Conclusion

There is certainly a lot to like about the QNAP 409 Pro Turbo and it has features that are usually only found on much more expensive devices. Everything about it from its swing open front door to its administration page speak volumes about how good those QNAP engineers are at their jobs. Some other companies could certainly use hint or two from QNAP's user friendly interfaces and with them QNAP has once again proven to be a true leader in the NAS market. In the end what makes a NAS a great appliance is not its performance or its ease of installation; a NAS’s greatest attribute has to be its ease of use. You can have all the greatest, most advanced features ever crammed into a NAS but if it is hobbled by a horrible user interface nobody but hardcore masochists will ever want to use those features. This NAS screams USER FRIENDLY and QNAP’s engineer’s (both software and hardware) obviously took the time to listen to what their customers wanted and made a nearly bullet proof UI.

Now not everything is perfect about this unit. While the user interface is very good there is still a lot of room for improvement with some of its feature set implementation. I would really like QNAP to take a long hard look at their download station and media center and bring these two features up to the ultra high standards that are displayed everywhere else. The same unfortunately goes for the hard drive installation and removal. Yes, this is the best implementation offered by QNAP so far but it is still a long way from being as refined as it should be. When the best thing you can say about its hard drive installation is that it doesn't cut you like previous models did, it is not a exactly a ringing endorsement. However, these are just minor quibbles that highlight how hard one has to look in order to find things that are not perfect with this NAS. What is not such a small annoyance is the overall performance shown by this unit. QNAP needs to address the lack of performance this unit displays, especially in RAID 5 and they need to address it sooner rather than later. I really think that QNAP should reconsider the use of such a low power processor if they intend to continue to make 4+ bay NAS devices. If this unit had a higher performaning chip (even if it required active cooling), this unit would be not just a great unit but an amazing performer as well.

As it stands, the 409's combination of extremely well-designed software, an amazing feature set and decent performance adds up to a very good NAS. While there are areas that could be improved upon this NAS does get a lot more right than wrong. If you are in the market for a 4 bay NAS and a price tag of $600 is in your budget this NAS should be at the top of your list. It really does offer an amazing bang for your buck that you are unlikely to find anywhere else in this price range. For this reason the Qnap TS-409 Pro Turbo is great example of what a Hardware Canucks DAMN GOOD Award winner should be.


Pros:

- Ease of Use
- Quiet operation
- User friendly software
- Can use any standard 3.5” SATA Hard Drive
- S.M.A.R.T. hard drive monitoring
- Numerous features
- Numerous RAID options
- 256MB of Memory
- Supports Jumbo Frames

Cons:

- Price
- No dust filters
- “hot swapping” hard drive is a slow process
- Small LEDs on front
- Underpowered processor
- Only 3 USB ports when 4 is needed