This is one of those strange announcements at CES. QNAP has a new PCIe Gen4-based NAS that it discussed in its CES 2022 press release, but it does not have a product page for. The QNAP TS-h1290FX is what many are going to dream about when they see it as it is a NVMe NAS with AMD EPYC and 25GbE support.
QNAP TS-h1290FX 12x NVMe AMD EPYC 25GbE NAS
The main attraction is the 12x 2.5″ U.2 drive array. This array QNAP says is PCIe Gen4 based and can also accept SATA SSDs.
The processor options are either AMD EPYC 7232P or AMD EPYC 7302P options meaning that we get either 8 or 16 cores. As a quick reminder, the EPYC 7232P is a quad-memory channel optimized CPU as we covered in AMD EPYC 7002 Rome CPUs with Half Memory Bandwidth.
The models we have seen thus far have 64GB of RAM but we have heard that this system can support up to 1TB of memory configurations. QNAP does not have the specs online, but that is the rumor we have heard.
The rear of this unit continues its intrigue. There are two 2.5GbE ports, something we have seen on other NAS units like the QNAP TVS-h1288X 12-bay NAS we reviewed. The more interesting feature is perhaps the two SFP28 ports giving us dual 25GbE connectivity. Of course, the drives are capable of much higher performance, but there are also PCIe expansion slots.
QNAP also says that one can add things like NVIDIA GPUs and Fibre Channel cards. One can also use the USB ports and add QNAPs USB JBODs for 3.5-inch storage.
Final Words
We found pricing on a Czech Republic site, and it was over $7500 USD for the AMD EPYC 7232P model with 64GB of RAM. This seems like it is going to be an expensive model, but perhaps as it hits greater availability it will be lower cost. An AMD EPYC 7232P server from a major vendor with 8-24 drive support can often be had for under $2500 so $5000 feels like a big premium for the QNAP software suite.
Still, this is perhaps one of the most interesting NAS units we have seen in a long time. It also makes us wish there was a desktop NAS chassis with a similar form factor.
I’d like to see a review of this on STH. Patrick & team I’d specifically like to see if you can expand it. More RAM, more CPU, more memory. Does it use AMD PSB? Memory encryption? What about adding those 3.5″ expansions?
The single power supply is an odd choice
Imo at this price and form factor, I believe but maybe wrong you’d better buy or build a freenas based solution. I can only image the cost of the drives on top.
Dimensions and weight? I’ve been thinking of building my own with a custom fab case that could be portable since I can’t find one off the shelf.
Found a spec sheet in a foreign language. According to it, from what I could decipher:
– 150 × 368 × 362 mm (5.9 x 14.5 x 14.25 in)
– 8.99 kg (19.6 lbs.)
– 128GB ECC upgradable to 1TB (8 DIMMs)
– 3 x PCIe 4.0 X16 slots, 1 x X8
Well what the heck, 25Gbe for All-NVMe Gen 4 drives, a single drive will saturate it easily, for this price I expect at least a single 100/200Gbe if performance is on sight with this unit. Anyway, for 7.5k I can easily build a supermicro setup much more capable with much more ram and cpu, so why would anybody buy this unit ? Not only that its software isn’t sexy so, again why?
Based on pricing from our distributors, expect a street price of around US$5000-6000 for the 64GB RAM SKU. The 128 and 256GB SKUs come with a 7302P rather than a 7232P, and the 128GB should come in around US$7500.
Expensive, but you’re paying for the software/ecosystem (and not having to deal with enterprise hardware price negotiation BS)
One more note – if you want a ZFS storage appliance with a user-friendly interface and a commercial support contract, ixSystems and QNAP are your only option (for now, at least).
$7500 leaves a lot of room in the budget, for something less expensive.
One third the price (for a lesser processor): Qsan XCubeNAS XN8008T, Synology DiskStation DS3617xsII and Asustor Lockerstor 10 Pro AS7110T or J1206T enclosure for several hundred; assuming we aren’t going the very low budget route.
I’ll get Nimble Storage for that outrageous price. Dual Controller, Dual Power Supplies, professional NVRAM caching.
With all respect, this is a nice little piece for office use – which all of you seem to ignore because reading and such is hard.
* This is not a rack unit, so it is a LOT more quiet. I can see this in use where there is no easy available rack space, i.e. in the studio of someone doing pro level videos and needing something fast for editing.
* This is U.2, not SATA – nice links to i.e. the Asus 10 slot, that only has SATA or M.2 support. Nope, not even close to the same league.
* Anyone saying build yourself – there is nothing on the market to build with. Hardly a case supports proper HDD trays in this amount, without SATA cable hell, and NONE that I am aware of (outside of rack servers) has them as U.2.
For me, the main question is whether I can bypass the OS and install Windows – loving S2D and the driver availability. Some internal SATA ports to install SuperMicro SATADOM drives for the OS and I would be fine. I am in the market for exactly this – need a local machine to sit in my office, not in the data centre. Price is quite on the irrelevant side, if you write it off over 3 years it is a joke as monthly pay. And build myself – trying, not finding a case/mobo combo that comes close.