QNAP TS-451+ SOHO NAS Review
by Ganesh T S on October 29, 2015 8:00 AM ESTEncryption Support Evaluation
Consumers looking for encryption capabilities can opt to encrypt a iSCSI share with TrueCrypt or some in-built encryption mechanism in the client OS. However, if requirements dictate that the data must be shared across multiple users / computers, relying on encryption in the NAS is the best way to move forward. Most NAS vendors use the industry-standard 256-bit AES encryption algorithm. One approach is to encrypt only a particular shared folder while the other approach is to encrypt the full volume. Till recently, QNAP only supported volume-level encryption. However, with the launch of QTS 4.2, folder level encryption is also supported now. We evaluated the effects of enabling folder-level encryption.
On the hardware side, encryption support can be in the form of specialized hardware blocks in the SoC (common in ARM / PowerPC based NAS units). In x86-based systems, accelerated encryption support is dependent on whether the AES-NI instruction is available on the host CPU. The Celeron J1900 unfortunately doesn't have AES-NI support. That prepares us for the performance penalty.
Performance loss is around the 50% range. Writes, in particular, take a heavy hit with encryption enabled. The quad-core CPU helps a bit in taking up the cryptographic load, but our advice would be for users to not take advantage of the encryption capabilities of the TS-451+ unless performance is not a concern.
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mwituni - Thursday, November 19, 2015 - link
As an existing QNAP user, I don't know how any QNAP NAS's can be seriously considered for any awards, nor why they do so well on reviews.They entice buyers with fancy options, but are not interested in developing applications users need.
SVN (Subversion Source Control) is the most popular and source control software in use, yet QNAP have been promising a proper SVN-server application since 2009, and still not delivered! How can users take them seriously - they're obviously not interested in developing applications the community needs, only the minimum needed to trick buyers into purchasing and evaluators to award prizes. They claim you can install SVN by an outdated method - which is very risky and outdated by a few years, and in my experience does not work at all.
They have a GIT client, so can claim they "have" source control applications. But no SVN support.
Their marketing department needs to kick the development team into gear.
krazyderek - Sunday, January 10, 2016 - link
maybe you should should join everyone else and switch to GIT ;) https://git-scm.com/book/en/v1/Git-and-Other-Syste...gnalley - Saturday, January 23, 2016 - link
Don't try to use this device as a standalone windows domain controller. The SAMBA and DHCP implementations are missing two CRITICAL components for it to work.Samba is missing the ability to do DNS Forwarders...and DHCP does not allow you to input the OPTIONS command. Both of these functions are critical to having a working solution. If you want a standalone MS Domain Controller that works. Look elsewhere.
StaksOnStaks - Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - link
I noticed the model tested was the 8GB. Any sense of how the performance would compare to the 2GB? For example, I noticed the Synology DS415+ was very close in the performance, but only has 2GB. Would the 2GB version of the QNAP TS-451+ perform as well compared to the Synology DS415+?