QNAP Officially Launches TS-2888X AI-Ready NAS

When Do We Stop Calling it a NAS?

At what point do we stop calling it a NAS? That’s a question that becomes more and more difficult to answer these days. The lines of what a NAS can do are being pushed all the time and now they include AI. QNAP has officially launched the TS-2888X which we saw enter pre-order state 4 months ago.

TS-2888X AI-Ready NAS

QNAP built the TS-2888X AI-Ready NAS with the latest Xeon-W processors. That means that you get up to 18 cores, 36 threads, and a boost clock up to 4.5GHz. You can also equip the system with up to 512GB DDR4 ECC memory. That’s a lot of power.

There are 8 expansion slots with room for four high-end GPUs. The TS-2888X supports mainstream NVIDIA, AMD and Intel accelerator cards. To power all that, it features a 2,000 watt 80Plus Platinum PSU.

You can crunch a lot of numbers with that kind of power, but you also need to have access to that data fast enough. The TS-2888X can hold eight 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s drives, sixteen 2.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s, and four 2.5-inch U.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe SSDs. This hybrid storage architecture provides the ability to enable SSD caching or auto-tiering to boost performance-demanding applications.

For connectivity, it is equipped with two 10 GBASE-T LAN ports and four Gigabit RJ45 LAN ports. There are also six USB 3.1 Gen1 ports and 4xUSB 2.0 ports.

Why an AI NAS?

Conventional AI workstations usually have massive price tags. The complexity of configuring hardware and software is an obstacle for most data scientists and developers. On top of that comes the use of public clouds for storage which may raise concerns when using sensitive data.

QNAP’s TS-2888X introduces an all-in-one AI solution that integrates huge storage potential, powerful computing, a ready-to-use AI environment, and comprehensive data protection to supplement AI workflows.

It not only serves as a Training Server for AI models, but can also serve as an Inference Server, thereby further lowering the R&D entry barrier, making AI development more feasible and easily accessible.

AI Software

The TS-2888X introduces a comprehensive software environment for organizations to easily set up and maintain AI applications. The exclusive QuAI is an AI developer package to quickly build, train and optimize AI models running on the NAS. It enables a range of open-source tools and frameworks (including Caffe, TensorFlow, AlexNet, FaceNet, and more) for the AI workflows readily available to users. The TS-2888X also features flexible backup tools and snapshot protection to assure data security while also allowing efficient disaster recovery.

QNAP’s AI solution has been put into practice in cooperation with a renowned medical research institute in Taiwan, and successfully realized a healthcare AI diagnostic system for age-related macular degeneration. The AI result not only significantly improves diagnostic accuracy and efficiency, but also creates possibilities to aid organizations that lack medical resources.

“The age of AI is upon us, and we are witnessing its transformative effects throughout a wide range of industries, including healthcare, IT, retail, and surveillance,” said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP.

“The TS-2888X AI-Ready NAS combines storage, computing, and a user-friendly AI software environment to reduce the time and complexity of implementing and managing AI tasks, while also providing cost-efficient and accessible AI development.”

Pricing and Availability

QNAP currently lists 4 versions of the TS-2888X, starting with a W2133 equpped model with 64GB RAM. The other three models all have the W2145 CPU and either 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB RAM.

So, what about the price? Well, it starts at $8,884.60 and then goes over $11,542.51 and $16,858.32 to $21,499.00 for the biggest model.