Hands-on review: QNAP TS-653B - powerful NAS for businesses

We live in the Information Age where data is more important than almost any other asset – and the amount we have is growing every day.

Fortunately, we now have Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices and at the forefront of this industry is QNAP.

The storage expert recently released a new line of NAS devices, deemed the TS-x53B series and available in three options - 2 bay ( TS-253B), 4 bay ( TS-453B) and 6 bay (TS-653B).

All of the devices in this series include:

• 14 nm Intel Celeron quad-core processor, AES-NI hardware-accelerated encryption
• PCIe port supports QNAP QM2 dual-port M.2 SSD or 10GbE network expansion
• USB Type-C QuickAccess port, 4K HDMI output, SD card slot

In this review we're going to focus on the TS-653B, an advanced yet simple to install and use NAS drive that is ideal for a range of audiences from enterprises to SMBs.

The QNAP TS-653B is a truly sexy NAS device, with a glossy black front sliding cover and OLED screen with capacitive touch buttons on a chic blue panel dominating the first glance.

The overall feel is sleek, elegant and compact and it easily fits under a desk or just about anywhere in an office.

As aforementioned, the NAS comes with a modern OLED front panel that displays system information (including temperatures, fan speed, and the capacity of hard drives, volumes and LUN) allowing you to quickly view the overall system status.

This is complemented by dust-proof capacitive touch buttons that allow you to easily wake up the screen, change network IP settings and host password or even restart and shut down the system.

The sliding front cover reveals the six bay 3.5" hard drives, which can be easily inserted and removed without tools, making it easy for users to set up and maintain.

The PCIe port enables you to boost the potential applications of your NAS - the QNAP QM2 expansion card can be installed for adding an M.2 SSD cache/10GbE connectivity, a compatible wireless card can be installed to use the TS-653B as a wireless access point, and a USB 3.1 10Gbps card can be added for easier backup to/from multiple external storage devices.

Another really cool feature is that you don't even need to have a network connection to transfer or share files, as the drive comes with a USB Type-C QuickAccess port and a SD card slot.

What's more, the TS-653B also provides feature-rich multimedia functionality, such as 4K video playback and real-time transcoding.

The system is powered by the latest 14 nm Intel Celeron J3455 quad-core 1.5GHz processor (burst up to 2.3 GHz) and has up to 8GB DDR3L RAM, dual Gigabit LAN ports and SATA 6Gb/s, meaning it runs tasks incredibly smoothly and quickly with up to 225 MB/s read/ write speeds.

It is also extremely secure, featuring Intel AES-NI hardware-accelerated encryption to drive transfer speeds of up to 225 MB/s with AES 256-bit encryption for both full NAS volumes and shared folders, boosting system performance and security while ensuring the safety of sensitive data

Some of the other main features include:

• Supports virtualisation, centralised storage, backup, sharing, and disaster recovery
• A hybrid approach to virtualisation in one NAS: Virtualisation Station and Container Station
• Supports 4K hardware decoding and transcodes 4K H.264 videos on-the-fly or offline
• IFTTT Agent enables web automation for improved working efficiency

There are many businesses struggling with the sheer amount of data they're having to process and store, and now QNAP has come up with the solution.

The TS-653B is an incredibly powerful NAS device while at the same time being compact and affordable, making it the ideal drive for modern businesses - See the full product information Here. ​