QNAP TS-409 Pro Turbo NAS Review

User Management


The user management section is broken into three main sections and each section is clearly and intuitively labeled. The “User” section is where you can setup individual users, their passwords and even a personalized disk quota. Overall, this section is quite straightforward. I wouldn’t want to have to set up a hundred or even dozens of users this way but for a few users it is more than good enough.

The second section is “User groups” and you can bulk a bunch of users together and give the group their own personal folder or private section of the NAS. Once again, as long as you are not setting up a lot of user groups its more than good enough. The last section only has one feature but it is a good one. Under “Quota” you can hard set every user's quota to the same predefine amount. Of course, the maximum size is limited to 2TB but for the next few years that should be more than enough for anyone.


Network Share Management


As a nice little bonus the names, location and what features each network shares has is completely customizable. This means you can rename any of the standard 6 shares and even create new ones. This gives you a level of customization not usually found on a NAS in this price range. Of course the downside to all this customization is that it adds an extra layer of complexity and obfuscation if the NAS administrator is not careful.


System Tools


The amount of tools that QNAP gives you is amazing. Not only can you check on the condition of each of the hardrives SMART values but you can tell the NAS to automatically run diagnostics test on each one at a certain time at internvals from once a day to once a week. While SMART errors do not always happen before a catastrophic hardware failure it does reduce the chances of you been caught unaware of the problem.

Two system tools worth mentioning is the Remote login and UPS support. You can easily set this NAS up for remote login via telnet or SSH remote communications. If the administrator of this NAS is at home and receives an email alert from it that something has happened he doesn't have to travel back to the office to log in; he can simple open up his laptop and log in via his office’s internet connection. This unit not only allows for secure remote login but also has limited support for UPS shutdown notifications. If this NAS is connected to a APC unit that is capable of sending SNMP messages you can set that here as well. What makes this feature really interesting is that not every business uses APC and QNAP understood this so if the NAS senses abnormal power (e.g. when power from the AC mains is interrupted and when the UPS kicks in) it can shut itself down. Too many IT administrators know that these two features alone make the cost of this unit a bargain.


System Logs


The System Logs section is broken down into four sections. System Event Logs where not only problems are logged but it is where anything that the NAS does is logged. Start a USB copy option and the exact time to the second when it starts and then when it finishes is logged. Such detailed logs are good but error events can be a hassle to find in amongst the lesser importnant events. Luckily, QNAP allows you to sort by “information”, “warning” or “error” making it much easier to troubleshoot any issues that arise.

The next section is simple a list of when the system connects to the network and when connection is dropped. This is great tool for troubleshooting network connection issues as they will stand out pretty quickly (e.g. 3 connects and disconnects in as many minute probably means its time to look at using a different cable/network port and or switch.).

The third section consists of user connections and how long they were connected for. This is a great tool for seeing who is using the NAS in any give timeframe (and to see if “slacker Joe” really was working late last week like he claimed on his time sheet).

The last section is in many ways the most interesting one and simply called “System Information”. Don’t let this seemingly innocuous name fool you. This section tells you exactly what is happening with NAS at that precise moment. It even includes vital information like hard drive temperatures, ram and processor loads and even what temperature the processor is running at. The only annoyance I had with this section is system uptime is in reality the amount of time it has been since its last sleep mode. As soon as in enters and then exits sleep mode, this counter is reset to zero.