Brand New QNAP JBOD External SAS Expansions Revealed for 2020
QNAP has announced new desktop and rackmount expansion units. Not only you can expand your NAS but you can also use it is as a very fast direct-attached storage (DAS). To connect you will need included SAS cable and a card for a NAS or PC. Each port can handle 4 drives or SSD up to 600MB/s. In order to maximize the performance, you may consider SSD (average speed 550MB/s) instead of HDD (around 150-200MB/s each). Compatible cables are SFF-8088 for 2and 4 port cards and mini SAS SFF-8644 cable for card with 4 ports (smaller connection due to limited space).
New models as follow
- TL-D400S – four-bay box
- TL-D800S – eight-bay box
- TL-D1600S – twelve-bay box with 4xSSD.
and rackmount models:
- TL-R400S – four-bay box
- TL-R1200S-RP – twelve-bay box
Cards for the NAS and PC:
- QXP-400eS-A1164 – for handing 4 drives
- QXP-800eS-A1164 – for handing 8 drives
- QXP-1600eS-A1164 – for handing 16 drives
The 4-bay bundle will consist of
- TL-D400S
- 1 x QXP-400eS-A1164 PCIe 4-port SATA card
- 1 x 1M SFF-8088 cable
The 8-bay bundle will consist of
- 1 x TL-D800S
- 1 x QXP-800eS-A1164 PCIe 8-port SATA card
- 2 x 1M SFF-8088 cables
The 12/16-bay bundle will consist of
- TL-D1600S
- 1 x QXP-1600eS PCIe 16-port SATA card
- 4 x 1M SFF-8088 to SFF-8644 cables
The 4-bay rackmount bundle will consist of
- TL-R400S
- 1 x QXP-400eS-A1164 PCIe 4-port SATA card
- 1 x 1M SFF-8088 cable
The 12-bay rackmount bundle will consist of
- TL-R1200S-RP
- 3 x 1M SFF-8088 to SFF-8644 cables
- 1 x QXP-1600eS PCIe 16-port SATA card
TL-D400S, TL-D800S & TL-D1600S front view
TL-D400S, TL-D800S & TL-D1600S rear view
TL-R400S & TL-R1200S-RP front view
TL-R400S & TL-R1200S-RP rear view
QXP-400eS-A1164 PCIe 4-port SATA card
• External port: 1 x SFF-8088 • Disk drive: 4 x SATA 6Gb/s • Max speed: PCIe 3.0 x2 (1.97 GB/s) • Dimension: 78.8 x 68.9 mm half-height • Bundled in TL-D400S & TL-R400S
QXP-800eS-A1164 PCIe 8-port SATA card
• External port: 2 x SFF-8088 • Disk drive: 8 x SATA 6Gb/s • Max speed: PCIe 3.0 x4 (3.94 GB/s) • Dimension: 117.15 x 68.9 mm half-height • Bundled in TL-D800
QXP-1600eS PCIe 16-port SATA card
• External port: 4 x SFF-8644 • Disk drive: 16 x SATA 6Gb/s • Max speed: PCIe 3.0 x8 (7.88 GB/s) • Dimension: 117.15 x 68.9 mm half-height • Bundled in TL-D1600S & TL-R1200S-R
SAS/SATA 6Gb/s external cables
1-meter (3.28 ft.) SFF-8644 to SFF-8088 cable
P/N: CAB-SAS10M-8644-8088-D01
For QXP-1600eS PCIe SATA card • Support SATA 6Gb/s and SAS 6Gb/s • Compatible with 3rd-party SAS 6Gb/s JBOD products
1-meter (3.28 ft.) SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 cable
P/N: CAB-SAS10M-8088-D01
For QXP-400eS-A1164 and QXP-800eS-A1164 PCIe SATA cards • Support SATA 6Gb/s and SAS 6Gb/s • Compatible with 3rd-party SAS 6Gb/s JBOD products
The maximum potential theoretical speed you can expect is:
7.88 GB/s with 4 ports card
3.94 GB/s with 2 ports card
1.97 GB/s with 1 port card
But it is PCIe based. Very likely your SSD will not work constantly at full speed. Also, software RAID will put a train on CPU capabilities which will slow things down. If you use a hardware RAID card in your PC, this would speed things up a lot. And a combination of SSD and RAID card will deliver speeds close to maximum.
