Feature-rich and easy-to-use OS
QNAP’S TS-231+ is aimed at the SOHO market and is an upgraded version of the company's TS-231 two-bay NAS. This device has a faster processor, twice the memory, and SSD cache support, which is something of a surprise in a NAS in this segment. It looks identical to the TS-231, with the same dual Ethernet LAN ports (which support link aggregation) and three USB 3.0 ports, but surprisingly, the TS-231+ does away with the eSATA port found on the TS-231.
The CPU is an Annapurna Labs Cortex A15 dual-core chip, with a clock speed of 1.4GHz—200MHz faster than the A9 in the TS-231. This is backed by 1GB of DDR3 RAM, and again that's your lot, as the memory is soldered on to the mainboard. Performance is good, with strong read/write figures in the ATTO benchmarks, though it’s a bit slow reading 4K files, as shown by the CrystalDiskMark scores. However, its write performance dealing with these small files is strong in both RAID arrays.
This is another front-loading NAS. The drive doors can’t be locked, though, and the hot-swappable drive trays are not toolfree, needing screws to fix in the 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives it supports (including SSDs). The unit supports up to 8TB drives, and a list of compatible drives is on the QNAP website. The front USB 3.0 port has a onetouch copy button, enabling everything on the plugged-in drive to be copied to the NAS automatically, without powering up a PC.
If there’s one thing that all the NAS units in this roundup share, it's ease of set-up, and the TS-231+ doesn’t spoil that impression, as it takes hardly any time to get up and running, and QNAP’s QTS (v4.2) OS is another impressive icon-rich UI.
It not only looks good, it’s got some really useful features built in as well. Storage Manager is a powerful tool for volume management, offering storage pooling using multiple RAID groups, thin provisioning including reclamation of any free space, iSCSI, and snapshot support to provide data protection. For further data protection, volumes and folders can be encrypted, and the TS-231+ supports AES-256 encryption of external drives. Also provided is the ClamAV antivirus toolkit.
File Station is a powerful file management tool that supports CIFS, FTP, and WebDAV. Once the Connect to Cloud Drive app has been installed, there is a choice of six cloud-based storage services—Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft’s OneDrive, Box, Amazon Cloud Drive, and Yandex Disk. File Station also supports smart zonal streaming to a DLNA compatible TV, media player, Apple TV, or Chromecast.
For backing up, there’s a comprehensive list of local and remote options, plus a large number of cloud options. Folders can be synchronized between the TS-231+ and the cloud via Microsoft OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Office for Dropbox, Amazon Cloud, and Google Drive for Work. Download Station has a built-in BitTorrent search engine, and any downloads continue to completion if the computer is shut down.
To customize your TS-231+, there is a whole host of downloadable apps available.
SPECIFICATIONS
CPU Annapurna Labs Cortex A15 Cores 2
Speed 1.4GHz
Installed memory 1GB DDR3
OS QTS 4.2
USB ports 3x USB 3.0
Ethernet ports 2x Gigabit
Warranty 2 years