NetBak Replicator is QNAP’s Windows-based backup solution for PCs connected to the TS-409 Pro and other QNAP NAS appliances. The interface has a compact footprint with a simple, user-friendly design. When compared with EMC Retrospect Backup bundled with the ReadyNAS NV+, it’s clear that QNAP wanted to keep things as fast and simple as possible. Not a bad strategy when you want to insure that backups will get done on a regular basis, rather than get avoided due to perceived or actual software complexity.

Appearances can be deceptive, however. NetBak Replicator packs more of a punch than Microsoft's aging Backup Utility for Windows in a number of areas. Aside from the usual backup, restore and other features you’d expect a backup program to have, Monitoring allows you to select a folder on your local hard drive, and NetBak Replicator will monitor it for any changes and upload them to the specified share on the server. NetBak Replicator also records a user’s current settings for the program, including whether or not Monitor is enabled. When the user logs in again, their last saved settings are loaded for them to perform backups. And it has a built-in scheduling feature—something that Backup Utility for Windows doesn’t have—for hands-off, set-it-and-forget-it backups. However, both Backup Utility for Windows and EMC Retrospect Backup have disaster recovery capabilities and can verify backups to make that they’re good. NetBak Replicator unfortunately, has neither.

Upon running NetBak Replicator for the first time, you’ll be prompted once for a share on the TS-409 Pro to backup to, and your login credentials. After that, you’re ready to perform a backup. You can easily select any other QNAP storage device that you happen to have on your network, to back up to—so long as car remember the right server by its IP address. Using the server name would be a better alternative—as would displaying the drive volume labels in the file and folder selection pane.

I benchmarked NetBak Replicator against my favorite backup program Acronis True Image Home 11 (Build 8053)—a powerful but easy-to-use full-featured backup and bare-metal disaster recovery solution, and threw in Backup Utility for Windows for grins. The test data used for the benchmark is my Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion installation and saved games on the PC used for the previous benchmarks, which is now a tad over 10GB in size thanks to all of my installed mods, and represents a good mix of small, medium and large files. The backup was performed to the drive mapped to the BENCHMARK share on the TS-409 Pro. NetWorx 3.2 was pressed into service again to record the amount of time it took NetBak Replicator to perform the backup, as its backup logs lack that detail. Acronis True Image and Microsoft’s Backup Utility for Windows, have no such limitation. For True Image and Backup Utility, the verify operation ran immediately after the backup, and was included in the benchmark’s time.

NetBak Replicator uses a file-by-file copy scheme similar to the Xcopy file operation that creates the following folder structure to the target backup share:

<USER_NAME>\<COMPUTER_NAME>\<BACKUP_DRIVE(S)>\<BACKUP_FOLDERS>

Folders and files backed up with NetBak Replicator are accessible through Windows Explorer and can be manipulated just as any other group of folders and files. Backup Utility for Windows stores the folders and files of the backup in a single file with a .BKF extension, though it does not employ any compression routines to help minimize the size of the file and improve backup speed. You’ll need to run the utility’s restore operation to recover any files or folders from the backup. True Image, on the other hand, not only utilizes adjustable levels of compression, but you can also double-click on its backup file created with a .TIB extension; view the contents in Windows Explorer, and copy files and folders from it. To maintain backup integrity, you are not allowed to delete or rename files from the True Image backup archive file.

NetBak Replicator gets the job done five minutes faster than Backup Utility for Windows, which is no surprise since Backup Utility for Windows isn’t known for its blazing speed. Of course, NetBak Replicator achieved its victory without performing a post-backup verify of the data. If I had to make a choice between speed and an extra five minutes and change to insure that my backup was verified error free, I’ll take the five minutes. Not surprisingly, True Image blew by both utilities in 19 minutes and 39 seconds—not just including a verify after backup—but while running in slower low priority mode which allows the backup to run without impacting other active processes on the PC. It’s no wonder QNAP has Acronis True Image at the top of their 3^rd party backup software support list!

Noise

Noise (or the lack thereof) is increasingly becoming a factor in choosing peripherals. Although ears don’t lie, they can’t show numbers. With that in mind, I broke out my Galaxy Audio CM-130 SPL Meter to see just how well the QNAP’s TS-409 Pro Turbo Station NAS fares in keeping the peace.

Placing the SPL Meter 12 inches away from the front of the TS-409 Pro. Noise levels were recorded and averaged at four stages:

● Boot-up

● Idle

● HD Standby

● Under load

To create the load condition, I copied 20GB worth of files of various sizes from my laptop to the drive mapped to the BENCHMARK share on the TS-409 Pro. To remove as much extraneous noise from the office where the TS-409 Pro was set up, I Turned off all the hardware in my office with the exception of the SMC network hub and the UPS that it and the TS-409 Pro were connected to, and connected the laptop to the network in the room outside my office.

Not surprisingly the TS-409 Pro is noisiest during boot-up and during intensive drive seeks when a lot of data is being moved around. It’s fairly quiet while idling—I had it sitting next to me at my desk and could barely hear it over the PC sitting next to it. When in HD Standby, the Smart-Fan throttles back to almost a whisper. The only time I was even aware of it, was when there was the occasional disk activity. It was a different story while I was performing the benchmarks. While the sound of the four 500GB Seagate Barracudas cranking away didn’t drive me to grab the box off my desk and hurl it through the nearest window, the sound of four high performance 7,200 RPM hard drives clicking away non-stop in unison like a Geiger Counter, tends to be noticeable.

Keep in mind that some hard drives are quieter than others, and your results will vary from mine based on that, and where the TS-409 Pro is positioned in the room. If you plan on using your TS-409 Pro as a web server, for streaming media or any other frequent disk-intensive activity and you're really sensitive about noise, it's probably a good idea to place the NAS out of your immediate earshot.

Final Impressions and Conclusion

QNAP’s TS-409 Pro Turbo Station NAS is one of the most impressive, affordable storage devices in its class to date, with an outstanding array of features and extras not found in its rivals, with its ability to simultaneously perform a wide range of work and play server roles for home and business. The lean web-based administrator is fast and intuitive, thanks to appropriate descriptions and prompts where required and online, context-sensitive help. Its online RAID capacity expansion and migration features insure a flexible and relatively painless upgrade path for more disk space and better data protection. Rugged construction combined with no-frills good looks and reasonably quiet operation will insure that the TS-409 Pro will fit into any home or office environment without drawing unnecessary attention to itself while doing its job.

When disk activity goes up Smart Fan kicks in to keep temperatures in line. During my benchmarks, system temperature was rarely allowed to go over 45° C, and hard drive temperatures over 47° C before Smart fan drove the system down to the low 40°C range, and the drives into the mid to high 30°C range. I would feel a lot more confident tucking the QNAP’s TS-409 Pro Turbo Station inside a home entertainment center cabinet than I would my Xbox 360.

When in the NAS is in sleep mode and the hard drives are taking a nap, the power consumption is rated at a miserly 18.8W. Under normal operation, power consumption is rated at 44.6W. I suspect your actual mileage (or in this case, wattage) will most likely vary depending on the number and model hard drives you have installed. The QNAP NAS Community Forum is a good sign that QNAP is dedicated to staying in touch with their user base to solve problems and gain better insight into how to make their products better.

I had a much better experience with the TS-409 Pro’s iTunes Service than I had with the ReadyNAS NV+, and was impressed with how smoothly the integrated TwonkyMedia server allowed me to play my music collection, movies and photos on my Xbox 360 Console. In fact, I think that an integrated TwonkyMedia PC and Mac client would be a better alternative to the existing Multimedia Station. What would really make it perfect, would be the ability to play iTunes purchased content—but that ball is in Apple’s court. It’s ironic and damned frustrating that in spite of the DLNA initiative for cross-platform PC and consumer electronics interoperability, that DRM and other anti-consumer protection schemes continue to impede and stymie that initiative at every turn.

The TS-409 Pro’s metal hot-swap drive trays and their thumbscrew-to-chassis mounting may seem “cheap” and “unrefined” to some, compared to NAS units with latching mechanisms—until the plastic in those latching mechanism break either from poor quality, wear or improper handling. It’s only after you’ve paid the replacement cost of one of those other trays, that you’ll realize what a real bargain the metal trays in the TS-409 Pro represents.

With all its capabilities, the TS-409 Pro is not without its shortcomings—the most notable being its 256MB of RAM, and the inability to upgrade it, which can as the benchmarks proved, present a performance bottleneck. As inexpensive as RAM is these days—especially DDR2—QNAP’s approach here seems penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Multimedia Station is in desperate need of an overhaul, or should be removed and replaced with something else that can communicate properly with Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox. Both browsers have been out long enough not to have to experience the kind of usability issues I ran into. Checking QNAP’s forum, I found that users running Internet Explorer 6 didn’t experience the scripting error that can slow Multimedia Station to a craw and eventually crash it. Many users still found thumbnail generation for photos in Multimedia Station maddeningly slow. It was even suggested in one post that a user limit the number of files and folders in the share used by Multimedia Station to avoid that and other problems. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a NAS like the TS-409 Pro in the first place. You shouldn't have to downgrade to an older, less-secure browser to get the application to work.

Short of equipping a NAS with solid-state drives (which would immediately price it out of the range of most users and probably more than a few businesses), I don’t think there’s much that can be done about the lengthy rebuild times involved when using Online RAID Capacity Expansion and Migration. Additional memory might speed things up a little. But the larger the drives being upgraded and the more data being migrated, the longer the process is going to take. It’s just the nature of the beast.

The TS-409 Pro only has a 1-year warranty. When you invest in a peripheral like this, it’s usually for the long haul. I would like to see an extended warranty for the TS-409 Pro made available. The client software and utilities—QNAP Finder, NetBak Replicator and QGet are only qualified by QNAP to run under the 32-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista. They might work on XP or Vista 64—or not. Hopefully that Windows XP Professional x64/Vista Ultimate 64 box on your network has a dual-boot of Windows XP Professional or one of the 32-bit flavors of Vista. Or you have another PC with a 32-bit Windows OS on hand—just in case. NetBak Replicator could use some feature and visual refinments as well. The interface—particularyly the icons and buttons—look a bit too "cartoonish" and could use a more 3D business appearance. File verify and data compression would make its backups more secure and faster. It would also be interesting to see just how much an improvement in file serving and media streaming performance 3.0 GB/sec transfer rates would bring to the table with a box like this. eSATA support would be nice, too.

As with any new product to market, the TS-409 Pro has its share of rough edges. Fortunately, most of them can be resolved with firmware upgrades, which I imagine, given the feedback QNAP is getting on their user forums, won’t be long in coming. There’s not an extensive list of drives on the TS-409 Pro’s Compatibility List, like Samsung’s ultra-quiet Spinpoint drives or some of the newer Terabyte drives. But with QNAP’s aggressive testing and certification program, that’s also likely to improve dramatically in the very near future as well.

If you’re in the market for a SOHO/Small Business NAS that can do almost anything with an on-the-street-price of $599, the QNAP TS-409 Pro Turbo Station NAS is definitely worth a look.

Barry’s Rigs ‘n Reviews would like to thank Rei Chan of QNAP Systems, Inc. for providing the TS-409 Pro Turbo Station NAS for this review!