This NAS server is within the range of small and medium-sized businesses, since it has quite powerful hardware, but it is also perfect for advanced home users who need a very fast model with the possibility of virtualizing operating systems. For example, this model is perfect for installing the popular Home Assistant home automation system, without having to buy a mini PC, we will have everything installed on the same computer.
Main features
This model has a powerful Intel Atom C5125 processor with 8 cores at a speed of 2.8GHz, it has a 64-bit x86 architecture, it has a floating point unit and also a hardware encryption engine, it does not have hardware transcoding acceleration as it does not incorporate an integrated GPU. This processor features Intel QuickAssist technology, a technology that eliminates the burden of resource-intensive compression and improves the performance of IPsec/SSL cryptography.
This model comes with 8GB DDR4 RAMbut we can expand it up to 128GB of DDR4 RAM (4 x 32GB DDR4), it is also compatible with ECC type RAM, since this model is compatible with both the QTS operating system and QuTS hero that uses the ZFS file system. A very important aspect is that we cannot “mix” ECC and non-ECC RAM, the default RAM is 8GB of non-ECC type, so we would have to buy new memory to use it in the NAS. In our opinion, we believe that with 32GB of RAM in total it is more than enough for almost any task, including intensive virtualization of operating systems.
This equipment has a total of 6 bays to accommodate 3.5” hard drives, although in these bays we can also install 2.5″ hard drives and 2.5″ SSD units. This team also has 2 bays to accommodate 2.5” SSD drives specifically, perfect for accelerating the overall performance of the NAS if we use the SSD cache and even set up an all-SSD storage set. Another very important feature is that we have two PCIe 3.0 x4 type M.2 NVMe slotsperfect for setting up a storage set and installing the QTS or QuTS hero system itself on this storage, in addition, we can install virtual machines or Docker containers here, so that the reading and writing speed is excellent.
Regarding the connectivity of the QNAP TS-855X, it consists of the following:
- A 5Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 port on the front.
- One 10GBASE-T Multigigabit port compatible with Jumbo Frames.
- Two 2.5G Multigigabit ports compatible with Jumbo Frames and Link Aggregation.
- Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gbps ports on the back.
- A USB 2.0 port on the back.
Other features of this model are the available PCIe ports, and it has two PCIe 3.0 x4 ports. Here we can install a QNAP card to add a 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 port, Thunderbolt ports and we can even install a card with 10GBASE-T ports to add more speed to the wired network. The star network card would be the one with 25GbE speed ports over fiber, with the aim of making the most of the hardware of this equipment, although to be able to take advantage of it you will have to form several RAIDs with SSD acceleration because otherwise you will not be able to take advantage of it as you have a bottleneck in the hard drives. Another option is to install QM2 cards that have both a 10G port and also M.2 SSD slots to realize SSD cache or storage array.
On the front we have different LED indicators for power, LAN status, USB, hard drives and also the SSD and M.2 SSD, in addition, we have the power buttons, factory reset and also the copy of a touch via USB. The QNAP TS-855X has dimensions of 231.9mm high, 292.9mm wide and 319.8mm deep, with a weight of 8.5Kg.
The price of this NAS is around €1,500 approximately, a high price but we must take into account the hardware it incorporates and also the expansion possibilities and the real performance that it is capable of providing.
Regarding the operating system, this NAS supports both the QTS operating system with the EXT4 file system and the QuTS hero operating system with the ZFS file system. Remember that, if you use QuTS hero it is highly recommended to use ECC RAM through the file system, if you plan to use QTS then it is not necessary to have this. In both cases we will have at our disposal all the usual configuration options, default services of the operating system such as the web server, RADIUS, samba and a long etcetera, as well as the App Center application where we can download all the additional software that we need. we want, including software that is not in the official store of the QNAP manufacturer. Of course, two of the applications that we value most in the NAS from the manufacturer QNAP is the Virtualization Station and also the Container Station, the first will allow us to create and configure Windows, Linux and even pfSense virtual machines and many others, the second will allow us build dozens of Docker containers very easily.
Now that you know the main features, let’s see what this equipment is like in our complete video.
Unboxing and first impressions
We already have with us this new QNAP TS-855X NAS server, a high-performance model with a very powerful processor, and with great versatility when it comes to using its storage since we will have both hard drives and 2.5″ SSD units. and also M.2 SSD NVMe units to accelerate the overall performance of the NAS both in reading and writing, in this way, we will be able to take advantage of the 10G connectivity that the equipment incorporates.
In the following video you can see what this new high-performance equipment is like:
Soon we will offer you a complete analysis where you will be able to see in detail all the characteristics of this NAS, and the performance tests that we have carried out.
