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QNAP launches QTS 5.0 and QuTSHero 5.0 in beta: Discover all the news

What’s new in the QTS 5.0 and QuTS Hero 5.0 operating system

The first novelty that we have in this new operating system is the Kernel used, in this new version a Linux kernel 5.10 LTS. This Kernel update involves inheriting all the improvements incorporated in this new kernel, drastically improving security, the best performance globally in the NAS, improves the performance of AMD processors and allows to support next-generation hardware platforms, in addition, it also supports Latest generation CPU with integrated GPU. A very important detail is that due to hardware limitations of certain QNAP NAS servers we will not be able to use this Kernel, therefore, we will not be able to use QTS 5.0, so we will stay in QTS 4.X versions.

A very important feature of this version of Kernel Linux 5.10 LTS is the Native Incorporation of WireGuard VPNFrom this version on, we will have the possibility to configure the WireGuard VPN in QVPN, the fastest, safest and most efficient VPN protocol that we can use today to establish remote tunnels. The incorporation of WireGuard natively is very important, this means that we will be able to achieve excellent download and upload performance, if it were for software the actual speed we would achieve would be much lower.

The latest models from the manufacturer QNAP have M.2 NVMe slots to accelerate the overall read and write performance of the server with SSD cache, in this case, the new QTS 5.0 improves the performance of NVMe SSDs, with a new core it will be possible to use it more efficiently, in addition, the cache module has been improved and the space of the SSD will be used more efficiently with a lower memory use. This will allow us to improve efficiency when multiple users access the same folder at the same time. Of course, this improvement will not only be present on NVMe SSDs, but also on M.2 SATA and SATA3 SSDs.

New setup wizard

This new version of the QNAP operating system incorporates a new installation wizard which greatly simplifies the steps for the start-up of the NAS server, in addition, it allows us to initialize and update to the latest firmware version at the same time, in this way, we will cleanly install the latest version of the operating system. Other improvements in the graphical user interface of the new QTS 5.0 is that the procedure is simpler, the display of the icons is more elegant and friendly, and now the speed when navigating through the different menus is much faster.

When we finish configuring all the parameters through the installation wizard, the operating system will indicate a series of suggestions and recommendations to use the NAS server and facilitate the initial configuration. This news menu is different from the typical notification menu, in this case, here it will show us news of interest and not actions that have been carried out on the server.

Improved overall NAS server security

A very important safety-related feature is that the default “admin” account is disabled, the configuration wizard will force us to create a new account within the administrators group to manage the NAS server. A very good security practice is to always disable the “root” or “admin” user on QNAP NAS, and create an additional user who has these administrator permissions, to avoid brute force attacks against this “admin” user. Of course, if the user wants or needs to enable the “admin” account, they can do so, but by default it will be disabled.

The new operating system incorporates support for TLS 1.3 protocol, so we can make connections via HTTPS to the NAS administration safely and quickly, in addition, the corresponding cryptographic suite for TLS 1.3 has been incorporated with the most secure cryptographic algorithms. Security adjustments have also been made, so that by default we have the best security practices. Automatic updates to the operating system and App Center applications will continue to be present, in order to protect us against possible security vulnerabilities without having to update manually.

PC TLS 1.3

Another very important novelty is the incorporation of a «Reverse Proxy»This improves security when accessing the different web services that we can configure on the NAS server, especially if we are going to expose the services to the Internet. Thanks to the use of this reverse proxy we will be able to hide important services behind a single port 443 via HTTPS, as Traefik does.

The built-in SSH server QTS 5.0 now supports authentication with SSH keysThis was also supported previously, but it had to be configured in a somewhat advanced way, now we can easily do it from the graphical user interface. Thanks to this possibility, it will not be necessary to authenticate with username / password but with our SSH keys, therefore, it is a much more secure way.

New FTP server: more complete and better performance

The manufacturer QNAP has completely revamped the FTP and FTPES server built into the operating system. Now we will have it as an additional application with the QuFTP service, incorporating a large number of really interesting features. In addition, they have also taken advantage of to improve the performance of SMB and NFS when we are transferring very large files over the local network.

The new QuFTP server can be upgraded independently so that QNAP adds new functionality as it releases updates. This new service allows both FTP server as well configure FTP clients. Of course, it is still supported FTPES based on TLS protocols for authentication and file transfer security. Two very important features of this new QuFTP service are the following:

  • possibility of configure a QoS, that is, we can define the upload and download speed for a specific user who has logged into the FTP server, with the aim that this user does not consume all the available bandwidth. These speed limits can be applied to both users and groups.
  • Limit access to the FTP server based on a schedule. Now we can define a schedule to activate or deactivate access to the FTP server, by hours and from Monday to Sunday.

Other new QTS 5.0 and QuTS Hero 5.0 enhancements and availability

This new operating system incorporates improvements for the acceleration of artificial intelligence with Coral Edge TPU, so we can organize photos, recognize objects and much more faster and with less resource consumption by the main processor. Now we will have a substantial improvement if we use the QuMagie application, because it will support Coral Edge TPU, we will also have new software for the detection of faces and people with QVR Face and QVR Human. Now Disk AI is already a reality, this software allows us to carry out a continuous and preventive monitoring of our hard drives, to replace them before they can fail. QNAP will soon launch «AMIZ Cloud Central Control«, A centralized monitoring system for QNAP NAS servers, will allow us to see if all the NAS that we have registered are working correctly or if there is some kind of problem.

The beta version of this new operating system will be available from now until July 24, the supported models are the following:

  • TS-251D2 (& TS-251B)
  • TS-253D (& TS-253B)
  • TS-453D (& TS-453B)
  • HS-453DX
  • TS-673A (& TS-673)
  • TS-451DeU
  • TS-1283XU

Currently certain bugs are already known that will be solved soon, such as problems with the RDMA driver, QAT, the performance of Marvell 1475 is below expected, if you use a QXG-5G2T-111C card you will also have a performance below normal, and third-party applications may not be compatible.

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