QNAP TAS-268 QTS and Android Combo NAS Review

Setup – There is more, Hardware, Power, and Add-Ons

Hardware and Power

There are quite a few settings for your hardware such as when the drives should enter standby mode and you can set various alarms to notify you.

The alarm buzzer can be quite loud depending on the position, so it’s nice that there is a function to turn it off for startup and shutdown events besides system events. No need to wake a loved one because you shut the server down.

The smart fan feature will automatically adjust the built-in fan’s speed depending on the units needs. No high-spinning and loud fans that will ruin the experience here.

You can define the behavior on power loss

And you can schedule when the system should turn itself off, restart, and even when it should power on by itself. Save more on that electric bill by not having unnecessary units running when they aren’t accessed anyway.

Network

On the TAS-268, we only have one LAN port which limits the settings a bit. We still have all the basics, can set DHCP or manual information, define proxy connections, and set up DDNS services for easy remote connections.

The most common DDNS services are supported, but if this is a feature that you need, you should take a look at the myQNAPcloud instead. It is far more advanced and allows for a lot more than just remote connections from anywhere.

System Information

Keep an eye on your system through the System Station. Firmware version, serial numbers, and so forth, all can be found here in a convenient way.

You have a quick view on the network too where you also can check on lost packets besides the settings.

The system service tab is a quick way to see what services are running on your server. This is a lot faster to check than navigate from point to point through all the functions that QTS offers.

Keep an eye on your hardware and temperature.

And a live resource monitor is also included.

Personal Cloud and Synchronization

The Qsync central station has gotten quite far and it’s an amazing piece of software that makes file synchronization across devices as simple as everything else.

If you aren’t familiar with this app yet, there is a built-in guide that will explain how to set it up and get going.

There are quite a few settings that either can be user specific or you can set global rules for everyone.

You can quickly get a view of both active users as well as all the ones created in your domain or on the device itself.

Have a look at devices that are connected with the NAS such as your smartphone and tablets.

There’s naturally also an event log where you can check up on what has been going on, catch possible errors, and take the appropriate actions by notifying the users about it.

Team folders make cooperation between projects a lot easier and it’s a great tool to have for SMBs, but it’s also one that can come in handy for larger families or to group your own devices.

You can quickly view your shared folders too and enable them for syncing.

Keeping an eye on shared file links is another important aspect and that’s as easy as the rest with Qsync Central Station 2.0

Version control is an important feature when working with synchronization, especially when multiple users work with the same sets of files.

You can also define how many versions you want to keep in the history and check how much space has been used for it here.

QNAP’s myQNAPcloud system is so much more than a simple dynamic DNS service as you’ll see below. You need to register an account at QNAP in order to get going with this feature, but that’s both free and quickly done. Once created you’re ready to use all the advanced features and enjoy an easy connection from pretty much any device to your NAS.

And much more

There are a lot more functions in the TAS-268 such as Antivirus.

You also get a web server with virtual host support.

An SQL server powered by MariaDB.

And the iTunes server for the apple users.

The Media Streaming add-on makes, yes you guessed it, media streaming as easy as it could be.

There is something for everything and everyone.

App Center

Shouldn’t all that be enough yet, then you’ll find plenty more apps and functions within the App Center.