QNAP Releases QTS 5.0 Beta with Upgraded Kernel

[Uskompuf]

QNAP today released the QTS 5.0 Beta, the latest version of the acclaimed NAS operating system. QTS 5.0 has upgraded with Linux Kernel 5.10, improved security, WireGuard VPN support, and enhanced NVMe SSD cache performance. The DA Drive Analyzer, powered by a cloud AI engine, helps predict the expected life of drives. The new QuFTP app helps fulfill personal and business file transfer needs. QNAP now welcomes users to join the Beta Program and provide their feedback so QNAP can further improve QTS and provide a more comprehensive and secure user experience.





Optimized user interface:

Includes smoother navigation, a comfortable visual design, a notice board for simplifying first-time NAS installation, and the search bar in the main menu for quickly finding apps.

Increased security:

Supports TLS 1.3, automatically updates QTS and apps, and provides SSH keys for authentication to secure NAS access.

WireGuard VPN support:

The new QVPN 2.0 will integrate the lightweight and reliable WireGuard VPN and provides users with an easy-to-use interface for setup and secure connectivity.

Boosted NVMe SSD cache performance:

The new kernel improves NVMe SSD performance and utilization. When cache acceleration is activated, SSD storage can be utilized more efficiently while also offloading memory resources.

Enhanced image recognition with Edge TPU:

By leveraging Edge TPU to QNAP AI Core (the AI-powered engine for image recognition), QuMagie can perform faster face and object recognition while QVR Face strengthens real-time video analytics for instant facial recognition.

DA Drive Analyzer with AI-powered diagnostics:

The DA Drive Analyzer leverages cloud-based AI to predict the expected life of drives, assisting users in planning drive replacement in advance to protect against server downtime and data loss.

QuFTP fulfills secure file transfer:

QNAP NAS can perform as an FTP server featuring encrypted SSL/TLS connection, QoS bandwidth control, setting FTP transfer limitations or speed limitations for users and groups. QuFTP also supports FTP Client.

Availability

The QTS 5.0 Beta can be downloaded from the link below.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[stimpy88]

Aaaaannnnnd no screenshots...

 

[CosmicWanderer]

Aaaaannnnnd no screenshots...

There are screenshots in the link. It still looks ugly and outdated. Especially compared to Synology's DSM 7.0.

 

[stimpy88]

There are screenshots in the link. It still looks ugly and outdated. Especially compared to Synology's DSM 7.0.

My main problems with it are how slow the thing is, even on desktop class hardware, and the fact that it continuously access the disks for no reason.

I hope v5 solves these issues above all others.

But yeah, I have an achient Synology NAS, and its using an outdated version of DSM, 4 I think, but it's actually nicer to use than QTS on my new TS-873A with QTS 4 on it.

 

[TheLostSwede]

My main problems with it are how slow the thing is, even on desktop class hardware, and the fact that it continuously access the disks for no reason.

I hope v5 solves these issues above all others.

But yeah, I have an achient Synology NAS, and its using an outdated version of DSM, 4 I think, but it's actually nicer to use than QTS on my new TS-873A with QTS 4 on it.

QNAP makes the better hardware, Synology the better software...
Asustor has staff from both companies...

 

[stimpy88]

QNAP makes the better hardware, Synology the better software...
Asustor has staff from both companies...

Interesting! I'm not going to install Qnaps beta on my NAS just yet, I hear it's only a month or so from final, so I will wait.

But I hope they manage to polish it up, as I really think QTS has become so bloated and bogged down. I think my new NAS takes many minutes to boot, and almost just as long to shutdown. I simply for the life of me cannot understand what Qnap have done to Linux to slow it down so damned much.

QTS is stable enough, but has an amateur feel to it, like they just keep adding bits and not cleaning up or ever optimizing it.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Interesting! I'm not going to install Qnaps beta on my NAS just yet, I hear it's only a month or so from final, so I will wait.

But I hope they manage to polish it up, as I really think QTS has become so bloated and bogged down. I think my new NAS takes many minutes to boot, and almost just as long to shutdown. I simply for the life of me cannot understand what Qnap have done to Linux to slow it down so damned much.

QTS is stable enough, but has an amateur feel to it, like they just keep adding bits and not cleaning up or ever optimizing it.

QNAP has been notoriously bad with software. I should know, I worked for them a few years ago and part of my job was handling the forums. Someone from the Canadian government got in touch, as the support team refused to help him. He'd found some rather big security issues he was concerned about, but apparently the support team wasn't. Not sure if any of that was resolved in the end, but I have a feeling QNAP lost the chance of a lucrative government contract.

The GM there was more interested in polishing a turd than actually making sure they had a safe and secure OS that worked well. I mean, the GUI was even worse back then, but what they brought out while I was there wasn't really an improvement. I don't understand why a NAS is supposed to have a desktop OS layout.

And you're spot on, as that's exactly what they're doing. They've also been very bad at updating the kernel, so I was really surprised to see 5.10 being announced. Back in the day, they used to backport everything, rather than having to update the kernel...
This also seems to be what they're doing with their BSD based pro OS, as they messed up early on and didn't want to start over...

Also, I don't understand why the NAS makers are still delivering the OS image on a slow-ass USB 2.0 DOM (usually 512MB) and then make you install it on your hard drives. At this day in age, a small eMMC drive or even a small SSD should be standard for the OS and then use a RAM disk for things like log files and other small writes, so it doesn't wear out the flash drive. It's not hard to do and things like OMV supports it.

 

[stimpy88]

QNAP has been notoriously bad with software. I should know, I worked for them a few years ago and part of my job was handling the forums. Someone from the Canadian government got in touch, as the support team refused to help him. He'd found some rather big security issues he was concerned about, but apparently the support team wasn't. Not sure if any of that was resolved in the end, but I have a feeling QNAP lost the chance of a lucrative government contract.

The GM there was more interested in polishing a turd than actually making sure they had a safe and secure OS that worked well. I mean, the GUI was even worse back then, but what they brought out while I was there wasn't really an improvement. I don't understand why a NAS is supposed to have a desktop OS layout.

And you're spot on, as that's exactly what they're doing. They've also been very bad at updating the kernel, so I was really surprised to see 5.10 being announced. Back in the day, they used to backport everything, rather than having to update the kernel...
This also seems to be what they're doing with their BSD based pro OS, as they messed up early on and didn't want to start over...

Also, I don't understand why the NAS makers are still delivering the OS image on a slow-ass USB 2.0 DOM (usually 512MB) and then make you install it on your hard drives. At this day in age, a small eMMC drive or even a small SSD should be standard for the OS and then use a RAM disk for things like log files and other small writes, so it doesn't wear out the flash drive. It's not hard to do and things like OMV supports it.

Yeah, my old TS-251 that died of the Intel bug a couple of weeks ago was going to be my last Qnap, but I had so much data on it, that I panicked and bought the TS-873A. I don't like Synology hardware much, as it always seems so overpriced for what you get, at least compared to Qnap, which is not saying much. But I was shocked that the new NAS worked on the same DOM as the previous, and my god it's slow. I don't understand what the hell the NAS is actually doing most of the time. It's always doing somthing, but it has no access to the internet, unless I let it, and I can disconnect the LAN from it, and it will still spin the drives up and do loads of random accessing from time to time, the drives never power down for long, so I stopped it, as stopping and starting HDs is never a good thing.

I wish that somebody made an easy to install open source OS for Qnap stuff, as their security and attitude towards it, is next to non-existent. They only seem to patch if the media or Reddit get hold of something going on.

I'm wondering if release 5 is going to be some kind of clean start for them, but I'm too scared to install it until it's final!

Totally agree with you on the way they use storage though, I don't get why the system is so constantly doing stuff. Why does it need to spin up my array just because my computer has started up? surely that handshake between NAS and computer can be handled in memory, and no need to wake the whole system up just to say Hi!

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yeah, my old TS-251 that died of the Intel bug a couple of weeks ago was going to be my last Qnap, but I had so much data on it, that I panicked and bought the TS-873A. I don't like Synology hardware much, as it always seems so overpriced for what you get, at least compared to Qnap, which is not saying much. But I was shocked that the new NAS worked on the same DOM as the previous, and my god it's slow. I don't understand what the hell the NAS is actually doing most of the time. It's always doing somthing, but it has no access to the internet, unless I let it, and I can disconnect the LAN from it, and it will still spin the drives up and do loads of random accessing from time to time, the drives never power down for long, so I stopped it, as stopping and starting HDs is never a good thing.

I wish that somebody made an easy to install open source OS for Qnap stuff, as their security and attitude towards it, is next to non-existent. They only seem to patch if the media or Reddit get hold of something going on.

I'm wondering if release 5 is going to be some kind of clean start for them, but I'm too scared to install it until it's final!

Totally agree with you on the way they use storage though, I don't get why the system is so constantly doing stuff. Why does it need to spin up my array just because my computer has started up? surely that handshake between NAS and computer can be handled in memory, and no need to wake the whole system up just to say Hi!

Have you checked in the drive settings, they have a spin-down setting if I remember right and if it isn't enabled, the drives keep chugging away.
It seems like all their live demo's of their OS is down, so I can't check exactly where it is.

The problem is that all the NAS companies are putting some proprietary crap on their devices, so if the stupid USB DOM isn't present, some devices won't even boot as an example. It makes it really tricky to bypass it and I'm not even sure you can access the BIOS/UEFI on these things to change the boot order anyhow.
Someone hacked together a version of the Synology OS for QNAP NASes in the past, but I think that's long dead.

Not a chance, they just keep sticking on more and more things with duct tape instead of understanding that they need to build a proper, modular OS that's easy and fast to update.
OMV has been a real eye opener for me, as it's mostly done by one guy and although it's a lot more basic, it's also miles ahead of the commercial solutions from all five of the Taiwanese NAS makers.

I built my own NAS out of some bits I had and a few things I bought and it's been rock solid. It's admittedly only about three years and a bit old, but I was lucky and got hold a case with four hot-swappable drive bays. It's not as nice looking as the ones from QNAP or Synology and friends, but I have a 10Gbps card in it and the CPU is even liquid cooled, although that was a PITA to get in there. Unfortunately I didn't have any shorter SATA cables at the time and considering the tight fit, I decided it wasn't worth swapping them for something shorter...
It's powered by a Core i7-6700k and 16GB of RAM. Total overkill, but it's most likely going to last me another five plus years, as long as none of the parts break. The black SATA cable runs to a 64GB SSD that holds the OS, again way too big, but it was a spare thing I had.

 

[stimpy88]

Yeah, it's a setting I tried on my old NAS, but that did exactly the same thing my new one does - Spin the drives up every time a device on the network sneezes or QTS feels like it wants to shorten the life of my HDDs, which is also every couple of hours. I literally can have the NAS sitting on my office shelf with the LAN unplugged, and I can hear it constantly accessing the drives. So I turned that setting off, as the drives just sleep for a few minutes then are spun back up, all day, and all night long.

It's a good time to do it if somebody would go to the effort to replace the OS in a modern to latest Qnap NAS, as the current perception of Qnap and their approach to security is at an all time low, with many people simply opting to disable internet access for their Qnap NAS. I'd pay for a simple, slim, fast and agile OS on my Qnap hardware.

I think you did the right thing building your own NAS, it's something I have thought about, but I never had the spare hardware or decent case to put it in. I also lack the expertise, and worry I would mess up the data on my Qnap drives, transferring them to a non-Qnap NAS. This is exactly how Qnap get us, isn't it!

It's a nice system you have built, and with the specs you mentioned, should last you a good long time, as 10Gb LAN is pretty peak for home use. I've only just started adding a 2.5Gb switch, and hope to replace my main WiFi router with a 2.5Gb capable one, whenever Asus gets round to biting the bullet and start outfitting their gear with more than one 2.5Gb port!

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yeah, it's a setting I tried on my old NAS, but that did exactly the same thing my new one does - Spin the drives up every time a device on the network sneezes or QTS feels like it wants to shorten the life of my HDDs, which is also every couple of hours. I literally can have the NAS sitting on my office shelf with the LAN unplugged, and I can hear it constantly accessing the drives. So I turned that setting off, as the drives just sleep for a few minutes then are spun back up, all day, and all night long.

It's a good time to do it if somebody would go to the effort to replace the OS in a modern to latest Qnap NAS, as the current perception of Qnap and their approach to security is at an all time low, with many people simply opting to disable internet access for their Qnap NAS. I'd pay for a simple, slim, fast and agile OS on my Qnap hardware.

I think you did the right thing building your own NAS, it's something I have thought about, but I never had the spare hardware or decent case to put it in. I also lack the expertise, and worry I would mess up the data on my Qnap drives, transferring them to a non-Qnap NAS. This is exactly how Qnap get us, isn't it!

It's a nice system you have built, and with the specs you mentioned, should last you a good long time, as 10Gb LAN is pretty peak for home use. I've only just started adding a 2.5Gb switch, and hope to replace my main WiFi router with a 2.5Gb capable one, whenever Asus gets round to biting the bullet and start outfitting their gear with more than one 2.5Gb port!

Weird, you should ping their support, as it shouldn't behave like that.

I guess I was wrong about the Synology OS for QNAP hardware being dead, have a look here https://xpenology.org/

You'd need to back up all your data, as the various file systems aren't cross-compatible, even though something like EXT4 should work across any Linux based OS, it's not that simple due to how the OS is part of the data drives.

It's not as hard as you'd think, OMV is quite easy to install, the tricky part comes when you need to go a bit outside of the basic features. There are a bunch of third-party add-ons and some of them can require command line access for some features, as they're not 100% incorporated into the GUI.
Docker and more recently Portainer support has made it a lot easier to install third party software on OMV.

Oh, it's way overkill for what I mostly use it for, but I got a really good deal some years ago during black Friday for the cards and I even got a decent deal for the switch.
2.5Gbps is still a huge step up from Gigabit, as you're getting double the throughput, maybe a bit more from what I've seen and Gigabit Ethernet isn't exactly fast these days.
Did you get the affordable QNAP or TP-Link switch or something else?

Yeah, I used to work for a router manufacturer and the industry as a whole really bugs me, as most of the router manufacturer focuses on marketing and Wi-Fi and forget that you need a decent wired infrastructure to make use of the new fancy Wi-Fi speeds that they claim are on offer. They are also shite on software updates, hence why I wouldn't buy a router today that's not supported by Voxel or Merlin, as it's the only way you know you're going to get regular software updates.

This is what the software update interface looks like in OMV, maybe not so flashy, but it does the job. OMV is built on top of Debian.