REVIEW – Best NAS for home/small business Qnap TVS-872XT

There is no secret that I’m data storage specialist and this is what brings me main source of income.

Being close to the storage and backup field well over a decade get me into the habit of upgrading all the tech around the house. My latest purchase is no exception of this rule, I do really hope that you will like the review of Qnap 827XT.

Qnap is a brand which recently became very popular among all the NAS (Network Attached Storage) boxes and thanks to enabling Thunderbolt 3 connectivity on their 872XT range it is one of the best selling units for Mac users.

I have recently purchased one of these systems for my business as well as personal use. The specification of my unit is slightly different to what you can purchase from online retailers. I do have it only partially specced. It does come with Intel i5 8400T 6-core 1.7GHz processor which can burst up to 3.3GHz, my unit comes with 64GB of RAM as well as 2x 16TB drives set as RAID 1 giving me 16TB of accessible storage and I do have a single drive redundancy in case if one of the drives fail. This NAS has also 2x NVMe SSD slots on the motherboard which are usually used to speed up your main volume and enable read/write cache but this isn’t a case with my system. I have installed 2x 1TB Samsung NVMe drives and set them as RAID 1 (in other words it is a mirror, also known as a single redundancy mode). On this volume I run the operating system as well as all of my applications and the 16TB volume is simply reserved for the data. This is a massive step ahead as I’m migrating from 8TB storage box. I’m planning to add more drives as I go.

I must say that buying this system was a quiet of expense as it all came down to around £3,200+VAT but the idea is to keep this unit for at least 6 – 7years so the cost of ownership will be less than £400-£500 per year and for a tech nerd like me this is a justified expense as it not only help with my business but also it is a vital part of my daily life.

What do I use it for? Well it serves as a home/small business server. I do use it as my centralised backup device so all our home computers, smartphones, tablets are pointing into NAS and storing all the backups there, Apple Time Machine is also backing up on that very NAS. Having all my equipment from Apple, I still need access to Windows operating system and for that Qnap has Windows 7 and Windows 10 installed as a VMware, there is also a copy of Linux if I need to do anything in that field. On top of it, it has 4x IP camera’s connected to it, so I can watch live on what’s going on around my house as well as record the footage in high quality videos and keep them stored for 30 days should I wish to check any events. This comes really handy when dealing with couriers as you see how parcels were treated and if courier actually was coming to us when they claimed they had and no one was back home – I’m sure everyone can refer to such a situation. You are now reading my BLOG but that website also need to be hosted somewhere as well as my business websites and they all are stored on my Qnap. Unit is very fast and super reliable, I’m very pleased with it, I must say I’m quite loyal to the brand as I had older models for over 7 years, this however is a real beast. When I travel abroad to see my clients I need to often access my files and thanks to Qnap this is also possible as you can access all the files remotely with no problems whatsoever, you just need an internet connectivity and you are good to go. So this more or less how I use it for business, there is of course a 10Gbe port as well as Thunderbolt 3 port so you can edit your videos, even the 4K ones as well as any other material you may have straight on the box which is very efficient and many video editors are buying this unit for this sole purpose.

There is also a fun factor on this unit which is also super convenient. I use it as my music server and I do have around 30,000 songs on it, I also have around 50,000 photos, my wife is a professional photographer so she also store and backup all her work as well as all family photos on the box. It is extremely secure as box is coming with software encryption. And talking about entertainment we absolutely cannot forget about fantastic app which I use for all my TV shows as well as movies, it is called PLEX and it is a best thing which I ever installed on a Qnap. I have a collection of around 2,000 movies, all in exceptionally brilliant quality, thanks to PLEX I can watch films and other media on my 80” TV, any of my iPads or even when I’m abroad. It is fantastic and very tidy program which is keeping everything in nice manner.

If you are interested in full specs, please feel free to visit Qnap’s site

If you’d like to learn more about this setup or if you need a NAS for your use, feel free to get in touch with me, this is my bread and butter as well as long term passion so I will be absolutely thrilled to help out in this department for a very reasonable fee. NAS starts from around £300+ and they can go to tens of thousands of pounds, again this depends what you are using it for.

There is also a voucher code with a discount if you will be looking to purchase a NAS from partner of mine – SPAN.COM – to apply a discount to your purchase, add any item into your basket and in checkout you will find a voucher field, simply type there lucaspersonal and you will get small price support as well as I will also be notified that you have purchased from them thanks to my advise.

You can also purchase it on the product page for Qnap 872XT here

Today, a little different review, more techie but few people who were curious on what I do as a day job have come to me and asked if I can elaborate on equipment I’m using so here it is and I truly hope you find it helpful.

All the best,
Lucas