QNAP Announces New TS-h1277AFX All-flash NAS With AMD Ryzen 7 9000 Series Processor

[GFreeman]

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading innovator in computing, networking, and storage solutions, has unveiled the TS-h1277AFX, a 12-bay tower all-flash NAS designed to meet the rigorous demands of multimedia production and virtualization. Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 9000 Series processor, the TS-h1277AFX can be upgraded to 25GbE via expansion cards for high-speed data access. Combining exceptional performance and capacity, it serves as a centralized hub for storage, backup, and disaster recovery, making it an ideal choice for dynamic and collaborative work environments.

"All-flash NAS solutions are crucial for media professionals," said Alex Shih, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "the TS-h1277AFX delivers low-latency, multi-user access that optimizes collaboration workflows. It provides an excellent price-to-performance ratio for creative teams, enabling seamless 4K/8K media transfers, real-time editing, and secure file management."



TS-h1277AFX Key Features

• Powerful Performance to Drive Critical Business Operations
• Powered by AMD Ryzen 7 9000 Series (8-core) processors, the TS-h1277AFX supports up to 192 GB of DDR5 ECC memory and includes a built-in GPU, making it ideal for demanding tasks like multimedia, real-time video editing, and VFX processing.
• Immutable Storage for Enhanced Data Security
• Driven by QuTS hero, the TS-h1277AFX integrates ZFS self-healing, data deduplication, RAID redundancy, and SSD optimization for enterprise-grade data protection and performance, reducing hardware failure risks while maximizing SSD efficiency and lifespan to maximize your all-flash investment.
• Fast Networking with 25GbE Options
• Featuring two 2.5GbE and two 10GBASE-T ports, the TS-h1277AFX can be upgraded to 25GbE to accommodate high-speed data transfers. When paired with QNAP's multi-port high-speed switches, It provides seamless multi-user collaboration and efficient file sharing.
• Flexible Expansion to Meet Growing Needs
• The TS-h1277AFX comes with three PCIe Gen 4 expansion slots, allowing users to add options for high-speed networking, JBOD storage expansions, or M.2 SSD upgrades, making it highly adaptable to changing performance and storage needs.
• Accelerated Data Import/Export and Video Display
• The TS-h1277AFX includes two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports with 10 Gbps transfer speeds for rapid SSD data transfers, streamlining media backup and restoration. It also features a 4K HDMI output for direct content display on monitors, simplifying local operations and video presentations.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[ErikG]

$3,399.00.

 

[bug]

Imho an "all-flash" solution is one that uses M.2. What's stopping you from inserting 2.5" HDDs into those gigantic slots as it is?

 

[Aquilino]

And opt-in telemetry? Maybe? Opt-out? No?

 

[Chaitanya]

They should have gone for Pro series of CPUs or even Epyc for those prices.

 

[Chrispy_]

25GbE over just 12 SATA drives means you need to run RAID0 or RAID10; SATA 6Gbps drives in RAID0 aren't going to saturate that interface unless you stripe over at least 5 disks which increases the chance of total array loss by multiple orders of magnitude!

I'm not sure what demographic this is targeting, and most of the 8TB+ SATA SSDs are low-performance QLC garbage - the very last thing you'd trust to run in RAID0. By the time you can afford larger SSDs, you'd never be remotely interested in SATA and you likely wouldn't want to RAID0 unless you were really, truly unable to saturate the connection and needed all of the bandwidth.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

This is so close to perfect for me. If they make a smaller one with 8 bays instead of 12 with the other specs the same (or even down to 6-core Ryzen 9000), then I am SOLD.

It would be the perfect upgrade for my current QNAP (6 core Ryzen 1000, 6 bay).

 

[dismuter]

What's stopping you from inserting 2.5" HDDs into those gigantic slots as it is?

Common sense

 

[Chrispy_]

O

This is so close to perfect for me. If they make a smaller one with 8 bays instead of 12 with the other specs the same (or even down to 6-core Ryzen 9000), then I am SOLD.

It would be the perfect upgrade for my current QNAP (6 core Ryzen 1000, 6 bay).

Out of curiousity, what SSDs are you running? The cost of this TS-h1277AFX seems mismatched to the sort of demographic who are using SATA SSDs.

 

[Tigerfox]

What's stopping you from inserting 2.5" HDDs into those gigantic slots as it is?

2.5"-SATA-HDD are as good as dead. While before everything up to 1TB was CMR and we had 2-3TB with 15mm z-height with CMR, now everything down to 1TB is SMR, sometimes even those with 750GB or 500GB. I wouldn't recommend SMR for anything but cold archive data.

They should have gone for Pro series of CPUs or even Epyc for those prices.

What would be the benefit of that

25GbE over just 12 SATA drives means you need to run RAID0 or RAID10

No, if you plug in QNAPs Intel E810-based 2x25GbE@PCIe4.0x8-NIC, you still have 8 lanes Gen4 for M.2-SSD via an adapter (even mentioned in the specs). One Gen4x4-SSD is by far enough to saturate 2x25GbE.

BUT they could have opted for 24 Lanes Gen5 from the CPU so you could use 2-4xM.2 Gen5x4 and plug in 200GbE or even 400GbE.

I'm not sure what demographic this is targeting, and most of the 8TB+ SATA SSDs are low-performance QLC garbage - the very last thing you'd trust to run in RAID0

If they at least were SAS 12Gb/s or even 24Gb/s, there would be professional SAS SSD, albeit 16TB with SAS 24Gb/s would cost as much as the entire system. affordable SATA SSD with 4TB are being bphased out, WD RED is about the only thing left here, no Ironwolf anymore. SATA is only good for 3.5".

I don't understand why so many manufacturers of NAS, NAS-boards and mini-PCs put in so many different NICs. In what scenario would I use 2x2.5GbE-NICs when I already have 2x10GbE-NICs that are capable of 2.5GbE, too? Save PCIe-lanes for somethin useful.

I'm also interested in how the rest of the lanes is used. I would assume the PCIe-slots with x4/x4/x8 or x0/x8/x8 are wired directly to the CPU, which leaves up to 12 lanes from the CPU if no chipset is used ("X600-chipset"). That would be sufficient for 2x2.5GbE (one lane Gen3 each), 2x10GbE (one lane Gen4 each if AQC113, else four lanes Gen3 for one X550) and 2xASM1166 (two lanes gen3 each). Heck, there could even have been enough unused lanes for one full M.2-slot!

 

[Arco]

25GbE over just 12 SATA drives means you need to run RAID0 or RAID10; SATA 6Gbps drives in RAID0 aren't going to saturate that interface unless you stripe over at least 5 disks which increases the chance of total array loss by multiple orders of magnitude!

I'm not sure what demographic this is targeting, and most of the 8TB+ SATA SSDs are low-performance QLC garbage - the very last thing you'd trust to run in RAID0. By the time you can afford larger SSDs, you'd never be remotely interested in SATA and you likely wouldn't want to RAID0 unless you were really, truly unable to saturate the connection and needed all of the bandwidth.

You're kidding? These aren't even u.2/u.3??? This is as good as useless.

 

[Tigerfox]

You're kidding? These aren't even u.2/u.3??? This is as good as useless.

For 12xU.2/U.3 you would need 48 lanes of PCIe, which would only be possible in a usable form with at least Threadripper or Xeon W-2500.

But you are right to question the use of this system. The 12xSATA will be added by some kind of PCIe-to-SATA controller. Worst case, it's 2xASM1166 with 6xSATA@Gen3x2 each, giving just ~333MB/s per port. Even X870E/X670-chipest offers 8xSATA at most and it doesn't seem like there is any chipset here. Above that there are only SAS-controllers and since this NAS doesn't support SAS, I doubt it uses one of those.

 

[Chaitanya]

What would be the benefit of that

In case of Ryzen Pro better security features making this NAS suited for enterprize deployment and Epyc for its verified ECC support instead of dicey mess that Ryzen CPUs end up being.

 

[bug]

2.5"-SATA-HDD are as good as dead. While before everything up to 1TB was CMR and we had 2-3TB with 15mm z-height with CMR, now everything down to 1TB is SMR, sometimes even those with 750GB or 500GB. I wouldn't recommend SMR for anything but cold archive data.

The thing is, large SSDs are QLC. So not that good for a storage solution anyway

 

[Tigerfox]

he thing is, large SSDs are QLC.

Of 36 2.5"-SATA-SSD with 4TB I can see in price comparison, 26 are TLC, only 3 are QLC (Micron BX500, Samsung 870 QVO and Teamgroup Vulkan QLC) and 5 are unknown. Of the 14 SATA-SSD with 8TB+, 12 are TLC and only 1 is QLC (Samsung).
With SAS, there isn't a single QLC-SSD. With U.2/U.3, there are 8 of them, all from Solidigm.

QLC seems to be a thing only on M.2. Of course, 8TB TLC-SATA SSD is expensive and starts at about 900€.

 

[Hakker]

Imho an "all-flash" solution is one that uses M.2. What's stopping you from inserting 2.5" HDDs into those gigantic slots as it is?

because this is meant for those really big 2.5" SSDs that can have 60TB on them a piece. So yes a 772 TB raw NAS is then possible. At the cost of an expensive car but it's possible

The thing is, large SSDs are QLC. So not that good for a storage solution anyway

Those enterprise SSDs are a bit different.

 

[Chrispy_]

You're kidding? These aren't even u.2/u.3??? This is as good as useless.

Kidding? I was questioning the viability of this product as I can't see a valid use case for it.

Even 1x25GbE is more bandwidth than SATA arrays can reasonably deliver. A NAS like this can't use 25GbE and a 25GbE network/clients are too expensive to still be stuck on shitty SATA drives.

The only way to even hit 25GbE speeds with this NAS is to create a ridiculous 5-stripe RAID0 which is irresponsible and high-risk. Why would you even want to do that when a single, ancient PCIe Gen3x4 drive can hit 25GbE speeds without the need for any striping at all?!

 

[Tigerfox]

Even 1x25GbE is more bandwidth than SATA arrays can reasonably deliver. A NAS like this can't use 25GbE and a 25GbE network/clients are too expensive to still be stuck on shitty SATA drives.

To quote myself. You are supposed to use an adapter to atleast 2xM.2 in one PCIe-slot. Otherwise ofcourse 25GbE won't be of any use. But even one Gen4 SSD is enough to saturate 50GbE/2x25GbE.

 

[Arco]

For 12xU.2/U.3 you would need 48 lanes of PCIe, which would only be possible in a usable form with at least Threadripper or Xeon W-2500.

But you are right to question the use of this system. The 12xSATA will be added by some kind of PCIe-to-SATA controller. Worst case, it's 2xASM1166 with 6xSATA@Gen3x2 each, giving just ~333MB/s per port. Even X870E/X670-chipest offers 8xSATA at most and it doesn't seem like there is any chipset here. Above that there are only SAS-controllers and since this NAS doesn't support SAS, I doubt it uses one of those.

Yeah but something like 2 lsi 9600-16i would work with bifurcation.

Kidding? I was questioning the viability of this product as I can't see a valid use case for it.

Even 1x25GbE is more bandwidth than SATA arrays can reasonably deliver. A NAS like this can't use 25GbE and a 25GbE network/clients are too expensive to still be stuck on shitty SATA drives.

The only way to even hit 25GbE speeds with this NAS is to create a ridiculous 5-stripe RAID0 which is irresponsible and high-risk. Why would you even want to do that when a single, ancient PCIe Gen3x4 drive can hit 25GbE speeds without the need for any striping at all?!

I was talking about it being sata rather than u.2/u.3.

 

[Chrispy_]

Yeah but something like 2 lsi 9600-16i would work with bifurcation.

I was talking about it being sata rather than u.2/u.3.

Oh, I got confirmation it was SATA-only from QNAP's own specifications page:

TS-h1277AFX | Hardware Specs

Powered by AMD Ryzen™ 7 9000 Series processors, the 12-bay SATA all-flash NAS TS-h1277AFX redefines performance and expandability, delivering an ideal storage solution tailored for multimedia creators. Coupled with the ZFS-based QuTS hero operating system, it ensures unmatched data integrity...

www.qnap.com

 

[Tigerfox]

Yeah but something like 2 lsi 9600-16i would work with bifurcation.

These HBA or RAID-controller still only offer 8 or 16 lanes PCIe4.0, so while you can officially connect up to 32 NVMe-drives (while it has 16-24 ports), you still have only the total bandwith of PCIe4.0x8 or x16, which divided between 12 SSD would still be 330MB/s or 660MB/s, so either hald of SATA 6Gbps or slightly more than SATA 6Gbps.

Oh, I got confirmation it was SATA-only from QNAP's own specifications page:

The specs were included in the article, too. But in the feature description of the NAS, QNAP reached a sequential transfer speed of 17.3GB/s read and 12GB/s write speed with 12xPhison Pascari SA50V 15.36TB SATA drives (530/500 rated) in RAID5, having 5 client PCs simultanousely read and writ 256GB from and to the NAS over 6x25GbE (could have just used 2x100GbE).
Seems kind of an odd way of calculatin maximum transfer speed to me. I don't think the SSD can read and write at full speed at the same time and even then I don't get their numbers. And then I don't think all twelve SATA ports can run at full speed at the same time if they come from 2xASM1166.

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Out of curiousity, what SSDs are you running? The cost of this TS-h1277AFX seems mismatched to the sort of demographic who are using SATA SSDs.

WD Red SATA SSDs + 4 m.2 PCIe 3 nvme ssds.

It's a nice balance between speed, capacity, and importantly, cost. $3400 plus the SSDs that I mostly already have makes it far more affordable than the higher-end NAS solutions with SAS SSDs. I'm not ready to drop a small fortune on a NAS, but I'm due for an upgrade to something better and faster.

The Ryzen 9000 processor is an equally important selling point for me. I love the Ryzen 1600X in my current NAS, but it's showing its age. As far as I'm aware, there is no other NAS with new Ryzen chips.