New QNAP TS-464T4 Thunderbolt 4 NAS Revealed

Last updated on 05 Jan 2022 📧 Subscribe
Contents hide
1 The QNAP TS-464T4 – World’s First Thunderbolt 4 NAS Drive
2 The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS – Hardware Specifications
3 The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS vs the TS-453BT3
4 The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS – Software Specifications
4.1 QNAP Software and System Management Highlights
5 The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS – Price & Release Date
6 Need Advice on Data Storage from an Expert?

The QNAP TS-464T4 – World’s First Thunderbolt 4 NAS Drive

If you are a thunderbolt user and have been looking at network-attached storage (NAS) in the last few years, then it would have been impossible to avoid QNAP. They have been one of the very few brands that have been able to merge the use of your own private server with the utility, speed and convenience of Thunderbolt. Well into its 4th (or maybe even 5th technically) generation of Thunderbolt NAS systems, they have now released at the CES 2022 event their new Thunderbolt 4 equipped 4-Bay NAS solution, the QNAP TS-464T4. Arriving in a similar form as the more affordable thunderbolt 3 NAS system from 2018, the TS-453BT3, this new system is utilizing a lot of the new build specifications of the slowly appearing TS-x64 series, but then ramps things up significantly with the inclusion of 3 types of connectivity (all higher than gigabit), as well as two media bay types, 10Gb USB and a sturdy and cost-effective Intel Celeron processor. The QNAP TS-464T4 certainly has a lot to live up to (following the high acclaim that the TS-453BT3 has achieved) but if they can get the price right on this NAS, then we could well be looking at one of the best entry points for users who want to jump on board the thunderbolt NAS scene that we have seen yet. Let’s discuss everything we know about this nifty little device.

If you are still unsure about Thunderbolt NAS or want to understand the difference between thunderbolt NAS and Thunderbolt DAS, watch the video below:

The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS – Hardware Specifications

As mentioned earlier, the hardware specifications of the QNAP TS-464T4 is not really going to be the beastly architecture of the TVS-472XT or TVS-1288X, as this NAS is designed to be used by smaller creative business users. The system features four hard drive media bays (SATA) that support RAID 0,1,5,6,10, as well as two additional m.2 NVMe SSD media bays that can be used for caching, direct storage or tiered storage in conjunction with the larger HDD bays. The system also arrives with two Thunderbolt 4 ports (USB-C) that will no doubt be backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3, this means that two users will be able to connect with the TS-464T4 directly over thunderbolt to access it’s storage, as well as the NAS remaining accessible by countless users via the network/internet. This is thanks to the system ALSO features 10GbE and 2.5GbE network ports. These appear to be native (i.e. not via a PCIe card as found on the TS-453BT3), so this means the TS-464T4 will almost certainly be as compact in it’s 4-Bay chassis as the TS-453BT3, TS-464 and TS-453D. Finally, the system also includes an HDMI 2.0 output for a 4K 60FPS monitor, as well as multiple USB ports that are no doubt going to include USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gb/s) as found in the rest of the TS-x64 series so far. This is all built on an architecture of the Intel Celeron currently found in the TS-x64 series, the Intel N5105 or N5095A, which is an embedded graphics enabled, x86, 64bit, quad-core chip. Given the memory/cache hungry nature of thunderbolt, the TS-464T4 will likely ship with at least 8GB of memory by default. So, in summary:

  • Featuring the Intel Celeron N5105/N5095 Quad Core 2.0-2.9Ghz CPU
  • Support of SODIMM non-ECC DDR4 Memory, 8-16-32GB* over two slots
  • Four SATA 3.5″ Media Bays supporting up to 20TB Hard Drives
  • Two M.2 2280 NVMe SSD Bays (PCIe Gen 3 x1 or PCIe Gen 3 x2*)
  • Two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C Ports
  • On-board 10GbE network Port
  • On-board 2.5GbE network Port
  • Multiple USB Ports that will include USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gb/s)
  • HDMI 2.0 4K 60FPS Output for a visual display
  • Almost certainly using the TS-464 or TS-453D Chassis

Now as good as all that sounds, let’s take a moment to think about how hard it would be to cram this much hardware into the architecture of that Intel N5105/N5095 Celeron CPU with its available PCI lanes and chipset. Almost certainly those NVMe M.2 slots are going to be a bit clipped, perhaps PCIe Gen 3×1 or 3×2. This is not the end of the world of course, but it likely means that they will not be able to exceed 1000-1500MB/s in real-world use. Additionally, those Four HDD bays even in a RAID 0 are likely to only hit around the 1000MB/s of throughput externally. Swapping those out with some impressively specced SSDs will push this higher, but it is worth keeping in mind that this is an affordable/entry point for users into the thunderbolt NAS world first and foremost. The TS-464T4 is not going to challenge the much more enterprise thunderbolt solution’s in QNAP’s portfolio, but this is going to be a remarkably convenient NAS, with a significant number of ways to connect with it simultaneously that will suit each tier of your workflow and creative team.

The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS vs the TS-453BT3

The TS-464T4 almost certainly serves as a follow up to the now almost 4 years old TS-453BT3 (since initial reveal at CES 2018). Although on the face of it, these systems appear very similar, there are quite a few jumps in architecture between them, with hopes that the price tag of the sub £999 price will be maintained. Let’s take a look at how each system compares:

Model

TS-464T4 (Revealed Jan 2022)

TS-453BT3 (Revealed Jan 2018)
CPU Intel® Celeron N5105/N5095 4-core/4-thread processor, burst up to 2.9 GHz Intel® Celeron® J3455 4-core/4-thread processor, burst up to 2.3 GHz
CPU Architecture 64-bit x86 64-bit x86
Graphic Processors Intel® UHD Graphics Intel® HD Graphics 500
Floating Point Unit Yes Yes
Encryption Engine  (AES-NI)  (AES-NI)
Hardware-accelerated Transcoding Yes Yes
System Memory 8GB SO-DIMM DDR4 (1 x 8GB) *TBC 8 GB SO-DIMM DDR3L (2 x 4 GB)
Maximum Memory 16GB/32 (2 x 8/16GB) *TBC 8 GB (2 x 4 GB)
Memory Slot 2 x SO-DIMM 2 SO-DIMM DDR3LFor dual DIMM configuration, pairs of identical DDR3L modules must be used.
Flash Memory 4GB (Dual boot OS protection) 4GB (Dual boot OS protection)
Drive Bay 4 x 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s 4 x 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s
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 drives		 3.5-inch SATA hard drive
2.5-inch SATA hard drive
2.5-inch SATA solid state drive
M.2 Slot 2x PCIe Gen 3 x1 / 3×2 *TBC 2 x M.2 2280 SATA
SSD Cache Acceleration Support Yes Yes
1 Gigabit Ethernet Port No 2
2.5 Gigabit Ethernet Port (2.5G/1G/100M) 1 (also support 10M) 0
10 Gigabit Ethernet Port 1 x 10GBASE-T (10G/5G/2.5G/1G/100M) 1 10GBASE-T (10G/5G/2.5G/1G/100M)QM2 PCIe card pre-loaded
Thunderbolt Port 2 (Thunderbolt 4) 2 (Thunderbolt 3)
PCIe Slot NO 1 PCIe Gen 2 (x2), pre-loaded with a QM2 expansion card (QM2-2S10G1TB), including a 10GbE 10GBASE-T port and two M.2 SATA solid-state drive slots.
HDMI Output HDMI 2.0 (up to 4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz) HDMI 1.4b (up to 3840 x 2160 @ 30Hz)

*TBC = Almost certain, but I want to be absolutely sure and am checking as we speak

So, immediately, we can see that in terms of ‘brief glance’ architecture, they have similar building blocks. However, the CPU is several jumps up in refreshes by Intel, as well as the quality of each individual port on the system being improved upon throughout the device. Overall, the TS-464T4 is a great refresh and improvement over the TS-453BT3 and an absolute no brainer if you are looking at entering the world of thunderbolt NAS, but are on a tighter budget.

The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS – Software Specifications

The QNAP TS-464T4 will be arriving with QTS, the brand’s software and services platform that is included with every QNAP NAS system. Given the hardware that the TS-464T4 arrives with, it will almost certainly not feature the ZFS platform QuTS. QTS is currently in version 5 and I have made a full review of their latest software release in the video below, but below is a breakdown of the key applications that it includes (which can be accessed/used via the network/internet via your web browser, as well as via client apps for desktops and mobile).

QNAP Software and System Management Highlights

  • File Station – File Browsing and Management Tool
  • QSirch -Intelligent and Fast System-wide search tool
  • QFiling – Smart and customizable long term storage and archive tool
  • SSD Caching Monitor and Advisor – Allowing you to scale your SSD cache as needed, or get recommendations on how much you need
  • QTier – The QNAP intelligent, multi-layer tiering system that works to optimize your SSD vs HDD use, moving files to the appropriate storage media (not currently supported on QuTS Hero, just QTS)
  • Microsoft Active Directory– Support and cross-platform control of Active Directory processes
  • Access-Anywhere with myQNAPcloud – Safe and secure remote access over the internet to your storage systems, apps or just file storage
  • Qsync for multiple hardware environment backups and Sync – Client applications that can be installed on multiple 3rdparty devices and create a completely customizable and scaled back up network between your devices
  • Hybrid Backup Sync 3 – Allows you to Backup and Sync with Amazon Glacier, Amazon S3, Azure Storage, Google Cloud Storage, HKT Object Storage, OpenStack Swift, WebDAV, Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Drive, Amazon S3, BackBlaze B2, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, HiDrive, hubiC, OneDrive, OneDrive For Business, ShareFile and Yandex Disk. As well as backup to another NAS over real-time remote replication (RTRR) and USB connected media. All scheduled and all accessible via a single app user interface.
  • vJBOD and Hybrid Mount – Gives you the ability to mount cloud storage as a visible drive within the NAS (and the apps access it as if it was local) or mount a % of space from your NAS onto another as a virtual chunk of space to use
  • Multimedia Console – one portal access point to manage media access, searching, indexing and transcoding on your NAS device.
  • Photo, Video and Music Station – Multiple file type tailored applications to access data in the best possible way that is suited to their output – along with smart searching, playlists and sharing
  • Virtualization Station – Used to create virtual computers that can be accessed anywhere over the network/internet with the correct credentials. Supporting Windows, Linux, Android and more. You can import an existing VM image to the NAS, or you can even download Linux and Windows VMs directly to the NAS for trials for free
  • Container Station – much like the VM app, Container station lets you mount and access smaller virtual tools and GUIs, then access them over the network or internet.
  • Linux Station – Handy application to deploy multiple Linux based Ubuntu VMs from the NAS, all easily and within a few clicks
  • QVR Pro and Surveillance Station – Surveillance applications that allow you to connect multiple IP cameras and IP speaks to your network and manage them with the applications. Arriving with 4 camera licenses for Surveillance Station and 8 licenses for QVR Pro (the better one IMO), QNAP is constantly updating this enterprise-level surveillance application – adding newer security hardware and software tools for 2020 (see QVR Face and QVR Door)
  • QuMagie – Facial and Thing recognition application to help you retrieve, tag and catalogue photos by its use of AI to actually ‘view’ all your years of photos and let you search by the contents of them, not the file names.
  • Download Station – A download management tool that can handle HTTP, BT, FTP and NZB files in bulk to be downloaded to your NAS drive and keep safe. As well as keeping an eye on your RSS feeds and keeping your podcast downloads automatically updated with every episode
  • Malware Removers and Security Councillor – Along with Anti Virus software trials on the app centre, QNAP also provide numerous anti-intrusion tools and even a whole app interface to monitor in/outgoing transmissions with your NAS. It can make recommendations to beef up your security and keep you safe

Additionally, you can always access the TS-464T4 via your own native Operating System file management via iSCSI, mapped drives, DAS setup (know as thunderbolt over IP, or IP over thunderbolt) and you can even use the TS-464T4 as a thunderbolt network gateway to allow your TB3/TB4 equipped Mac/PC to connect with an existing 10GbE network. Here is my full review of QTS 5.0 for QNA NAS:

FULL Written QNAP QTS 5 Review FULL Video Review of QNAP QTS 5

The QNAP TS-464T4 NAS – Price & Release Date

QNAP has been a little quieter on the eventual release price and planned launch date for the TS-464T4 NAS, however, we can make some educated guess! First and foremost, the pricetag will need to sit well with the hardware on offer and the rest of the thunderbolt portfolio. So, given the £900-1000 price tag of the TS-453BT3, we can comfortably assume that this will be a target figure for the TS-464T4. Regarding the release date, QNAP has been gradually releasing the TS-x64 series in the closing stages of 2021 (with the TS-364 and TBS-464 being released in Nov and Dec). With the reveal of the TS-464T4 and HS-264 at the CES 2022 event lining up neatly in Jan ’22, I think we are likely to see a release of the TS-464T4 in the first quarter of 2022. Subscribe below to learn more and keep updated on this and other new NAS releases in 2022. Thanks for reading!

 

 

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      50 thoughts on “New QNAP TS-464T4 Thunderbolt 4 NAS Revealed”

      6. Is the TS-464T4 released yet (It’s been 10 months since the 1/2022 announcement as of 11/2022). Is it possible to buy TS-464 without the Thunderbolt and add it later as an expansion card assuming it gets released at a later date?
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      12. Cool vid! I just finished watching your other vid on this topic, but it did not click what u were saying until I watched this one. Ouch. Lol….

        Feel free to ignore what I am about to say…

        It’s a scam! If it is not thunderbolt 4, then they should not be allowed to market it as such! I am so happy I watched your video. It is essentially an adapter that converts a thunderbolt signal into an IP signal. That means….it’s not thunderbolt!

        I will share what I am working on/the problem that I am trying to solve.

        Problem. I create content. Running out of hard drive space. I would like a scalable hard drive solution primarily to work off of and for easy backup.

        Idea. During the course of researching, it was unfortunate that the multi-bay DAS storage solutions appear to have bad reputations or unreliable products. Soooo…I said….why not? Let’s consider the NAS as a solution. Okay….so what is the ideal solution…Well….

        1. At least 4 bays.
        2. Can hold at least 16TB hard drives.
        3. Can be setup as just a bunch of disks. (Note: I am too inexperienced to use RAID setups so I have a continuous backup idea that would be sufficient for my needs.)
        4. Be able to hold my old hard drives without forced formatting hence the reason for the NAS being able to be setup as just a bunch of disks.
        5. Be able to be setup as direct attached storage via Thunderbolt 4. Logic. I am buying a Thunderbolt 4 desktop when they become available. Instead of creating content on my desktop and then transferring the files to my NAS, wouldn’t it be easier to just do all my work directly off the NAS just by connecting to it directly via Thunderbolt 4 essentially using it as a DAS? What a great idea!?

        I’ll stop there as there were other factors for the ideal solution, but I wanted to at least share how your video just saved me alot of time, money, energy, and frustration! Good looking out!

        I believe QNAP, Synology, and the other NAS companies are starting to realize that although limited budgets, many of us small content creators have ideas about how we want to solve our hard drive/storage problems. Ultimately, it is an extension of our computer to have large drives that we can work from and followed by being able to easily do backups for when hard drives fail. And being able to watch 4k movies and connect remotely is really just icing on the cake. It does not make sense to buy a DAS because the icing is becoming more affordable.

        Welp….I do actually have more to say, buuuuuut just wanted to say thank u for sharing your experience! Good looking out.

        Gotta get some work done.

        I’m out….

        Mark
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      16. Thanks for always providing us newbies with great information! I am slated to receive my Mac Studio soon, which has built in 10gbe, so this unit will definitely be on my consideration list!
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      23. Excellent exclusive content as always. Just wondering, this has the same Celeron processor as the TBS-464 Nasbook however on that device is limited to 8gb RAM (vs 16gb on this one) and this has 2 M.2 slots and thunderbolt 4. Why is it possible on this device and not the other one if it is the same processor? Considering getting this instead and just using 2 of the highest capacity M.2 drives I can find as a more future proof device
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      27. For me, this really needed to be 6 bay NAS but I bet QNAP knows most people buy 4 bay NASes so they decided to allocate the additional bandwidth on that extra SSD or the 10GBe connection.
        Cannot blame them, but for my storage/redundancy needs this is an almost perfect device 2 bays short.
        For those looking for TB DASes, I have a 5 bay Terramaster one that has been working fine for ~1 year now and can pull up to 425-450MBs transfer rates with high performance drives in RAID5. You need to deal with a proprietary Windows only driver though.
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      30. Hi there, Seems that the saving of not having to purchase a Thunderbolt – Ethernet 10G adaptor makes this NAS potentially quite attractive. I’m a photographer (hobbyist but serious) and want to soon buy a NAS that I can edit on, so 10G + M.2 SSD cache seems to be the way to go. I have a laptop PC with Thunderbolt 3, so I can use the money that was going on the adaptor to buy the SSD’s/drives. Looking forward to this NAS coming out. PS: thanks for all your content – I’m rapidly teaching myself all about NAS and your videos are sooo helpful! PS: If I was not to choose the QNAP TS-464T4 what would you say is the next best thing (cheaper, not more expensive) for photo editing???, Cheers, Mark
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      31. *Note* – Apologies for the slightly fuzzy camera. Currently integrating a new Camera and lighting into the recording space and this new NAS release caught me off guard! Expect better picture quality and resolution in 2022! Happy New Year Everyone!
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      32. Thanks for all your great videos – I am looking to upgrade my NAS and have settled on a Qnap TS-673A it will be my “home” NAS should I use QTS Hero ZFS or QTS 5 as my OP? Which is best? One of the main things I want to use is MyCloudLink (which I presume I can use on both OP)
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      35. Latest QTS 5 firmware update lost every user’s “home” folder when connecting via AFP in a finder window, only shared folders are shown. Even disabling and enabling home folders in users don’t take any effect. Only In browser UI the home folder is working properly.
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      36. Great videos, what I would love for you to talk about. Is there a way to connect two qnap tvs-x72tv via thunderbolt cable (directly connected) this would be a huge benefit given the massive amounts of data these things hold and the slow transfer speeds of gigabit. Thunderbolt direct connect would be awesome. I have my two units daisy chained from my Mac. Mac has not issue seeing either. QBS wont use for backup
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      37. I have TS253be and update to QTS 5.0 but NAS force me to initialize NAS (Reset NAS set up)
        My raid was gone (Raid 1) while I Initialized NAS to start 5.0 and I try to back up my data to external hdd
        but my 2nd disk was gone while back up I can recovery data 70% (Lost forever 30%) T.T
        Do you have problem to upgrade like me?
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      39. I had to roll back.
        5.0.0. gave me two weird issues.
        1. The fans went to 100% and stuck there, regardless of any setting or actual system temp.
        2. (And this one is really weird) IR remote button pushes would be registered twice, but only around 25-33% of the time.

        I rolled back AND forward three times to check and double check these issues. I’m staying with 4.5.x until I know 5.x.x has the bugs ironed out.
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      40. i have found the file permission are better but….. in my case the everyone group has no rights assigned to it when checking on qnap.not denied not ro or rw. when you create a user via qnap and assign rights via windows. somewhere along the line everyone has now changed to denied access…..simply just remove anyone from the resource…but not the right way?
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      41. FULL Written Review of QNAP QTS 5 – https://nascompares.com/2021/10/08/qnap-qts-5-0-nas-software-review-worth-your-data/
        01:50 – Disclaimers & Review Considerations
        05:25 – Start – QTS Change of Focus
        07:00 – QTS 5 vs QTS 4.5 GUI, Design, The Good, the Bad & the Awkward
        10:13 – Responsiveness
        10:44 – Things That Have Not Changed
        11:30 – Security, Notifications & Control
        14:25 – Control Panel
        15:39 – Storage Manager
        17:25 – Remote Mounting & Cloud Gateways
        18:40 – File Management
        20:30 – Multimedia Control & Sharing
        27:00 – Storage Continued – Health & Checks
        29:00 – Synchronization & Backup Tools
        36:35 – Virtual Machines, Containers & Ubuntu VMs
        41:05 – VMware, Hyper-V and SaaS Backups
        43:14 – HDMI Services & HD Station
        45:00 – Surveillance Tools & Services
        49:00 – Licenses, Good & Bad
        51:00 – QSirch, QFile, Teamviewer, Hybrid Mount and the Conclusion
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      45. awesome, perfect video as always; you’re the best source for nas – especially on qnap, i would say. Possessor of the – NOWADAYS pretty old – ts231+P and i still use it as my daily driver; with the new qts 5 now, seems even more faster
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      50. Recently I have discovered the OWC Thunderbay, that seems to fit my needs: basically, a single user for video editing on Mac, connected via thunderbolt or USB-c, and providing a fast storage with relatively lower price. I understand that the RAID management has to be done in the computer and on on the NAS/DAS. But I see no reference to the OWC Thunderbay on this channel, so I wonder if there are hidden problems. It would be so interesting to have your opinion.
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