Unboxing the QNAP TS-932X NAS Featuring Dual SFP+ 10Gbe, 4 SSD Bays and Quad Core CPU

Why is the QNAP TS-932X Desktop NAS a Good 10Gbe Entry Point

The business-class TS-932X is a budget-friendly NAS designed to accommodate five 3.5-inch hard drives and four 2.5-inch SSDs. It is also the first ARM-based NAS that supports Qtier™ technology for efficient auto-tiered storage. As a 9-bay NAS, the compact TS-932X takes up less desktop space compared with other models in the same class, and presents a stylish control panel embellished with brushed-metal aluminum. Featuring dual 10GbE SFP+ ports, the TS-932X provides an excellent blend of speed and affordability to future-proof your IT infrastructure for 10GbE networks.

QNAP TS-932X NAS Hardware

• Desktop Chassis that is both compact, yet cool. The TS-932X is compact in size, offers large storage potential, and is kept cool by an effective airflow and thermal design. Heat is efficiently dissipated, ensuring the TS-932X performs smoothly even under the heaviest loads.

• 5 Hard Drive Bays (3.5″). Each with screwless design so HDD can be installed without a screw driver.

• 4 Dedicated SSD Bays (2.5″). The TS-932X provides four 2.5-inch bays for SSD caching to improve the workflow of random IOPS demanding applications. Qtier™ Technology empowers the TS-932X with automatic tiering that continuously optimizes storage utilization across high-performance SSD and high-capacity SATA drives. The new Qtier™ 2.0 features IO-awareness that empowers SSD-tiered storage with a cache-like reserved space to handle burst I/O in real time, greatly maximizing the advantages of SSD.

• Multiple LEDs for Power, System Status, Network Access and Drive Behaviour/Health. These will dynamically highlight and/or alert you to potential connection issues.

• Combination Plastic and Metal Chassis means that the device is cool, yet quiet. HDD standby at 21.66 W and power use whilst in operation：42.15 W. Sound level reported at 18.7 dB(A)

• Screwless Drive Trays

• Front Mounted USB 3.0 USB Copy Button and Port

• Single Rear fan with automatic temprature adjustments

• Rear speaker, IOIOI interface port and Speaker socket

• 2x 1Gbe RJ45 LAN

• 2x SFP+ 10Gbe Port

• 2x USB 3.0 Ports

The TS-932X is equipped with an AnnapurnaLabs, an Amazon company Alpine AL-324 quad-core 1.7 GHz Cortex-A57 processor with 2GB/8GB DDR4 RAM (upgradable to 16GB) and supports SATA 6Gb/s.

When processing AES 256-bit full NAS volume encryption, the TS-932X also provides unmatched encryption performance while ensuring the safety of sensitive business data stored in the NAS. The TS-932X comes with a pair of 10GbE SFP+ ports to fully support 10GbE high-speed networks, delivering a major speed increase for virtualization tasks, fast backup & restoration, and large-data applications.

QNAP TS-932X NAS Software

With multiple modularized applications and functions, QTS enhances management efficiency, personal productivity, multimedia, and much more, making your NAS experience easier, efficient, and more flexible! The built-in App Center with hundreds of install-on-demand apps also opens up vast potential for extensive NAS functionality. The new Qboost provides a NAS optimization tool that helps accelerate applications, free up system resources, and schedule applications. QTS breaks the barriers of devices, platforms, and geography to bring you advanced features and optimized cloud experiences.

QNAP’s new QVR Pro surveillance solution allows you to arrange a dedicated, independent storage space for surveillance data on the TS-932X and leverage the advantages of storage manageability from QTS.

With QVR Pro, camera management, storage space allocation, camera live view and playback is greatly simplified. You can also use the QVR Pro Client mobile app to monitor your cameras from anywhere, or use USB webcams as ONVIF network camera with the QUSBCam2 app.

Snapshots fully record system status and data, allowing you to protect files and data from accidental deletion and malware attacks. Essential for NAS data protection, snapshots help protect your data by fully recording the NAS system state and the metadata. You can use Storage & Snapshots Manager or File Station to easily manage snapshots and quickly restore the system to its normal state if an error occurs. QNAP snapshots are block-based and only record the changed data. Not only does this save storage space but also reduces the time required to back up and restore data.

Supports LXC and Docker® containers for rapidly deploying application services across platforms including the cloud, servers, and PCs. Container Station integrates LXC and Docker® lightweight virtualization technologies. You can download apps from the built-in Docker Hub® to easily import/export container apps and manage access controls, enjoying the benefit of easy installation, transferability and high-efficiency as well as rapidly deploying application services across several platforms including the cloud, servers, and PCs.

Secure private cloud supporting centralized storage, backup, sharing, and disaster recovery. NAS and iSCSI-SAN (IP-SAN) unified storage solution with a scalable design. The TS-932X centrally stores data and files, and supports SMB/CIFS, AFP and NFS protocols for file sharing across Windows®, Mac®, and Linux®/UNIX® networks. Coupled with Qsync (a utility that turns a QNAP NAS into a safe, high-capacity data center for file synchronization) any file uploaded to the TS-932X will be made available for all linked devices, such as computers, laptops and mobile devices. You can sync shared folders and team folders for group file sharing to enhance the flexibility of team projects and collaboration. Files can be centrally managed using File Station, including files from mobile devices and optical disc drives. File Station also allows you to mount a remote NAS, and transfer files between your NAS and public cloud services for greater convenience.

The QNAP TS-932X NAS Conclusion

At around £500+ (without your local TAX), the TS-932X from QNAP is a real work of effort and design. QNAP has been in the world of 10Gbe NAS for several years now and this coupled with the inclusion of their tiered storage system makes this device VERY attractive at this price point. It is a shame that there are tiny compromises such as the ARM-based CPU and SFP+ Ports (unlike the more universally popular and backwards compatible 10GBASE-T found on the TS-963X), but at this price point it is hard to imagine a better hardware spec NAS featuring both 10GBe and premium features like container application support with and 9 bays for combining SSD and HDD storage. If SSD Caching does not interest you, remember that you can pool the SSD storage into a RAID protected volume, connect DIRECTLY from your Mac/Windows machine via 10GBe and then edit the files live on the SSDs (with the bottleneck of your network removed) and then set up an automated internal backup that carrier finished/older projects over to the bulk HDD storage and share over the network/internet as you see fit. This coupled with snapshot support to keep multiple versions of files over time only enhances this workflow further! I definitely recommend this device to photographers and videographers that are looking for a centralized NAS platform to introduce 10GBe into their workflow. Though the ARM Annapurna CPU means that use as a Plex Media Server is debatable.

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CPU	AnnapurnaLabs, an Amazon company Alpine AL-324 Quad-core 1.7GHz ARM® Cortex-A57 Processor, 64-bit
Encryption Acceleration
System Memory	2GB DDR4 2400 (1 x 2 GB)
Maximum Memory	16 GB (1 x 16 GB)
Memory Slot	1 x SODIMM slot
Flash Memory	512 MB NAND Flash
Drive Bay	5 x 3.5-inch SATA 6 Gbps bays 4 x 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gbps bays Hot-swappable
Drive Compatibility	3.5-inch bays: • 3.5-inch SATA hard disk drives • 2.5-inch SATA hard disk drives • 2.5-inch SATA solid state drives2.5-inch bays: • 2.5-inch solid state drives
10 Gigabit Ethernet Port	2 x 10GbE SFP+
Gigabit Ethernet Port	2 x Gigabit RJ45
USB Port	USB 3.0 (Front: 1; Rear: 2)
Audio	1 x Built-in speaker, 1 x 3.5mm line out jack Note: You cannot use the speakers and the line-out jack simultaneously.
LED Indicators	Status/Power, LAN, USB, HDD 1-5, SSD 1-4
Buttons	Power, Reset, USB One- touch-copy
System Warning	Voice prompts
Form Factor	Tower
Dimensions (H x W x D)	182 x 225 x 224 mm 7.17 x 8.86 x 8.82 inch
Power Consumption (W)	HDD standby：21.66 W In operation：42.15 W (with 5 x HDDs and 4 x SSDs installed)
Sound Level	Sound pressure (LpAm): 18.7 dB(A)
Weight	Net weight: 3.53 kg (7.78 lbs) Gross weight: 5.06 kg (11.15 lbs)
Fan	1 x 14cm smart Fan (12V DC)
Power Supply Unit	120W AC external adapter, 100-240V
Operating Temperature & Relative Humidity	0 ~ 40˚C ( 32˚F ~ 104˚F ), 5 ~ 95% RH non-condensing, wet bulb: 27˚C (80.6˚F)
Security Slot	Kensington security slot