This new high-performance NAS server has great versatility in terms of storage, and that is that we can install 3.5″ hard drives, 2.5″ SSD drives and also M.2 NVMe drives, so we are going to have the best of hard drives (high capacity) and the best of SSDs (great read and write speed). All of this governed by a QTS 5.1.0 or QuTS hero 5.1.0 operating system, since both operating systems are compatible with this model.
Main features
In recent years, the manufacturer QNAP has been launching NAS models that are compatible with both the QTS operating system and QuTS hero, we must remember that the latter operating system has the ZFS file system that will provide us with the best possible data integrity.
processor and RAM
The processor of this NAS is the Intel Atom C5125a powerful 8-core, 8-thread processor clocked at 2.8GHz speed. It has a 64-bit x86 architecture, it also has a floating point unit, as well as an AES-NI hardware encryption engine. Unfortunately this model does not have hardware accelerated transcoding, since it does not incorporate a GPU in the main processor.
Regarding RAM memory, we have by default 8GB DDR4 UDIMM RAM in a single module, but we can have up to 128GB capacity (4 modules of 32GB DDR4 each). Of course, this computer supports ECC type RAM, so if you use QuTS hero it is highly recommended that you buy this type of RAM with error correction. This model also has a 5GB capacity FLASH memorywith dual-boot operating system protection.
Storage
The storage of this NAS is really versatile, we will be able to install both hard drives and 2.5” SSD drives and also M.2 NVMe, perfect for having a really fast NAS in terms of reading and writing speeds. Below, you can see all the storage that it incorporates:
- 6 bays to house 3.5” hard drives. These bays are also compatible with 2.5” hard drives or SSDs.
- 2 bays to house 2.5” hard drives or SSDs.
- 2 M.2 NVMe slots of type PCIe Gen3 x4.
The manufacturer QNAP allows us to use the M.2 slots and SSDs as the main storage pool, such as SSD cache or for Qtier, so we will have great versatility in this regard. All drive bays are lockable with a key, so we’ll make sure we don’t inadvertently remove them.
connectivity
This new NAS TS-855X is very complete in terms of connectivity. On the front we can see a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port (at 5Gbps) with the typical automatic backup button. At the back we have:
- 2 2.5G Multigigabit ports, with support for Jumbo Frames and also Link Aggregation to have a trunk link of up to 5Gbps speed.
- 1 10GBASE-T Multigigabit port, with support for Jumbo Frames. Thanks to this port we will be able to maximize the power of the NAS in terms of reading and writing files.
- 2 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (at 5Gbps).
- 1 USB 2.0 port.
Other important features are that it has two PCIe 3.0 x4 portsIn this way, we can install expansion cards such as 25GbE cards from the manufacturer QNAP, and even a QM2 card to have more SSD cache through M.2 NVMe drives.
This model has some dimensions of 231.9mm high, 292.9mm wide and 319.8mm deep, with a weight of 8.5 kg. It has a 250W power supply, and has a typical operating consumption of about 75Wh. It also has a system fan made up of 2 80mm fans to extract hot air from inside, and a 90mm fan in the processor area. Finally, it has a Kensington security slot.
OS
In this case we have the possibility of installing the QTS operating system based on the EXT4 file system, or the QuTS hero operating system with the ZFS file system. We must remember that ZFS requires a greater number of resources, especially RAM, but it will provide us with better data integrity. It is recommended that you use ZFS only if you have ECC RAM, to make sure that there are no errors as it is bug-fixed.
Regarding the applications that we have available, they are the same as always in both operating systems, in this aspect nothing has changed if we compare it with other models from the manufacturer QNAP.
As you can see, this new TS-855X is a really interesting piece of equipment because it has powerful hardware and highly versatile storage, perfect for the vast majority of small and medium-sized businesses.
