After talking about buying a NAS for almost 32 years I have finally ordered one. Which model? The QNAP 219P. Why this model? 2-drive to keep the cost low. I’ll use it with non-redundant drives to get the max capacity of 2×1.5TB. Here’s an excel spreadsheet to compare features and NAS configurations. (2012: note that this spreadsheet is outdated)

Tested (soon to be posted) is an SNMP script that integrates QNAP NAS status info with HomeSeer. More important QNAP NAS information.

Who were the other ‘contestants’? It was the Synology NAS. I guess that’s about the only real competitor in terms of performance, functionality and service. Looking back maybe I should have ordered the Synology. Why?

One of the reasons I ordered a NAS is the built-in Surveillance software.. Guess what. The QNAP Surveillance Software only works with an ActiveX component installed – No Mac support!
It only works with Internet Explorer 6 – No Firefox

I’m sorry… A company that delivers software solutions that have 1 requirement: IE 6.x on Windows are SOOO Web 1.0. That’s just not done anymore, unacceptable, old world… We’re living in 2011, not 2000!

Anyhow.. I’m very happy with the NAS!

Update: check out the QNAP SNMP monitoring script for HomeSeer

Update October 2012:  I’m 100% sure now. My next NAS will never be a Qnap. For Qnap engineering new features have way more priority than quality and compatibility of the existing features.

Info: which CPU does my Synology NAS have?
Why is this important? Because the Plex server app only runs on Intel (x86) based NAS’s.