APR
17
2009

Need a nice file- and printer server for your home network ?

Submitted by Alexander Neundorf

Ok, this blog is not really KDE related (well, it makes the network installation of a KDE developer more convenient, so...), but anyway here we go.
Main purpose is to get the compatibility information out there, so others can find it.

So, I recently purchased a QNAP TS 109 Pro.
This is a small NAS, i.e. basically it is a small Linux server. It has a 500 MHz ARM processor from Marvel, 128 MB RAM and its main purpose is to be used as a NAS. That's what I'm doing. For that, it supports among others NFS, Samba and also a web interface. I'm using it here over NFS from my different Linux machines.
Additionally it can also be used as a printer server over Samba.
This is also nicely working, both from SUSE 11.1 and Slackware 12.1. Finally we can now print wireless :-)

Some nice points of the device:

  • it's small, roughly the size of an external 5.25" drive
  • it's very silent, no fans at all !
  • in idle mode it consumes only 6W
  • the power-on switch is also an power-off switch (AFAIK e.g. for the NetGear 2150 it is only a power-on switch)

I'm using it with hardware which is not on the official compatibility list at QNAP, but it seems to work flawlessly.
So, the harddisk is a Samsung HD322HJ 320 GB Spinpoint F1. No problems until now, also very silent.
The printer is a HP DeskJet 5151, connected via USB to the QNAP and exported via Samba.
An additional note: the HP5151 is AFAIK the same as the HP DeskJet 5150, just in different colors.

I just did a quick benchmark, reading 261 MB of data and piping it into /dev/null took 28.3 s, gives 9.2 MB/s.
I guess this is not too far away from the maximum one can get over a 100 MBit ethernet cable. And it's more than you can get over WLAN anyway.

So, all in all, a nice, silent and small device :-)

The TS 109 II has more RAM, but I think I don't need that.
The "Pro" versions of the TS 109 and TS 109 II support NFS (that's what I'm using), the versions without "Pro" AFAIK don't.

Alex

P.S. one bad point: for setting it up they ship a Windows-only software, so I had to do this on somebodys else PC. AFAIK there is also a Linux-only way to set it up initially, but I didn't feel like doing this since it seemed slightly complicated.

Comments

Sounds good, but it seems to be quite expensive (250€ without disk?) compared to a Buffalo Linkstation (and the Linkstation gives you full ssh access with a bit of patching). You nearly get a Netgear ReadyNAS for that price.

By gemuend at Fri, 04/17/2009 - 17:49

You can get it starting at 220 Euro (plus the disk).
It also offers ssh access.
The ReadyNas 2150 came in on second place on my list, because a) it has fans, b) it doesn't have a power-off button.
I didn't find many NAS which support NFS and which can also act as a print server.
And the QNAP really seems to be quite fast, compared to the devices tested recently in the c't magazine.

Alex

By Alexander Neundorf at Fri, 04/17/2009 - 18:16

Ah, I see. I have to admit the Linkstation is not really quite. The disk isn't isolated well, so if i put it on my desk it resonates. I've also read that issue of c't, but I get different measures for my linkstation. On nas-central someone put up read-timings of the new Linkstation Bittorrent where he reaches approximately 12.5 MB. Sadly he only tested Fast Ethernet (the new Linkstations all have Gigabit Ethernet). There are also reports that proof that the timings are CPU bound though (by overclocking the cpu you get better results), so your QNAP might still be faster.

By gemuend at Sat, 04/18/2009 - 08:52

For more functionality and for NFS on the non-pro you can install Debian, it's a supported platform with the release of Lenny and very easy to install.

Check this:
http://www.cyrius.com/debian/orion/qnap/ts-109/

It makes a brilliant device even better in my opinion.

By Mike Arthur at Sat, 04/18/2009 - 20:07