XCubeNAS QSAN Thunderbolt and 40Gbe Supported NAS – XN5004T and XN8008T

ANOTHER Brand enters the Thunderbolt 3 NAS Market – QSAN XCube XN5004T and XN8008T

Thunderbolt NAS used to be such a rare thing. I remember as little as 2 years ago when the idea of a NAS that supported Thunderbolt as a means of direct attached access for two users, whilst still maintaining network/internet connectivity to hundreds of users at once was MASSIVE! However, like all cutting-edge technology, all too soon we get used to it and then it becomes an accepted standard practice. However, until 2018, one thing never changed and that was that QNAP was the only brand to produce a Thunderbolt-enabled NAS. However, on the back of the recently announced Promise Atlas S8+ TB3 NAS, we have found out that QSAN has entered this super fast editing NAS arena too! QSAN are a company that has always existed in the background of NAS as an enterprise brand with an enterprise range of products. They have never tried to break ground in the home market (in the way that Synology and QNAP have), but this move into the photo and video editing sector with the QSAN XCube NAS which can use Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, 10GBe access or even 40Gbe insanely fast access is pretty groundbreaking for them (and indeed the NAS market as a whole). They have entered this arena with the 4-Bay XN5004T model and the XN8008T 8-Bay NAS server. SO, what is it that makes the new QSAN range of Thunderbolt NAS such a big deal?

QSAN XCube XN5004T and XN8008T – Hardware

Hardware	XN8008T
CPU	Intel® CoreTM i5 2.7GHz Quad-Core (maximum 3.3GHz) Processor
RAM	8GB DDR4 SO-DIMM, up to 32GB *Note: The pre-install memory modules may need to be replaced when expanding the memory.
USB	USB 3.0 x5
Flash	8GB USB DOM
HDMI	1
Drive Bays	8 LFF with lock 1 SFF
No. of Internal Hard Disks	9：8 (LFF disk) + 1 (SFF disk)
Max. Raw Capacity	82 TB：10TB x8 + 2TB x1 Note：LFF=10TB, SSF=2TB
Hard Drive Interface	SATA 6Gb/s (backward compatible with SATA 3Gb/s)
Expansion Slot	PCIe Gen3x8 for 10 GbE/ 40 GbE / Thunderbolt 3.0 / SAS adapter cards.
Ethernet Ports	1 GbE LAN (RJ45) x4
Dimension (H x W x D)	177 x 310 x 235 mm
Agency Certifications	FCC Class B • CE Class B • BSMI Class B • VCCI Class B • RCM Class B • KCC Class B

QSAN XCube XN5004T and XN8008T – Software

QSM 3.0 (QSAN Storage Management 3.0) is a NAS operation system for QSAN XCubeNAS series. The core of QSM is Linux kernel and in-house fine-tuning 128-bit ZFS (Zetabyte File System) file system.

QSM’s powerful storage features ensure persistent, reliable storage management, protection against data corruption, seamless capacity expansion, several data integrity mechanisms, pool and disk encryption protection, unlimited snapshots, and unlimited clones. It’s important for users to easily operate and manage the XCubeNAS. With the simple, clear, and intuitive interface such as graphic icons and tablet/phone-like interface, the XCubeNAS is easier and more pleasant for everyone to use without any professional knowledge.

• Privilege setting: You have the ability on setting user’s windows permission of the specific share folder and its subfolder, or limit user to access specific services.
• User and folder quota: You can decide the storage space on the individual user folder and limit the storage capacity in each volume.

Take control of your storage space by adding quotas (limits) to the amount of data a user can store. Users can be limited on how much data a folder can store or the quota can apply to the entire system, thus empowering the admin with complete control of what is stored on the XN5000T Series.

XN5000T Series tailor-made storage pool technology effectively caters to diverse storage demands on data integrity, scalability, high performance, and availability. Comprehensive RAID levels are supported to ensure data integrity under every application scenario. Pool capacity could be expanded on the fly, rapidly responding to growing needs for capacity. The design of the XN5000T allows for creating customized storage pools and auto categorization of data based on usage. “Hot” data will be moved to front line storage while “cold” data is stored on slower disks. All this is done automatically with the XN5000T Series.

XCubeNAS is verified with VMware® Ready™, Citrix® Ready™, and Microsoft® Hyper-V™ certified. No matter which virtualization environment you’ve adopted, the XCubeNAS is a practical and efficient storage system for you to deploy in any virtualization platform. XCubeNAS can be used for primary storage repositories and as a backup to existing primary storage. As a backup storage device, the XCubeNAS supports a comprehensive list of 3rd-party virtual machine backup software to ensure that your VMs and data are never at risk of loss.

By using auto-tiering, it helps increase the performance of your business application without crippling your budget. The XCubeNAS features auto-tiering technology which makes the system continuously analyze the accessing frequency of your data for better data transmission. The most frequently used data will move to higher speed tier, on the other hand, the less commonly used data will move to capacity tier. Demanding workloads of your business applications could be dramatically reduced, and the performance increased without massive investment in expensive all flash storage devices – this is all done by the XCubeNAS’ intelligent auto-tiering technology.

• Client side backup
• Remote backup
• Cloud backup
• Local backup

XN5000T Series pool encryption mechanism ensures secured storage environment for any user who wants to modify data must first pass authentication. The XN5000T Series supports up to AES 256-bit encryption for internal drives and external USB/eSATA drives, and adopts a military level FIPS 140-2 validated encryption, which is considered to be the highest security certification for compliance.

XCubeNAS provides free DDNS services so you can pick your own domain name and easily connect from anywhere. This is rather useful when your broadband has a floating IP address that changes frequently. Furthermore you can use your DDNS domain name to access your XCubeNAS via the Xccess Mobile app for Android and iOS. If your NAS is located behind a NAT router, you can enable UPnP port forwarding to easily access your NAS.

Where can I buy the QSAN XCube XN5004T and XN8008T?

The QSAN XN5004T and XN8008T XCube is available to buy NOW using the links below. IN the coming weeks we will be featuring both a hardware review and software review to see how this thunderbolt 3 NAS performs. We will see how the QSAN XN8008T compares with the QNAP TVS-1282T3 and how the Xcube XN5004T and QNAP TS-453BT3 NAS compared.

Below is a full breakdown of the software and application support (first and third party) of both the QSAN XN5004T, XN5008T and XN8008T. I think we really are seeing a Thunerbolt/40Gbe NAS contender for 2018.

Unified Storage	NAS application server (Gigabit/10GbE/40GbE NIC) iSCSI storage (Gigabit/10GbE/40GbE NIC) Direct attached storage with Thunderbolt 3.0 (40GbE/s)
File Server	File sharing across Windows/Mac/Linux/UNIX and centralized management
FTP Server	Supports data access from remote location via FTP FTP with SSL/ TLS (explicit) mode FXP supported FTP bandwidth control and connection control Passive FTP port range control
Backup Server	3rd party backup software support: Acronis True Image, CA Brightstor ARCserve Backup, EMC Retrospect, Symantec Backup Exec, LaCie Silverkeeper Snapshot replica Time machine backup server External storage device backup Block-level real time remote replication supports instant, schedule backup management XMirror (Multi-side data synchronization)  Cloud backup: Amazon S3 Cloud synchronization: Google Drive, Windows OneDrive, Dropbox
Web Server	Built-in phpMyAdmin
SQL Server	MariaDB database server
VPN Server	Supports OpenVPN, PPTP and IPsec+L2TP
Virtualization Server	Virtual machine import/export Virtual machine  backup Virtual machine  Snapshot User-based permissions settings Support virtual switch Supports access from IE, Safari, Firefox, Chrome Multiple OS : Windows, Linux, UNIX and Android
Operating System	Linux-embedded system
NAS Discovery	Utility Cloud web page
Connection	IPv4, IPv6 and DDNS domain name registration (QSAN Cloud) Auto port forwarding
Networking	VLAN Link aggregation (support 7 bonding modes) Multi-IP settings Gigabit Jumbo Frame
File System	ZFS file system EXT2 (Virtual Volume) EXT3 (Virtual Volume) EXT4 (Virtual Volume) FAT (Virtual Volume) NTFS (Virtual Volume)
Supported Operating Systems	Windows Mac OS X Linux (2.6 or later) and UNIX
Disk Managemwnt	Single disk, RAID 0 (Disk Striping), RAID 1 (Disk Mirroring), RAID 5, RAID 5 + hot spare, RAID 6, RAID 10,  RAID 50, RAID 60 and JBOD (Linear Disk Volume) Multiple volume and storage pool User defined storage (Generic, Media, Database) Online pool/volume Capacity Expansion Pool/ volume usage threshold notification Self-encrypting drives (SED) pool level protection Pool write cache Scrub pool Convert cloned volume Virtual volume (mount disk from remote iSCSI target) Set free and replace disk HDD S.M.A.R.T. Built-in iSCSI target and initiator service External device management Global and dedicate hot spare disk Zero time RAID creation and quick rebuilding Auto Tiering SSD read/write cache Deduplication (volume and LUN) Snapshot (folder and LUN) Compression (volume and LUN) Thin Provision for LUN SSD Trim
User Managemwnt	Local / domain user and group management Local / domain application privilege User quota for local and domain user Home folder Windows AD and LDAP Trust domain and support up to 200,000 domain users
Folder Management	Advance file ACL Windows ACL Hide shared folder on Windows network Unicode support WORM (Write Once Read Many protection) Folder usage threshold notification Folder quota
System Tool	NTP time settings Notification: E-mail alert (SMTP authentication), syslog, and SNMP System firmware upgrade Back up, restore, reset system settings Import system configuration Antivirus Smart fan IP access control Policy-based unauthorized IP blocking Secure remote login by SSH connection Connection list management USB, SNMP UPS support Network recycle bin Import SSL certificate Real-time Resource (CPU, Memory, Storage, Disk, Process) / Hardware/ service/ network resource monitor
Power Management	HDD hibernation Power schedule Wake on LAN UPS settings Recover from power outage
System Optimization Setting	Service binding
Log	Systm log System connection and data transfer log
Multilingual Support	Chinese (Traditional & Simplified), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Polish
File Manager	File preview Embedded file player Filter Mount Cloud (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox) ISO image mount CIFS, FTP, SFTP and WebDAV client Share link Team folder sharing Publish to facebook, twitter, weibo Media library Media streaming Online doc preview and editing Transcoding (online/offline), compression
Service	Data service: CIFS, AFP, NFS, FTP, WebDAV Backup service: Rsync Discover service: Bonjour
Virtualization	Windows: Hyper-V, storage space VMware: VMware 6.5 ready, VAAI, SRM Citrix: Citrix 7.0 ready
Multi Browser Support	Internet Explorer Safari Firefox Google Chrome
Utility	XFinder XRplicator (Windows backup utility)
Mobile App	Xccess (iOS, iPad and Android)

📧 SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER 🔔

🔒 Join Inner Circle

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

Finally, for free advice about your setup, just leave a message in the comments below here at NASCompares.com and we will get back to you. Need Help? Where possible (and where appropriate) please provide as much information about your requirements, as then I can arrange the best answer and solution to your needs. Do not worry about your e-mail address being required, it will NOT be used in a mailing list and will NOT be used in any way other than to respond to your enquiry. TRY CHAT Terms and Conditions   Alternatively, why not ask me on the ASK NASCompares forum, by clicking the button below. This is a community hub that serves as a place that I can answer your question, chew the fat, share new release information and even get corrections posted. I will always get around to answering ALL queries, but as a one-man operation, I cannot promise speed! So by sharing your query in the ASK NASCompares section below, you can get a better range of solutions and suggestions, alongside my own.

☕ WE LOVE COFFEE ☕

  This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today’s video. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases