At first we would like to thank QNAP for offering a sample of their TS-453Bmini Vertical NAS with Intel Quad-Core CPU and 4K Display Output for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About QNAP:

 

“QNAP Systems, Inc., as its brand promise "Quality Network Appliance Provider", aims to deliver comprehensive offerings of cutting edge network attached storage (NAS) and network video recorder (NVR) solutions featured with ease-of-use, robust operation, large storage capacity, and trustworthy reliability. QNAP integrates technologies and designs to bring forth quality products that effectively improve business efficiency on file sharing, virtualization applications, storage management and surveillance in the business environments, as well as enrich entertainment life for home users with the offering of a fun multimedia center experience. Headquartered in Taipei, QNAP delivers its solutions to the global market with nonstop innovation and passion.”

 

High-performance Quad-core processor and hardware-accelerated AES-NI encryption

 

Powered by the energy-efficient Intel® Celeron® J3455 1.5 GHz (burst up to 2.3GHz) Quad-core processor with dual channel 4/8GB DDRL RAM (upgradable to 8GB), two Gigabit LAN ports and SATA 6Gb/s, the TS-453Bmini drives up to 225MB/s read speed and runs tasks smoothly and quickly under dual network environments. The TS-453Bmini features 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 volume and shared folders, boosting system performance and security while ensuring the safety of sensitive business data stored in the TS-453Bmini.

 

Vertical and user-friendly design

 

The glossy TS-453Bmini features a stylish vertical design that takes up 29% less desktop space*. The TS-453Bmini's user-friendly design includes a quiet cooling system and a tool-less design for installing and replacing hot-swappable 3.5" hard drives** and upgrading the RAM. This streamlined architecture design helps you maintain the TS-453Bmini with minimal effort.

 

Adjustable smart LED

 

You can adjust the brightness of all system LED indicators (from a scale from 0 to 100, in 5-step increments) and also schedule the system to automatically dim the LEDs at certain times when needed.

 

QTS 4.3 – The most intelligent and intuitive NAS operating system

 

The TS-453Bmini natively supports the new 64-bit QTS 4.3 operating system.

With modularized multiple applications and functions, QTS 4.3 enhances management efficiency, personal productivity, multimedia, and much more. New intelligent agent services have also been added to simplify system operations and management.

 

With its intuitive and simplified user interface, QTS features an intelligent desktop allowing you to find desired functions quickly, create desktop shortcuts or group shortcuts, monitor important system information on a real-time basis, and open multiple application windows to run multiple tasks concurrently, bringing greater working efficiency. QTS breaks the barriers of devices, platforms, and geography to bring optimized cloud experiences and incorporates advanced features.

 

QmailAgent - A mailroom center for your private cloud

 

QmailAgent is an online email client that helps you manage multiple email accounts, allowing you to access all of your emails and to easily switch between different accounts. It provides complete functionality for composing, reading and organizing emails. You can even attach files, photos and documents from the TS-453Bmini when composing emails. iOS® and Android™ users can use the QmailClient app to quickly check multiple email accounts with mobile devices, and to browse & send emails using the QmailAgent on their TS-453Bmini. You can use QmailAgent together with Qsirch, which supports searching through the .eml files stored on the TS-453Bmini, to make searching through and managing massive amounts of emails much easier.

 

Qcontactz - Easily manage huge amounts of contacts on the NAS

 

Qcontactz with the high-capacity TS-453Bmini helps you centrally store and manage contact information for colleagues, business partners, families, and friends. Other features include: importing/exporting CSV or vCARD 3.0 files, automatic identification of frequently-used contacts, encryption for sensitive/confidential contact information, smart searching, and more. Qcontactz offers snapshot backups that enable you to revert to a previous version of your contacts list according to your needs. A companion app for Android phones and iPhone is also available for easy access to contacts. Qcontactz can also be used with QmailAgent to create the perfect email workflow environment.

 

QTS-Linux dual systems, geared for the IoT era

 

The TS-453Bmini's QTS-Linux dual systems are based upon QNAP's advanced virtualization technologies*. After installing Linux Station from the QTS App Center, you can connect a keyboard, mouse and HDMI display to your NAS and use it as if it was an Ubuntu® PC**. With the TS-453Bmini, you can develop and install various IoT packages on demand and centrally store the data on the TS-453Bmini, benefiting from a secure private storage and development solution.

 

Restore files with Volume & LUN Snapshot

 

QTS Storage Manager adds an easy-to-use web-based snapshot tool for you to easily backup and restore data on the TS-453Bmini back to any point of time in case you lose any important data. You can take snapshots for volumes and LUN (up to 256 snapshots per volume or LUN and maximum 1,024 snapshots per NAS), efficiently replicate volume/LUN snapshots via Snapshot Replica to remote servers by copying only the changes made, and quickly clone a volume /LUN snapshot as a local volume without interrupting the current system operation. You can even set up the system to automatically take a snapshot of the volume before backup via RTRR/rsync, even if files are open.

 

Storage for hosting virtual machines and containerized applications

 

Virtualization Station allows you to host virtual machines (VM) on the TS-453Bmini and access them via a web browser or VNC. Virtualization Station supports multiple operating systems, fast VM creation, VM backup & restoration, VM import/export, snapshot, and Device Management for centrally managing VMs. Virtualization Station allows the TS-453Bmini, VMs and containers to share the same LAN port. No longer constrained by physical network performance, high-speed virtual switches greatly increases data transfer between VMs, containers and NAS through the internal interface. The TS-453Bmini also features Container Station, which integrates LXC and Docker® lightweight virtualization technologies. You can operate multiple isolated Linux® systems on the TS-453Bmini as well as download apps from the built-in Docker Hub Registry®. Container Station also supports the QIoT Containers platform that helps quickly structure your IoT environment and deployment of your private IoT cloud.

 

Use NAS to expand NAS capacity with Virtual JBOD

 

Besides using physical storage expansion enclosures, there is an additional option to expand NAS storage capacity. QNAP VJBOD (Virtual JBOD) is network-based JBOD, allowing you to expand storage of your QNAP NAS with multiple QNAP NAS units. You can mount iSCSI LUNs from a QNAP NAS to the TS-453Bmini as local disks, and create virtual storage pools and volumes for operating NAS applications.

 

Powerful transcoding for 4K HDMI output

 

Equipped with 9th-generation Intel® HD Graphics, the TS-453Bmini has powerful 4K (H.264) video transcoding abilities and supports digital multichannel surround sound, allowing you to enjoy a high-quality audiovisual experience*. For extra convenience, you can easily control HD Station with the free QNAP Remote Control or turn your mobile devices into remote controls by installing the Qremote app.

 

*Video quality may vary due to file format/encoding, playback hardware/software, and environment.

 

Cross-platform file sharing, centralized data storage

 

The TS-453Bmini supports SMB/CIFS, NFS, and AFP protocols for file sharing across Windows®, Mac®, Linux®/UNIX® networks. Data, logs and ISO images of CDs and DVDs can be centrally stored on the TS-453Bmini. The Windows AD® and LDAP services enable system administrators to configure user permissions by using an existing Windows AD server, LDAP server or built-in LDAP service.

 

Well-rounded backup & disaster recovery solutions

 

The TS-453Bmini offers flexible backup solutions for Windows® and Mac® users, Volume/LUN snapshots (up to 256 snapshots per volume or LUN, and maximum 1,024 snapshots per NAS), Snapshot Replica and Clone, and disaster recovery solutions including RTRR, rsync and cloud storage backup (Amazon® S3, Amazon® Glacier, Microsoft® Azure, ElephantDrive®, Dropbox® and Google Cloud Storage™) are also included.

 

Disaster recovery solutions bring peace of mind

 

Hybrid Backup Sync consolidates backup, restoration and synchronization functions (using RTRR, rsync, FTP, CIFS/SMB) into a single app for easily transferring data to local, remote and cloud storage spaces as a comprehensive data storage and disaster recovery plan. Supported cloud services include Amazon® Glacier, Azure™ Storage, Google Cloud Storage™, Google Drive™, Microsoft® OneDrive® for Business, Dropbox®, Amazon® Drive, Yandex® Disk, Box®, hubiC® and Amazon® S3/OpenStack Swift/WebDAV compatible services. Hybrid Backup Sync supports multi-version backup, flexible job scheduling, file compression to save storage space, and more.

 

Flexibly expand storage capacity

 

The TS-453Bmini supports capacity expansion by connecting a QNAP expansion enclosure. With the QNAP scale-up solution, the raw storage capacity can be expanded on demand, making the TS-453Bmini an ideal file center with a large storage capacity for digital data.

 

Energy-saving

 

The TS-453Bmini features a 14nm CPU and DDR3L RAM which feature low voltage requirements and low power consumption whilst maintaining high performance in system operations. Other eco-friendly designs include scheduled power on/off, hard disk standby mode, and Wake on LAN.

 

Additional SMB-ready features

 

The TS-453Bmini supports various business applications as an all-in-one Turbo NAS with cost-efficiency.

 

The Turbo NAS supports FTP server to share large files, with user-defined settings including bandwidth limitation, number of connections, and write-only permissions.

 

The Turbo NAS supports Surveillance Station to connect and manage multiple IP cameras remotely, including real-time monitoring, video recording, playback, and event notifications.

 

 

In this article, we will take a step down from the high-end NAS offerings and review a mainstream unit from QNAP, which does feature an interesting mounting system for the drives. is very compact and does also sport Q vPC technology, so it is possible to use the product without any “middle-man”, as a regular PC. TS-453Bmini does ship inside a medium-sized cardboard enclosure that contains some more product information:

 

 

 

A schematic can be easily inspected on one of the box sides, which reveals the main product interfaces:

 

 

 

Some of the main product highlights can be also checked out here:

 

 

 

After lifting the top box cover, we will discover a “Thank you” message from the manufacturer, along with a list of box contents:

 

 

 

Besides the power lead, the bundle is offered inside a separate cardboard enclosure:

 

 

 

 

We will receive one Quick Installation Guide, screwless mounting adapters for 3.5’’ drives, two LAN cables, screws for mounting 2.5’’ drives onto the trays, an IR remote along with its standalone manual, but also a power brick:

 

 

 

The power brick was manufactured by Delta Electronics and is rated on the output as 12V @ 7.5A:

 

 

 

The supplied adapters are very handy for mounting the drives onto the plastic bays; of course that you also have the possibility to use screws for mounting, but these are not supplied in the box:

 

 

 

The Multilanguage Quick Installation Guide provides the user with the initial installation instructions, in order to have the server ready in no-time!

 

 

 

The supplied remote is similar to the one we have seen with other NAS models from QNAP and is quite easy to work with:

 

 

 

It is powered by a single CR2032 battery, which is very common (also used on motherboards in order to retain CMOS settings):

 

 

 

If you are unfamiliar with the remote button functions, you can always check out the supplied leaflet!

 

 

 

Besides plenty of foam material protection inside the cardboard enclosure, the NAS is also wrapped inside a transparent plastic bag:

 

 

 

This is not all! Since the outer chassis of the TS-453Bmini is made almost entirely of black shiny plastic, QNAP has also covered the respective surfaces with a thin plastic film:

 

 

 

The surface of the product is quite reflective and this traduces in a fingerprint and dust magnet, unfortunately:

 

 

 

On the frontal panel of the server, we have got several status LEDs, a central QNAP logo, but also some more interfaces in the lower section:

 

 

 

The top LED blue bar does signal the current power mode of the server, while the lower individual lights are there for showing the current system status, HDD activity per each bay, LAN activity but also USB storage activity:

 

 

 

In the lower left area, we can easily spot a Power button, a USB 3.0 port but also an USB Copy button:

 

 

 

The left side of the server does not contain any additional interfaces:

 

 

 

On the right side, the manufacturer has placed the usual myQNAPcloud information sticker (with the unique Cloud Key), but also some usage warnings:

 

 

 

Despite its small footprint, the server does have plenty of interfaces in the back; here we can spot the DC-IN 12V port, three USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0, two Gigabit LAN ports but also one HDMI that can output 4K @ 30Hz (HDMI 1.4b):

 

 

 

 

On the bottom area of the NAS, we can see a ventilation grill, several stickers but also a separate compartment, secured with a screw:

 

 

 

After removing the small plastic cover, we do have full access to the two SODIMM DDR3 memory slots, for easy upgrades:

 

 

 

The unit does operate with DDR3L RAM and our sample was equipped with two 4GB 1600MHz modules, manufactured by ADATA:

 

 

 

The removal of the top plastic cover is a very simple process, because it is only held fixed with magnetic force:

 

 

 

Rubber pads are also attached to the top cover, for anti-vibration purposes:

 

 

 

The plastic trays can be easily spotted here, where the drives will be installed vertically:

 

 

 

 

After their removal, we can take a look at the internal daughterboard, which does hold the SATA Data/Power connectors for each bay:

 

 

 

The drive trays do sport a simple design, while on its back we can easily see the holes for mounting 2.5’’ formats:

 

 

 

 

The sides of the trays are also equipped with anti-vibration rubber grommets:

 

 

 

 

After we have installed our trusty SSDs inside the unit, we have connected the NAS to the local network and powered it on. It is a much simpler process finding the NAS on the network after it has booted up with the help of the Qfinder Pro application from QNAP:

 

 

 

The next configuration steps will continue in a browser tab:

 

 

 

The first information we need to provide to the configuration wizard is the NAS name along with the administrator password:

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, we will be able to set the date and time:

 

 

 

Network settings can be further customized:

 

 

 

Depending on our environment, we can choose which file transfer services to install:

 

 

 

The disk configuration setup comes next; we can also choose to perform this process later:

 

 

 

In case we are using the NAS at home, we can choose to enable Multimedia services right away:

 

 

 

A summary with the modifications that will be made are shown in the last screen:

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, the wizard will show us all the steps the server will take in order to complete the initial setup process:

 

 

 

 

We will then check inside the GUI to see if the desired volume has been created successfully:

 

 

 

 

 

Before actually starting the testing procedure, we have updated the firmware to the latest version:

 

 

 

 

QNAP has made further improvements to the QTS GUI starting with the 4.3 software revision:

 

 

 

 

Right after we have logged in, the usual wizard will appear in the middle, in order to offer us some more information regarding the user interface:

 

 

 

The desktop styling has a sleeker than before, more professional look; the icon styling has been redone, while remaining simple to use:

 

 

 

In the top right area of the bar, we can perform a quick search for applications, check out the current tasks in the background, work with the storage devices that have been connected externally, check out the system logs and more:

 

 

 

The whole list of installed apps can be also accessed from the top left area of the screen:

 

 

 

The widget area does display system health information, hardware monitoring details, system resources consumption, disk health and more:

 

 

 

One area that has been completely revamped is the Control Panel; the new styling is easier to work with and on the top area, it does also display the current system information:

 

 

 

The General Settings menu allows us to modify the login settings, server time, choose codepage, adjust the password strength or customize the login screen:

 

 

 

Storage Manager opens up in a separate window and from here, we will be able to create storage pools and volumes on our preference; we can also enable cache acceleration with a SSD, work with ISCSI Storage and LUN Backup and more:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Security menu allows the user to set a security mode, by allowing or denying certain IP addresses or network domains, adjust the Network Access Protection or system Certificates:

 

 

 

The Hardware menu is available for us in order to adjust some miscellaneous system settings, change the Buzzer (and voice prompts) behavior or adjust the Smart Fan profiles:

 

 

 

Power menu comes with the EuP option, WoL, Power Recovery and Power Schedule sub-sections:

 

 

 

System notifications can be enabled from the next menu via E-mail, SMS or Push services:

 

 

 

The Firmware update can be performed automatically (QTS will automatically search for it), but when an automatic update is not available and on the website there is already a new QTS file available, we will have to go the manual route:

 

 

 

Backup & Restore menu allows the user to save current server settings for later restoration, but also from the same menu we can reset the system to factory defaults:

 

 

 

External devices can be also configured from the next menu:

 

 

 

System Status does have its separate window available, which opens up to show the current System Information, Network Status, running System Services and Hardware Information:

 

 

 

 

 

 

System Logs menu does sport a similar behavior, with its own sub-sections: System Event Logs, System Connection Logs, Online Users and Syslog Client Management:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Resource Monitor is another area that has been completely redesigned and now it looks like a proper task manager from a fully-fledged Operating System:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Privilege Settings main menu is next, with its Users sub-section, which allows the administrators to define new users that will operate the server resources:

 

 

 

User Groups with different privileges can be created too:

 

 

 

Various shared folders are available by default, but the user can always create new ones, with different permissions for each user:

 

 

 

Disk quotas can be enabled from the next menu:

 

 

 

Domain security menu allows logging to an AD service as a domain member, LDAP authentication, but the server can also function as a domain controller:

 

 

 

 

The Network settings open up in a separate section, and here we can work with the current LAN configuration including Port Trunking, but also adjust WiFi options (in the case we do have a compatible Wi-Fi dongle connected to the unit):

 

 

 

 

From the same section, we can configure Virtual Switch options, DHCP Server options but also choose the default system Gateway:

 

 

 

 

 

Services can be enabled for different platforms:

 

 

 

We do also have to our disposal options to enable and configure FTP, Telnet/SSH, SNMP services:

 

 

 

 

 

HybridDesk Station is the portal accessible on HDMI to which we can install multiple modules like browsers, games, multimedia applications, and so on, which can be used without the need of a PC:

 

 

 

iTunes and DLNA servers can be configured from the next menus:

 

 

 

 

Multimedia Management menu will “instruct” the default multimedia applications where to look for indexing media files; we also have here many tabs regarding transcoding tasks:

 

 

 

Onto the applications, we do have the File Station 5 which permits file and folder manipulation:

 

 

 

 

myQnapCloud module can be used for accessing our server from remote locations:

 

 

 

AppCenter is the place to go when installing new modules; these are developed by QNAP but also 3rd parties:

 

 

 

We can also find out which applications have been installed to which available storage spaces:

 

 

 

Help Center does provide us with the QTS usage manual, but from there we can also browse the Online Resource or use the Helpdesk function:

 

 

 

The Helpdesk center can be also accessed from a standalone application:

 

 

 

Download Station application has been also redesigned and comes with a BT Search function:

 

 

 

Music Station now does have a more catchy look, but its functionality mainly remains the same:

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Station has retained its previous aspect and with this multi-functional application we can share content, do slideshows, check photos in detail, create albums and so on:

 

 

 

Video Station application is also revamped with the new revision and can playback most video content after it has been indexed:

 

 

 

 

Another interesting application we can install is Gmail Backup, which will store our account contents on the NAS:

 

 

 

PrestaShop module is very easy to configure, but for working with its databases, we may also need to install phpMyAdmin separately:

 

 

 

 

Virtualization Station UI has been also updated and preserves most of the options from before. In order to try it out, we have installed a Windows 7 VM, which worked just fine:

 

 

 

 

The single problem versus other implementations is that we do not actually have a video driver available for the virtual machine, so the cursor movement and animations are a little bit sluggish:

 

 

 

QmailAgent is a new application which works similarly to Mozilla Thunderbird; it will download the mails from the configured server and allow us to work with the account as a regular desktop application. The difference is that all is saved on the server, so it is much less hassle-free than having the same content downloaded on your desktop PC:

 

 

 

 

 

Qsirch indexes the whole NAS contents in order to provide easy search for needed contents:

 

 

 

Our favorite Plex Media Center application is also available to be used from the QTS interface and works as intended; thanks to the powerful hardware of this specific model, all operations are quite snappy:

 

 

 

 

 

The OceanKTV application can be installed and operated just fine, only that this NAS model does not come with microphone inputs:

 

 

 

 

Next up we will work with the HybridDesk Station, which has application modules of its own:

 

 

 

Test Setup

 

CPU : Intel I5 4690K Retail

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

Motherboard : BIOSTAR GAMING Z97X

RAM : GeIL EVO CORSA 16GB 2400MHz C11

(2GB Exceleram DDR1333 for NASPT compatibility)

Video : HIS 280X

Power Supply : Cooler Master 850W

SSD : OCZ Vertex 4 256GB

Case: Cooler Master ATCS840

 

To test the NAS performances, the TS-453Bmini Vertical NAS was populated with one OCZ Vertex 4 SSD along with one KingFast SLC E-Drive in RAID 0, formatted with a single volume and the NAS was connected directly to the computer, to avoid any limitations by implying additional hardware like a router. The first simple test was performed by loading the test file onto a RAM drive and then it was copied to the NAS, on its shared folder. The speed was recorded with Total Commander:

 

 

The second test was to copy the same file back to the computer; for eliminating any HDD speed limitations, the file was copied back to the RAM drive:

 

 

For performing a more advanced test, the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit was used, for performing 5 different test runs. Here are the results:

 

 

As extras, we have also included ATTO Disk Benchmark and Anvil:

 

ATTO Disk Benchmark

 

 

Anvil

We have performed the same benchmarks but this time with an encrypted volume:

 

Total Commander Copy Performance

 

 

Total Commander Read Performance

 

 

Intel NAS Performance Toolkit

 

ATTO Disk Benchmark

 

Anvil Utilities

 

Despite the fact that we are dealing with a small footprint, compact NAS, the TS-453Bmini is quite a capable piece of hardware for use at home and offices. The included quad-core Intel Celeron J3455 1.5GHz SoC does feature a boost up to 2.3GHz and thanks to its low power consumption / heat dissipation, the cooling system remains silent even during full-load conditions. The server is fully upgradable with DDR3L memory and while our SKU was already equipped with the maximum memory quantity, it is also possible to purchase the 4GB DDR3L version, for less money and upgrade later if needed.

 

Several USB ports are available on the unit for connecting even more storage devices or QNAP expansion enclosures: the TS-453Bmini is fully compatible with the UX-800P but also the UX-500P.

 

The latest QTS revision is even better looking than before, while the ease of use has been preserved from the older versions; some of the interesting applications we could remind of is Plex for multimedia content indexing and playback, QmailAgent online email client, Virtualization Station for installing and running multiple other operating systems or Linux Station, which does allow running a fully-fledged Linux OS without the need of a PC.

If Linux (Ubuntu distribution) is not our cup of tea, we could always go for HybridDesk Station, which provides the user with an easy to use interface, which can also make use of the provided IR remote.

 

Given the hardware-accelerated AES-NI encryption thanks to the Intel SoC, you won’t notice slowdowns when using encrypted volumes, which is great!

 

The TS-453Bmini NAS from QNAP is available online for about 571 Euros.

QNAP TS-453Bmini Vertical NAS with Intel Quad-Core CPU and 4K Display Output is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to QNAP for making this review possible!