QNAP TBS-h574TX Power Consumption and Noise
The NAS itself comes with a nice FSP 120W 19V power adapter.
In terms of power consumption, the base power consumption with drives was generally in the 34-39W range depending on the SSDs that we installed. There, of course, is room to go up from there with different drives. We could easily hit 50-70W under load. Also, we attached a M1 Macbook Pro to the NAS with the Thunderbolt cable and we saw power consumption increase to 50-75W and the Macbook Pro showed that it was getting power via the Thunderbolt cable.
Noise was not superior. The system sat at 38-40dba idle in our 34.5dba noise floor studio. It was not extremely loud, nor was the noise a high-pitched server fan noise. Still, if you are in a quiet environment with a 1m Thunderbolt cable and your Mac, you are going to easily notice that this system is there, even at idle. We could get the fans to ramp a few times into the 43-45dba range, and there is likely room to go up from there. It is far from silent.
Key Lessons Learned and NAS Comparison
To us, the two main M.2 SSD NAS units on the market right now are this QNAP as well as the Asustor Flashstor 12 Pro FS6712X. Indeed, many are going to decide between those two so that feels like the best comparison point. Both can take M.2 drives and have 10Gbase-T for 10GbE.
The FS6712X is way less expensive at only $799 versus this Core i3 model at $1199. Even upgrading the memory in the FS6712X to 16GB is not an expensive task. The Core i3 in the QNAP TBS-h574TX is a far superior processor. QNAP QuTS hero is a better NAS OS and we like using ZFS. The QNAP also allows the use of E1.S SSDs.
One big feature that would push one to the QNAP over the Asustor is the Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. There are a large number of folks who edit videos on Apple Mac platforms. Being able to quickly use a $35 cable and get high-speed connectivity is going to be attractive for many. Asustor does not have this.
The other side, however, is that the Asustor FS6712X can attach 12 drives. If you are using 4TB drives in both, that means that QNAP tops out at 20TB raw capacity while the Asustor is at 48TB. If you are simply putting the NAS in a closet with 10Gbase-T networking then the Asustor is extremely competitive. Of course, the ecosystem with expanding the NAS via external USB enclosures is better with QNAP as we showed with the QNAP TR-004 USB RAID enclosure.
Overall, we wish that either we had user-upgradeable memory, or that this came with at least 16GB if not 32GB at this price. It is a nice unit, but the reason it was so divisive was the limited capacity. Even using 8TB-class drives it is limited to around 40TB raw which is less capacity than a single U.2 SSD these days. It almost felt like if this was a U.2 NAS it would be unstoppable with 5-6 drives.
Final Words
While it was fun to hear our team debate the merits of this NAS, it was clear that this is the best NAS for someone who is looking at an all-flash or all-SSD Thunderbolt NAS. Many of those falling into that category will have Apple systems and whether it is a Mac Studio, Mac Mini, Macbook, or other system, the QNAP will look good next to the system, be easy to connect, and perform well.
Being able to use high-quality E1.S SSDs or lower-cost M.2 SSDs is great, we just wish that there were options for higher-capacity drives. Perhaps that will happen over time.
Still, if you have a Mac or two, and just want a fast NAS, it is hard to argue that this little all-flash NAS is awesome.
Where to Buy
Here are a few Amazon Affiliate links for what we used in this review:
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$1200 is too much to ask for only 5 bays and 12gb of fixed ram. Pass.
WHAT A SCAM !!!
It is not a 4P8E processor, it is a 4P 4E core processor.
Power and Copy buttons right next to each other?
There are some errors. The i3-1320PE has 4P and 4E-cores and the i5-1340PE has 4 P and 8 E-cores. Please check your numbers.
Reivew
No ARM lower power higher performance chip, certainly no competition to Apple M series. I rather build my own nas with a bit more space and almost silent high quality fans. This qnap is terribly overpriced in 2024!
Better cheaper DAS/NAS could be Dell OptiPlex 5070 often $200. It has one internal m.2 and two PCIe slots. One with 4xM.2 board for $35 and another with 40Gb ConnectX-4 for $30. Total cost under $300. Probably could add couple of 2.5 ssd for additional storage.
40Gb is same as TB4 speed
@Karpo that is a.solid idea, I’d go for the 5080, the i5-10500 6c/12t and you can install crazy amounts of RAM (128GB), or even the Precision 3460, as I think that may come with Thunderbolt..
@Karpo. I am a photographer that has just arrived at the point of needing a DAS/NAS of some sort to accommodate nearly 56k images. Been looking at Synology at just over $1k. How could I find out more about the “better/cheaper” DELL solution you proposed. I’m sure I could build it … just not clear on the “how” part. Any information would be appreciated. TX.
People suggesting to get EOL scrapped old corporate PCs off ebay and cobble something together in competition to this … are *really* not the target market.
As for talk of Apple CPUs … whatever.
@Jay. Seriously. If you value those images and you’re not sure what you are doing, buy something off the shelf.
And backup. Twice.
The people here are suggesting solutions that will take you time to put together and require constant maintenance and tweaking. And still won’t do that this does 5 minutes after powering up.
If you’ve read the comments Patrick’s made (I’m assuming he’s posting on the ServeTheHome YouTube account) it’s crazy. It isn’t about building a NAS that doesn’t have hot swap but is faster and cheaper. It isn’t about building a NAS that is big fast and cheap. It isn’t about even just having a NAS.
Thunderbolt means you hook a Mac directly up to this and you’ve got a NAS and DAS in one that’s small, ez to configure, and fast enough. In that it’s cheaper and more redundant than getting Apple internal storage if you’re buying a Mac Studio.
Where are the Thunderbolt versus 10 gigabit Ethernet benchmarks?
At this device’s price point, not having a decent PCIe switch with x4 to each SSD is crazy
I saw the announcement for this a while back and was waiting for it to be released and thought this would be wonderful for me…. and I love enabling newer form factor (E1.S) but crippling the drive performance with only a x1 connection… such potential otherwise… shoot… oh well, definite hard pass with such a PCIe config.
For people who have a specific need, which is not storing large amount of data. Probably quit interesting for “content” people or photographers. Could be interesting to see the speed via TB, especially via a 10m long active cable.
We won’t buy QNAP ever again, unless they revolutionize their development process.
We got tired of the loads of critical security bugs every couple of days. The situation is as extreme and unsatisfying as with Cisco gear.