A Look Inside

Breaking apart the TS-473 was a straightforward procedure, at least for us since we have a ton of experience with taking such units apart. The basic rule is to take photos before you remove something, which will be of great help as you re-assemble everything.


The chassis is made out of metal, while the casing is out of plastic.


This is the mainboard's top side. A plastic shroud covering the fan's cooler redirects any airflow.


The cooling fan that handles the CPU's heatsink measures 60 mm across and is provided by Everflow. Its model number is T126010BU.


This is the backplate of the CPU's heatsink. Next to it, we find an array of SMD electrolytic capacitors.


There are four RAM slots. With the TS-473-4G, two of these slots are occupied by DDR4-2400 Apacer SODIMMs.


The filtering caps are provided by Chemi-Con and Sanyo and are all polymer. Both of these brands are widely known for their high quality products.


At the front of the NAS is a small PCB that hosts an OLED (or LCD) screen in other QNAP NAS servers. With the TS-473, this PCB features several LED indicators.


Here are the two PCIe slots for expansion cards.


Two ASM1184e chips handle the two available PCIe slots.


This PCIe port is occupied by the SATA expansion card.


Here is the PCIe expansion card that hosts all four SATA ports. On the SATA expansion card are four Marvell 88SE9215-NAA2 SATA host controllers, which are capable of a bandwidth of up to 6 Gbps.


The NAS is equipped with a small speaker, which does quite a good job.


An ITE IT8528 is used on the mainboard.


The server's flash memory is provided by ADATA.


There are two available slots for M.2 drives.


All Ethernet controllers (WGI211AT) are provided by Intel.


This is the battery for the mainboard's BIOS.


This NAS is equipped with an audio card that is controlled by a Realtek ALC262 audio codec.


The PSU is of high quality and by Delta Electronics. Its model number is DPS-250AB, and it can deliver up to 250 W with a maximum of 17 A on the +12V rail.


Some more photos of various components.


As per usual for QNAP, the primary fan is by YS. Tech, and its model number is FD121225LB (120 mm, 12 V, 0.18 A, 1800 RPM, 73 CFM, 34 dBA, 80,000 h MTBF). It uses ball bearings and will, as such, last fairly long.