version 5 release and I believe caused this new issue. I have not been able to confirm this however.
One time after a reboot it hung on a screen "Assemble RAID". It does not come out of this. You have to reset everything to factory default (Data on disks is not lost at least) which requires putting a flash file on a USB stick and booting with it. If you had running VM’s then they probably will blue screen on boot up now! NAS needs to be reconfigured from scratch once more.
A few times the unit hung, No access to Web UI, no response from the front panel, hard reboot got it running again but all my virtual machines blue screened on boot up and again spent a lot of time restoring from backup.
Finally the place of purchase upgraded me to a N4200 Pro. It was a lot faster, disk did not drop at all but after 2 weeks the unit hung twice within 3 days and one resulted in a "assemble RAID" error. Again a full restore on my VMware environment. It corrupted my Exchange database on two occasions also.
Getting a refund. Purchased a QNAP TS-459 Pro II (Spent a lot more on this unit)
Even though stats online show that the Thecus performed better than a few high end QNAP devices, copying my data back onto this unit with the same hard disks was noticeably quicker.
Complete set up time was in hours and not 2 days (Adding Thecus to domain was a pain, working out how to lock down FTP access was a waste of time, Photo server was too complicated for what it should be) Synology still have the best Photo server in my opinion. Easy to use and easy to administer.
With QNAP, performing a Storage vMotion while copying data to a share works fine.
With QNAP, I have not had any instability issues what so ever.
Support for Thecus takes 2 days minimum for a response, I got a reply from QNAP on the same day for a query I had.
While using the Thecus, there were odd occasions where I will get VSS errors while backing up with Veeam. I have not had this issue since using QNAP. My backups have been 100% successful every day. This may be a coincidence however.
FTP access on Thecus will show all public directories such a websites, Photo Server (Piczza). You cannot lock down a user to a home folder. There is a module you can install which will allow this but it did not work for me. This is a security risk.
Camera support is very limited on Thecus. QNAP will support generic cameras at least but with limited functionality (can’t use pan and tilt)
On the Thecus, Web UI is borderline “Engrish” and the modules you need to install to get more functionality are worse if you read the instructions.
Thecus asks for a reboot on things like changing IP or DNS settings. Imagine having to reboot your computer or your server every time you had to do that! QNAP does not require this. If you have running VM’s you have to shut them all down first for a basic change.
Creating users and setting up folder shares is a lot cleaner on QNAP and there are lot of very good Wizard driven set up options though out the whole system. The PC-less set up is great. Set up IP and RAID without a computer!
QNAP has expanded features to backup to the Cloud. I do not use this but it is the way things are going these days. It is very innovative.
There you have it. Hope this encourages you to do what I should have done from the start. If you want a solution, don’t get the half assed one. Spend more and you will have no headaches.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram