QNAP TS-253A 2-Bay Professional-Grade Network Attached Storage, Supports 4K Playback (TS-253A-4G-US)

I bought this unit to replace separate NAS and MacMini (2014) running Plex and Kodi. I was concerned about the lack of power to run transcoding, but have had little difficulty with Plex transcoding although typically I only have one transcoding happening at a time. I use Kodi for local playing of media so Plex is secondary for me. I have one file that stutters. A 20+ GB file of Avatar which will stutter if bandwidth is higher than 720p. I would not recommend this unit if your primary focus is Plex with multiple streams. Virtualisation station works very well. One unexpected result of using the NAS instead of the Mini is that sound is much improved. I am not an audiophile so not sure why that would be. I am using the audio out from the NAS to amplifier, thus using the built in soundcard which gives best clarity. Sound via HDMI and thus using Sony TV DAC is not as good, but still better than Mini via HDMI everything else being the same.

Pros: Great storage tool, very user-interface friendly, glad it has USB 3.0 ports as well as HDMI & LAN ports, works well for 4GB RAM version, allows family users, useful apps, initializing is easy.Cons: Doesn't read external HDDs, file transfer is slow when using web interface or windows explorer via ip address, have to buy SSl Certs for 3 years ($40) and McAfee anti-virus for 3 years ($25) which is cheap but I already spent $500 on nas.

It is supposed to be 4 or 5 stars. However, they give you $20 promotion code for Shuttle Fly. That promo code is not good and makes me spend at least 10 hours to find out if I can get $20 free worth of stuff in shuttlefly without paying anything as I think the code is come because i bought the expensive QNAP. Turn out the code is only for Advertising for shuttle fly. Useless. I still have to pay at least $30 when order on Shuttle Fly after $20 discount they gave me because I buy the QNAP

Worked sporadically. Thought I was doing something wrong until brother reviewed who is NAS expert. Will not boot to BIOS with HDD removed. At $400+ hope I can return since nearly year has passed.

Received my unit and it did not work. Had to return it. Tried opening a ticket with QNAP and could not do it (probably a bug in their online ticketing system). Followed their online troubleshooting procedures and the program indicated either a power supply or motherboard problem.Very disappointing.

Full disclosure, I have had this product for slightly more than one week.I mainly wanted to use it as a Plex/Media Server in RAID 0 with Crashplan providing backup functionality. My test for streaming performance was to have identical, full quality 20Mbps bitrate 1080p, 7.1 .mkv files direct playing (no transcoding) to my local TV (wired) and my friend's remote Plex app on his roku 3 (wired) while at the same time playing a transcoded (audio and video) .mkv of a different 20Mbps movie to my local iPad (5GHz wifi). I was able to do this with ZERO (literally, zero) hiccups while also backing up my local macbook to crashplan and time capsule and copying a 5GB file between NAS folder; transfer rate on copy was great, sorry for lame lack of specifics.Obviously, this is an imperfect test for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my and my friend's ISP bandwidth (170 Mbps and 80 Mbps, respectively), the lack of 4k content being played (main advertised feature of the product), and the non-existent transfer rates.I do have a 4k TV and I have played back h.264 4k files using the NAS's built-in HDMI outs via the included kodi app (XBMC derivative) and they seem to play back just fine, but I have not spent significant time doing any tests so I won't say much on the topic. FWIW, 4k direct play content plays perfectly through my Samsung Smart TV Plex client as being served by the Plex Media Server installed on the NAS.With this device, there is a ton to investigate and tweak regarding management, diagnostics, etc., especially as a relative NAS-noob (a tech-saavy NAS-noob mind you). But long story short, I couldn't be happier at this point and will update this review in the coming months as I figure more things out.

I am extremely impress on how well this NAS function with my iMac. When I received this NAS, I automatically upgraded the memory to Crucial 16GB Kit (2 X 8GB) 1600 MT/s (PC3L-12800) 204-Pin SODIMM DDR3L Memory (CT2KIT102464BF160B) and added two Seagate 6TB IronWolf Pro 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache 3.5-Inch NAS Hard Disk Drive (ST6000NE0021) - setup as a raid system. My connection from the NAS to the iMac for transferring files is by ethernet. I am using AFP to connect my iMac to the NAS with no issues. I am using the other ethernet port on the NAS for internet connect through a switch. I highly recommend the Qnap TS-253A as a good storage device and to backup your critical files that needs to be protected. Note: Qnap manufacturer has written in their specs the maximum memory for the TS-253A is 8GB and I can tell you that this is not true. I am currently using 2 x 8GB modules and it functions extremely well. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Good Day . David Picarsic at ProfessionalAerialimaging.

This NAS has served me well for over 2 years. The "red" drive started throwing errors. I had a backup but decided to put in a second drive and replicate the data from one drive to another. No help on the documentation to do this. I finally got it done and decided to add a 2nd drive and migrate to Raid 1. Oh, the documentation clearly states how to do this, but uses words and phrases that don't match the software. And it leaves out details. I spent countless hours on this and the user groups provided hints. I finally figured it out but the directions were just bad.If you know NAS's well, you'll probably be ok, but for a novice, where you need "step 1, 2, 3, their documentation is pretty poor.Also surprising why the Red drive went bad after light use. My experience with a NAS has been frustrating. That's not saying this is a poor unit. It does the job, but when things go wrong, don't expect the documentation to help.

Me gustó porque funciona y es silencioso, viene con un montón de opciones para realizar el respaldo y la publicación de archivos. Estoy usando QSync, un servicio en línea que de da la marca, con este puedes sincronizar carpetas desde tu laptop e incluso computadoras fuera de tu red local. Está fenomenal :D

Acquistato un mese fa circa.Abbinato a 2 wd red da 4tb acquistati a parte qui su Amazon.Mi sono trovato subito bene con l'interfaccia admin veramente ricca di funzionalità. Devo dire che il sistema me lo aspettavo più silenzioso, ma dipende dal fatto che è sempre attivo. devo capire perché non va in standby, ma credo dipenda dalle applicazioni che installi. Il livello di rumore rispetto al mio vecchio nas dlink comunque è veramente basso.Ci sono poi molte applicazioni,come ad esempio plex per usarlo come media server per guardare film e serie sulla tv, comodissimo...Il prodotto è davvero ottimo e pagandolo in offerta 100 euro di meno del prezzo attuale direi che sul mercato non c'è di meglio in questa fascia. Qnap è una sicurezza.

MacとWindows混在の少人数オフィスで、これまで何度も買換を行ってきた共用ファイルサーバーの終着駅となりえる製品です。非常に優れていると思うのは、社外からのアクセスを可能とするファイル閲覧機能です。直接サーバー内を見る機能とは別に、ファイルへの共有リンクを作成する機能があること。これにより、ファイルサイズの大小にかかわらず、また、ファイル数に関係なくファイルのダウンロード先を通知することが出来ます。FTPを経由してファイルの受け渡しをする工程が無くなり、セキュリティ的にも安全性が高まりました。Webからアクセスする管理画面も洗練されたUIデザインで、とても分かりやすく親切です。バックアップスケジュール管理、ファームウェア更新の通知など同クラスの国産ファイルサーバーとは比較出来ないほど良質。少し価格は高くなりますが、今後もQNAP製品を使っていくつもりです。

Adquiri este equipo para actualizar a mi antiguo 251, me deje llevar por su capacidad 4k, pero la verdad no he podido hacer funcionar decentemente esta resolucion (4K) es imposible de ver el la TV, y si se estan preguntando si no sera otro el problema les comento que my TV es 4k, mi amplificador Yamaha es 4k pero por alguna razon no he logrado que funcione

HD取り付けてすぐ問題なく稼働しました。マニュアルが英語の分厚いものをダウンロードするが、英語に問題なければ分かり易く十分でした。