QNAP Systems, Inc. today officially launched five business-class, SAS-enabled Turbo NAS models, including TS-EC1679U-SAS-RP and TS-EC1279U-SAS-RP which support both SAS and SATA 6Gbps hard drives, and the 2.5" high-density SS-EC2479U-SAS-RP, SS-EC1879U-SAS-RP and SS-EC1279U-SAS-RP. The support of SAS hard drives increases disk input/output performance and offers high reliability for data transmission and storage. The new models offer storage expansion port(s) allowing seamless capacity expansion with QNAP RAID expansion enclosures to easily fulfill mission-critical storage needs of small and medium businesses, with persistent throughput to balance resource-demanding applications.

The new SAS-enabled models are equipped with a Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.4GHz processor with 8GB DDR3 ECC RAM, feature 10GbE-ready network connectivity, and support SSD caching to greatly boost IOPS performance, perfect for improving overall workflow of IOPS-demanding applications such as virtualization and data center deployment. "The new SAS-enabled Turbo NAS models support enterprise-level SAS hard drives that will greatly satisfy performance-demanding businesses," said David Tsao, product manager of QNAP. "The new models also support lower cost high-capacity SATA hard drives for large data archiving and high-speed, high stability SSDs for I/O-intensive operations. With the new SAS-enabled Turbo NAS, businesses can enjoy great flexibility in hard drive selection."The new models feature high scalability, supporting online capacity expansion by connecting multiple QNAP RAID expansion enclosures (REXP-1600U-RP and REXP-1200U-RP) to expand the total storage to over 400TB raw capacity in order to meet increasing data requirements. With this flexibility, businesses can gradually expand their storage on demand and therefore have more control over storage deployment.

Being certified by major virtualization solutions in the market, the SAS-enabled Turbo NAS models are proven to be reliable storage units for server virtualization. They support VMware vSphere 5.1 and Citrix XenServer, and are compatible with Microsoft Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012. The support of VMware VAAI, QNAP vSphere Client plug-in, Microsoft ODX, and QNAP SMI-S provider further enhances the efficiency of operations and management in virtualization applications.

The new models offer flexible backup and recovery solutions. Windows and Mac users can use the QNAP NetBak Replicator utility and Apple Time Machine respectively to easily back up data. Disaster recovery solutions include Real-time Remote Replication (RTRR) for real-time or scheduled data replication and backup to cloud storage including Amazon S3, ElephantDrive, Symform and Google Drive. Third-party backup software such as Veeam Backup & Replication and Acronis True Image are also supported, making the SAS-enabled Turbo NAS a great foundation to secure valuable business data.

The cross-platform file sharing for Windows, Mac, and Linux/UNIX users makes the new models ideal centralized storage solutions for SMBs with a large number of users. The Windows AD and LDAP directory services greatly save IT administrators time and effort in account setup. The Windows ACL (Access Control List) feature offers sophisticated shared folder permission settings that simplifies IT management and privilege control.

Key Specs of New Models

• TS-EC1679U-SAS-RP: 16-drive 3U rackmount unit, Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.4 GHz Processor, 8GB DDR3 ECC RAM (expandable to 16GB), 4x Gigabit LAN ports, 10GbE ready (optional purchase), supports 3.5"/2.5" SAS/SATA 6Gbps hard drives/ SSD, hard drives hot-swappable, 2x storage expansion port, 2x PCle expansion slot, 2x USB 3.0 port;
• TS-EC1279U-SAS-RP: 12-drive 2U rackmount unit, Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.4 GHz Processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM (expandable to 16GB), 4x Gigabit LAN ports, 10GbE ready (optional purchase), supports 3.5"/2.5" SAS/SATA 6Gbps hard drives/ SSD, hard drives hot-swappable, 2x storage expansion port, 2x PCle expansion slot, 2x USB 3.0 port;
• SS-EC2479U-SAS-RP: 24-drive 2U rackmount unit, Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.4 GHz Processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM (expandable to 16GB), 4x Gigabit LAN ports, 10GbE ready (optional purchase), supports 2.5" SAS/SATA 6Gbps hard drives/ SSD, hard drives hot-swappable, 1x storage expansion port, 2x PCle expansion slot, 2x USB 3.0 port;
• SS-EC1879U-SAS-RP: 18-drive 2U rackmount unit, Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.4 GHz Processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM (expandable to 16GB), 4x Gigabit LAN ports, 10GbE ready (optional purchase), supports 2.5" SAS/SATA 6Gbps hard drives/ SSD, hard drives hot-swappable, 1x storage expansion port, 2x PCle expansion slot, 2x USB 3.0 port;
• SS-EC1279U-SAS-RP: 12-drive 2U rackmount unit, Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3.4 GHz Processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM (expandable to 16GB), 4x Gigabit LAN ports, 10GbE ready (optional purchase), supports 2.5" SAS/SATA 6Gbps hard drives/ SSD, hard drives hot-swappable, 1x storage expansion port, 2x PCle expansion slot, 2x USB 3.0 port.