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Opening up the TS-879 Pro is an easy task, as those wanting to install an optional 10GbE network card will need to get inside to do so. Therefore QNAP has gone with a traditional tower case design which means a single case lid can be removed in order to access the hardware inside.
With the lid removed the user will be faced with an FSP Group FSP350-710UJ 350w power supply and a single PCI Express x8 slot which provides support for a 10GbE network card. For testing we installed an Intel Ethernet Server Adapter X520-DA2 into this slot and in order to do so it requires the removal of the standard bracket as QNAP has provided their own custom bracket design to fit the TS-879 Pro.
Moving past the PCI Express slot and power supply, we stripped the TS-879 Pro down to its critical components. There are two large blue PCB’s within the TS-879 Pro, the first is the motherboard while the second is the hot-swappable SATA module which of course features eight ports.
Also featured on the SATA module is a Xilinx Spartan XC3S50A chip, as well as four Marvell 88SE9125-NAA2 controllers. The Spartan XC3S50A chip is a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) designed by Xilinx, who invented the FPGA, and is the biggest name in the FPGA world to this day. The Spartan-3A family is a very low cost, high-performance logic solution for high-volume, cost-conscious applications.
The Marvell 88SE9125-NAA2 controllers each support two SATA 6Gb/s ports which are backwards compatible with the SATA 3Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s standards. They each require a single PCI Express x1 interface and offer hardware RAID support.
Moving on to the primary PCB, which we are calling the motherboard, there is much more to see here. The most prominent component is the large passive heatsink which is designed to cool the Intel Core i3-2120 processor. This is a 32nm Sandy Bridge processor featuring two cores with four threads thanks to Hyper-Threading support. It operates at 3.3GHz, features a 3MB L3 cache, the HD 2000 graphics engine and has a TDP rating of 65 watts.
Given that this processor is installed into a standard LGA1155 socket, in theory it would be possible to upgrade this processor, though doing so will void the warranty. Opposite the processor are a pair of DDR3 DIMM slots populated with a pair of ADATA SU3U1333B1G9-B (DDR3-1333) 1GB memory modules for a total system capacity of 2GB. Again it would be possible to upgrade these memory modules, but doing so would void the warranty.
Also found on this PCB is an NEC D720200F1 controller which provides a pair of USB 3.0 ports. The front panel connector plugs into a USB 3.0 port onboard using an extension lead. Next to the USB 3.0 controller is a small expansion PCB board which features a single memory module and this is where the QNAP software is installed.
There are also a pair of Intel Gigabit Ethernet controllers which includes the WG82579LM and WG82574L. The WG82579LM is a PHY chip which connects directly to the chipset, while the WG82574L is a standalone network controller that uses the PCI Express interface.
Around at the I/O panel we have a pair of eSATA ports which presumably connect to the chipset, four USB 2.0 ports which also connect to the chipset and a USB 3.0 port. There are also two Gigabit Ethernet connections along with a VGA and HDMI output. The display outputs are reserved for system maintenance. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 05/02/2012 11:59 PM
Amazing performance from this thing considering its just using standard SATA hard drives. We need to upgrade our NAS at work so I will be pushing for one of these  |
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satana |
Posted on: 05/03/2012 11:12 PM
they are expensive but to build a pc that can do everything this can and be as reliable is difficult. what is killing them right now for small business use is the over inflated hard drive prices! |
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randomuser |
Posted on: 05/04/2012 11:17 AM
pretty incredible performance from a bunch of hard drives |
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Billy Ray Valentine. |
Posted on: 05/06/2012 10:39 PM
Steve, do you still have the eval unit? Can you put two 8 gig dimms in it and see what that does for performance? P.S. You'll have to enable caching in the system menu. |
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optimus |
Posted on: 05/06/2012 11:17 PM
I have the older model and it doesn't support 8GB modules  I'm not sure what the TS-879 Pro supports but I was interested in seeing how it goes with more memory. 2GB isn't very much and it sucks that you cannot upgrade without axing the warranty. Anyway thanks for the review even though it just made me want to upgrade. |
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oZziE |
Posted on: 05/07/2012 02:03 AM
Very interesting stuff. I have been wanting to know how these perform using 10 Gigabit network and now I have my answer so thanks. |
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TS-1079 Pro Owner. |
Posted on: 07/10/2012 05:54 AM
RAID 0 is useless as no one in their right mind would use it in production, but the numbers sure do look snazzy. I own the TS-1079 Pro. It was purchased to meet some rather extreme I/O demands on a low budget. An intel x520-DA2 is in use on the box and Dell 10GbE switches (8024Fs) are in use for the storage network. Intel x520-DA2s are in use on the NICs on the physical machines using the disks. NFS is in use on the 1079. All 9 disk bays were populated with 240GB SSDs in a RAID 5 configuration with the 10th bay being a 240GB SSD as a hot spare. Somehow your test #s blow my TS-1079 out of the water. Using ATTO, my Reads peak in excess of 600MBps and my writes never exceed 80MBps. Using CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1x64, my #s are as follows: Seq: 488.3 / 31.31 MBps 512k: 422.4 / 27.22 MBps 4kQD32: 108.0 / 100.6 MBps No idea what gives here, but my write performance is absolutely horrible. Any guidance on this would be appreciated. We ended up building another physical box running Nexenta at a fraction of the cost of the QNAP and it runs circles around the QNAP in terms of performance, which is very disappointing. Since you were able to squeeze way more juice out of your 879 in RAID 5, I'd love to know what you think might be causing the performance hits on my writes. |
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TS-1079 Pro Owner. |
Posted on: 07/10/2012 06:09 AM
Forgot to add: Running Firmware 3.6.1 Build 0302T My 2x 10GbE NICs are trunked using the Broadcast mode. Jumbo Frames are enabled on the TS-1079 Pro and on the switches. Write cache is disabled (as QNAP requests in the manual). No power save options are enabled. *And the Nexenta box is running on the same exact switches with the same switch port configurations so the switches are not at fault. |
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TS-1079 Pro Owner. |
Posted on: 08/02/2012 02:26 AM
I couldn't be more disgruntled. I got in touch with QNAP support, who was thankfully very responsive although very unhelpful. Support Experience: I was told to pull all network connectivity from the QNAP and connect it directly to a single machine. It transferred data at 80MBps and this was deemed a win. The technician then informed me that at this point he is confident the box is 100% functioning as intended and he was done supporting me. It was then declared a network issue which they refused to troubleshoot. This is hilarious because I've got a Synology NAS and a massive Nexenta machine on the same network operating flawlessly and generating massive performance while this thing creeps along and incessantly drops from all the hosts under prolonged heavy I/O. I am using supported disks on QNAP's HCL and because it works with a single connection over 1GbE, not 10Gbe, it's deemed a success. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I was not offered the opportunity to escalate the ticket and this is the last of my business that QNAP will be seeing. QNAP's recent press release: This on the heels of their press release stating that their x79 and x69 models are officially supported for vSphere 4 and 5 to include acting as replication targets for SRM. See the press release here: http://www.qnap.com/en/index.php?lang=en&sn=845&c=1962&sc=&n=12785 I take grave exception with this as I can't get the TS-1079 Pro to function without dropping off of my host since the latest firmware update which caused a production outage last night. I intend to revert the firmware to the previous version which was stable (which means rebuilding the entire array) which takes almost an entire day+ for a RAID 5 array with 8x 2TB disks. Save yourself a lot of money. Build a physical machine with 8 or 10 bays and run some free shared NAS appliance on it that doesn't tank with VMware. You can load it with RAM and 10GbE NICs and never have to contend with the headaches I have faced repeatedly at the hands of this TS-1079 Pro. |