Hardware Installation

As with all "Bring Your Own Drive" NAS’s the installation process is a two stage affair. The first stage is the physical installation of the hard drives. This is straightforward, fairly easy but time consuming process.


The first thing you have to do is to open the front door so you can access the hard drives. Since this unit differs from past QNAP NAS offerings in that the front door is hinged and not held in place with screws, this step is very user friendly and quickly accomplished.


The next step is to unscrew the two retaining screws holding a drive caddy in place and then to remove from the drive cage by sliding it all the way out. Unlike previous models where you really needed to use a screw driver to do this (or risk finger blood-letting) this model's drive caddies are easily accessible with your fingers and there are no sharp objects to cut yourself on. It is obvious that QNAP listened to their customer's complaints on previous models and took steps to correct them. This is always nice to see and definitly reflects well on QNAP's customer service.


Once you have removed a drive caddy the next thing one has to do is place a hard drive in the caddy, flip it all over, line up the four screw holes on the bottom of the caddy and screw the caddy to the hard drive. All necessary screws are included with this unit but there are no spares, so be very careful not to lose one of them or you may end up spending a good portion of your afternoon looking for it. A good way to avoid this is by placing the whole works in a small rubber maid container so that if a screw does slip and fall it will not have much space to hide in.


When all the above steps are accomplished one simply slides the caddy back into its perspective slot. A sturdy push is needed to fully seat the caddies in their slot, when they are seated properly you simply have to screw down the two spring-loaded retention screws located on each side of the caddy. This ensures a good lock and secures the hard drives in place. When all the hard drive caddies are locked into place one simply has to plug in the Network cable and then turn on the unit.


Software Installation


Once the hardware installation stage is accomplished all you have to do is simply insert the included CD Rom and install the one necessary piece of software. If you are like us and you have “autoplay” disabled you may have to manually start the process but otherwise as soon as your computer recognizes the CD a window will pop up asking what you would like to do. While your options are limited it is nice to see that QNAP took the time to think about users who may have already done the basic setup and now want to install more advanced software. For first time users you must choose “install QNAP Finder”. This program is then installed onto your system and you can then ignore the CD if you wish.

This basic program’s main job is to search your home network and (hopefully) locate your NAS. This is why plugging in and turning on your NAS is one of the first things you do before any software is installed. The finder program worked as advertised on numerous different systems and is basically fool proof as long as your computer is on the same subnet as the NAS.


If for some reason it cannot find your NAS, make sure the cable is connected properly to it and make sure that it is on the same network as your computer. If necessary, log into your DHCP server (or your home router) and check to see that the 409 found it. If you do not normally use DHCP and prefer to set your IP’s manually I recommend turning it on until the QNAP wizard is finished (one step in the wizard allows you to hard set an IP for the QNAP) and then you can turn it off and go back to your old way. Overall this finder software is extremely user friendly if a little bit on the limited side. Though in all honesty if you are not using DHCP, then your network admin skills are more than likely up to the task of doing a kludge / work around for this software’s shortcomings.

Once the finder utility locates your 409 NAS you are then ready to initialize it. The initialization process is a multi step wizard that automatically begins as soon as the finder finishes scanning for network attached storage devices. This wizard is very intuitive and does a very good job of guiding you through your new NAS’s bevy of features. For the time being lets just say that if you wish you can do a very good job of customizing your NAS using the wizard, and its options are not just limited to time, date, RAID level, basic network settings and system password(s). You can (within reason) make this installation as simple or as complex as you want since many of the features have default options already filled out that you can leave as is if you do not know what they do. Overall the wizard is very well done and is slick enough to be reassuring without dumbing it down to the point that it feels you are using an Apple program installer.


When this wizard is completed it will ask you if you would like to set up a network share. If you say yes you then are guided through another simple wizard that adds an extra network drive to “My Computer”. Even if you have never set up a NAS before this process is as painless as it gets. When this wizard is finished so is the basic installation. If all you plan on using the NAS for Network Attached Storage, you are ready to start enjoying the unit. Of course if you picked a RAID level other than JBOD, full performance will not be achieved until the array is finished building. This can take several hours but is completely seamless to the end user and you don't have to wait for it to finish since you can start using the NAS as soon as the wizard is finished.


At this point by simply using the administration page you can then setup any of the myriad advanced features this unit has to offer. Getting to the admin page is simple as typing in the NAS’s IP address in IE and making sure it connects on port 8080 (e.g. http://192.168.xxx.xxx:8080). Or one can use the QFinder tool, highlight the NAS and hit the "connect" button which will automatically open you default browser and enter the proper address for you. One interesting thing worth mentioning is that unlike previous models many of the advanced features such as “download station” and “multimedia station” are not displayed on the main page by default. You can easily add them to the main page by simply check marking “display service link” option on their page under Network Settings but by default the main page is very spartan. Most likely this is because of the different market niche this NAS is marketed towards.