Review on QNAP TS 1635AX 8G US Marvell Armada Quad Core by Derek Evans

This QNAP TS1635AX is used as a private backup/personal cloud server with plans for future media storage, it requires tools and is pretty easy to load. At the moment I have 8 enterprise drives with a capacity of 6 TB. It seems to work fast enough and is pretty easy to set up once you know a bit about defining users, assigning folders, etc. problems? First, M.2 cache drives. The motherboard of this NAS features two M.2 slots for installing SSDs that can be used as boost cache. Great idea BUT when they say M.2 they mean regular M.2 SATA drives NOT NvME drives which doesn't work. Make sure your choice has two notches in the edge connector. (I've used Crucial MX500s.) This box also has a PCIE expansion card slot, and you can buy a card that can hold two M.2 drives. So if you use both, you get 4 total, right? Not correct. This NAS can only fit 2 M.2 drives no matter where they are. You can place them on either the circuit board or the expansion card, but not both. This is not mentioned in the documentation. Second, adding RAM. This NAS comes with a 4GB DDR4 RAM stick that occupies a single DIMM slot. (Really? Couldn't they have at least two slots?) This is expandable up to 16GB. This NAS is VERY VERY PROFITABLE in terms of how much RAM you use. If you think you can just take an old stick of RAM with the same specs and get it working, think again. QNAP wants you to buy their "approved" RAM at a ridiculously high price. After trying a few generic flash drives that didn't work, I found that Crucial will sell you guaranteed working RAM at a reasonable price. It really worked and still works well. Overall I'm satisfied and this NAS works as expected. I'm usually a fan of Synology, but I wanted to try QNAP and for the most part it was a pleasant experience. If the opportunity arises, I would consider buying another QNAP.