Packaging and Accessories


The very fist thing you notice about the QNAP 409’s box is not the information or box art on its sides, its not even the colour scheme. The very first thing you notice is how honk’in BIG the box is. When the UPS/Purolator/Fed-Ex/etc guy shows up to deliver it you can forget about trying to sneak this sucker past your significant other. Same goes with fobbing it off like “That old thing honey? We’ve had that for ages! Heck I was just going through out junk pile and happened to find it. I’m thinking about restoring it…you know and save us some money for that uber expensive pair of shoes you’ve been looking at….I know honey, no need to thank me….I’m just that sensitive.”

Yeah….let me just kill that idea for you while its still just an ill formed gleam in your eye. There is no hiding this box from anyone in your household, in fact I have seen HTPC’s come in smaller boxes. If your monthly/bi-monthly/semi-anual “toy allowance” is already gone your only hope is to brazen it out and act like you just invented fire (e.g. “Behold mere mortals…I am the reincarnation of Ozymandias ….I bring us Network Attached Storage…Gaze upon its Herculean proportions and despair for YES I have spent the next 3 months entertainment budget and it was a Good Investment(™)”. All joking aside, this box is wonderful protection for the NAS and baring a sudden demonic attack from “+5 Ice Pick Wielding Dwarves” or a delivery guy going postal it will surely protect its contents even under the harshest of shipping conditions.

The next thing one notices is the fact that the box itself is done in a subtle and very refined color scheme consisting mainly of shades of black & white. This neutral colour scheme is very well done, yet it also somehow seems make the box exude an air of barely constrained excitement and confidence. When you see it your really want to rip that sucker open and get to the high quality goodies that you know must surely reside inside it. In fact, when you take the time to really look at this box and read the information provided on its sides you get the feeling that if a Bentley or even a Rolls Royce’s came in a box they would surely come in a box just like this one.


When you do open the box you are greeted to packaging scheme usually reserved for PC’s and computer cases. No seemingly ubiquitous plastic or cardboard containers here. Instead the QNAP 409 is wrapped in static protection bag and all this is ensconced in two large pieces of Styrofoam that literally allow the NAS box to gently “float” in the center of the box. This means that an accidental deep cut from a box cutter when opening the package will not damage the NAS. I know that this scenario is unlikely but like a good friend of mine always says “you never can be too good looking, have too much ammo nor have too much protection”.

Overall it is very apparent that the QNAP engineers definitely went for the “get a bigger hammer” method of protection as there is no corner cutting or finessing involved with this box. In a nut shell this box is a functional packaging scheme that is more than acceptable for long distance shipping and it this holds true if you have to ship it across the city, across country, across the continent or even across an ocean.


While the list of accessories it complete, it’s not “complete” in the sense that the box contains everything you need to get it up and running. This is a Bring Your Own Disk(s) (aka BYOD) NAS appliance and hard drives are not included. Bundled with this NAS, you get an external power adapter (aka a power brick), a power cord, a quick installation full colour pamphlet, a short Ethernet cable, a bag of screws and a CD containing the nearly 200 page manual in .pdf format and all the bundled software.

The included manual has very detailed instructions (with pictures) of how to set up and use all the features the 409 Pro Turbo has. To put in perspective just how detailed the manual is (and how myriad the options) QNAP’s manual is language specific with no “padding” of the manual’s size by including multiple languages. Yes, that’s right you get nearly 200 pages of English instructions on nothing but how to setup and use this NAS. If you need it in a language other than English you can probably find it on the CD as numerous languages are included, and if some reason it is not there you can also download various language translations of the manual from QNAP’s website.


While I am not a fond lover of external power adapters, seeing that this one was made FSP (aka Fortron, aka Sparkle) did make me smile. I would have no worries about this big guy dying a premature death as long as it’s fed a nice healthy diet of APC UPS-smoothed power. The only down side to this power brick is that it as big and as heavy as a real brick so hiding it or making it unobtrusive will be difficult. All in all that is a negative that I can live with if it means long term durability.

Overall, the accessories are well executed but for the amount that the 409 Pro Turbo costs, would a printed and bound manual added that much to its cost? Printing off nearly 200 pages is a real pain in the butt and more importantly you just can’t beat the visceral feeling that thumbing through a thick manual gives you. This oversight is perfectly fine on a two hundred dollar unit, it is even tolerable on four hundred dollar unit but on six hundred dollar unit it does cast a negative shadow over what is otherwise a great first impression.