Here’s my first impression upon unboxing this QNAP Turbo NAS TS853 and a simple idiot guide to setup the system.
This QNAP 8-bay storage is compact and can easily be placed anywhere, on top a table, at the corner, on a rack or even on the floor. Just make sure you have a power outlet and the device is placed away from harm and danger.
The front-loading bays have the key and lock feature which makes sure that no accidental pull-out of a hard disk will happen and prevents theft as well. The power button is on the lower right and a USB port as well.
It can be said that it is an idiot-friendly device as you can configure all the basic things you need to make it up and running on your network.
Once you power it up, it will look for the disks. So you have to unpack the disks from the static protected sealed package. Make sure you unlock each bay so you can pull out the trays to load the disks.
Then, the NAS will be bare and open. Make sure there are no dusts and moisture in the vicinity that can harm the device in the future. Loading the hard disks in the proper position with the label near the latch and the connectors facing downwards.
I recommend for you to use the Western Digital Red Pro hard disks. They have a variation from 3TB, 6TB and more.
Then once you have set all the hard disks, carefully slide the trays back to its original place. Then make sure that all are snug-fit, latched, locked and in place.
Before powering up, make sure you place the QNAP NAS in a location where the vents are not blocked so that the hot air from inside can go out, and the cool air can go in. There are 2 large fans and the back, and a small fan as well. There is also a vent on the side so just to be aware of not concealing the vents in any manner and no debris or small particles that can easily be blown away is near the device. Otherwise, it might get sucked in and destroy the cooling system.
Finally, use a brand new power cord. Double check on the required power and best practice is if you have a UPS that you can plug into so that when the power comes out, you still have time to power down the device. Pressing the power button for 1-1/2 seconds allows the NAS to power down and shutdown correctly.
There are 4 network cards on the back. Thus, you can connect this to multiple devices and/or multiple networks in your environment. You might need to consult a network IT Specialist to help you configure this one and the rest of the properties.
It will ask you to choose which raid configuration and other settings of your storage. After that, you are good to go.
Since this NAS has 8-bays, the minimum configuration is 24 Terabytes of data. So a photo studio, a music bar, a video recording and editing, and maybe an office that holds files large enough to be stored in a thumb drive, a laptop or desktop, this network capable is good for such applications as well especially if you have lots of data that needs to secured, if you are in a SOHO or small network of computing devices.
