QNAP TS-x53B or TS-x53Be – What is the Difference?
QNAP has been in the business of NAS for a truly heroic number of years. Between them and their big rival Synology, the network attached server market is pretty well dominated. As the years has passed and the models have been released, certain themes and brand preferences have become apparent. Synology is popular with the Mac community, the NAS newbie and the user that prioritises first-party apps. Whereas QNAP has always been the more innovative brand, popular with the Windows and Android community, lower in price, significantly better in hardware and has a much better balance of first party and third party application support. However halfway through last year, we saw a NAS release that left a few users a bit puzzled in the TS-253B, TS-453B and TS-653B NAS range. The TS-x53B range arrives some 15-20% higher in price than anything they released in this target audience previous, even higher than that of comparative Synology NAS at the time. To be fair, the TS-x53B range is one of the most fully featured NAS we have ever seen for home and SMB users (SD Card slot, DAS connectivity, dual HDMI, PCIe upgrade slot, speaker, Audio In/out, featured remote control, Quad Core intel CPU, 4GB DDR3L memory and more) but when a 2-Bay NAS arrives at around £500 and its predecessor was £360 – that is a BIG jump!
The QNAP TS-253B NAS versus the TS-253A NAS – OId vs New in this QNAP 2-Bay Faceoff
I cannot say if price disparity hurt their sales, it certainly resulted in ALOT of people buying the TS-253A and TS-453A, but QNAP certainly noticed the reaction and at the start of this year released the new TS-253Be and TS-453Be NAS. Only an ‘e’ difference in the name, but over £120 CHEAPER! At a casual glance, the two look almost identical, but in order to see how and where QNAP has made the saving, you have to dig a little deeper.
Difference between the TS-253B / TS-453B and the TS-253Be / TS-453Be
So, what are the features that QNAP removed to lower the price and make this new NAS more accessible to buyers? Well, luckily the most important features (the Quad Core CPU, the PCIe expansion slot, the OLED screen, the speaker a, those dual HDMI and dual LAN) are all staying. Below are the differences between the TS-x53B and TS-53Be range:
- No Remote Contol
- No SD Card Slot
- No Quick Access DAS USB 3.0 Port
- 2GB or 4GB DDR3 Memory, instead of the 4GB/8GB options
So, on the face of it, these may well seem like a lot of things. although precise prices are not yet available, it is pretty evident that this will be the cost a great deal closer to that of the older 53B series. The key point of focus here is that the TS-253Be and TS-453Be have had their hardware access options a little clipped BUT that great CPU, the main innovations that have put QNAP in peoples home/offices and the main things that put the QNAP flagship B high in our top 5 2-Bay and 4-Bay NAS of 2017 are still very much available.
Needless to say, there is a good possibility that we will see the end of the TS-253A and TS-453A series this year. It has had a good run, but soon I am sure it will be a B and Be series to choose from.
What Can the TS-253B / TS-453B and the TS-253Be / TS-453Be NAS do?
I am pleased to confirm that the TS-x53B and TS-53Be can do almost exactly the same things on a hardware level and absolutely everything on a software level. The QNAP TS-253B and TS-253Be are still one of the best 2-Bay NAS for the home you can buy right now and the TS-453B and TS-453Be are excellent NAS choices for home and business users (especially photographers looking for solid RAID-enabled storage). Both the TS-x53B and TS-x53Be can support (there are many, many more):
- The latest QNAP QTS 4.3.4 software
- Snapshot Backups internally and externally
- RAID Configurations such as RAID0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 and more
- Dedicated First Party Photo, Video, Music, File and Backup Applications
- Cloud Migration and synchronization with Google Drive, DropBox, Amazon S3 and more
- Excellent Support of 3rd Party Apps like Plex Media Server, iTunes Server, Kodi (unofficially), Windows Server and more
- HDMI Output for Media, Standalone PC use (inc keyboard and mouse), Surveillance with IP Cameras and many streaming apps
- Surveillance Apps like Surveillance Station and QVR Pro are included FREE
- Hundreds of Apps in the QNAP App Center accessible from the UI (like Google Play or iTunes)
- Hundreds of Homebrew and Unoffical apps in the QNAPClub store
- Many mobile applications for Android and iOs
- Download server, email server and file server support
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