Review on 💾 Enhanced Storage Solution: Qnap TVS-471-i3-4G-US Network Attached Storage by Keith Montague

This NAS file server has been running for over a month. Just right for my needs. Good response from any device I use to access data or streams, especially my two main computers at home. I have 2 mirrored 8TB RAID 1 drives (must be purchased separately) leaving two expansion bays. I back up my server once a week to a 5TB external hard drive connected directly to the NAS. Mirrored drives, in case one drive fails, you still stay online without missing a second. An offsite backup is for when something more drastic happens and both drives are lost. I recently found out after purchasing the drive that QNAP is the recommended storage for my company as they also make professional rack storage devices. So it's sort of an external review of the research I've done. I will say that I am very satisfied with the performance and functionality of the device, exactly what I was hoping to find. While the installation isn't that difficult, learning how to boot a mirrored drive was a bit difficult since the NAS OS utilities need to be running on the drive. I deleted my first install, thinking it was on an internal SSD drive (like my home computers). Mirrored drives always have the smallest capacity of the two drives. So when I mirrored the drives after installing the NAS utilities, the capacity of two 8TB drives (remember they're mirrored, so only 8TB should be online anyway) was only 4.TB. When I started formatting the installed hard drives, the installed NAS utilities were erased. The reinstall was easy enough after learning that you had to mirror the disks first and then install the utilities. Skip snapshots as it will affect performance and take up space on your drives. In general I am very happy with the device and value for money.