The QNAP TVS-472XT has so many features it can practically do anything besides being a plain data storage device, but such capability increases cost. If you don't need all these bells and whistles, you can get a Thunderbolt 3 DAS for considerably less, though you may find the number of clients a DAS can accommodate limiting. Unfortunately, even less well-known NAS/DAS servers with Thunderbolt 3 ports are expensive, such as the TerraMaster D5 I previously reviewed. The TVS-472XT costs a ton, but is so much more than just a NAS featuring a couple of TB3 ports. It can be a fully featured multimedia and surveillance station, takes a graphics card for faster media encoding, or can be used as a standalone device if necessary because of the integrated HDMI port, and its feature list doesn't stop there. Another major advantage of the TVS-472XT is that you can expand its storage with QNAP's Thunderbolt or USB expansion units. If you have enough money, you can connect up to six TX-800P units, which has the number of available drives go up to 52!

There is no doubt that the TVS-472XT is a highly capable device, although its transfer speeds are lower than the less expensive TerraMaster D5 TB3 unit. The latter practically doesn't have to use any resources on its operating system since it only runs a basic firmware for its RAID controller, and you shouldn't forget that the QNAP TVS-472XT is a NAS, which means it can do way more than the TerraMaster DAS.

As a part-time video editor in need of lots of fast and affordable storage space, I thought to put to the test external storage devices that meet my criteria. The first unit with TB3 ports I evaluated was a TerraMaster D5 DAS offering just the basics, and the second was the TVS-472XT, which costs almost twice as much but can do way more. I don't believe a normal user will ever need all the features this QNAP NAS offers, which is why it mostly addresses small and moderately sized businesses. In business environments, the cost factor isn't the most crucial since usability and, above all, reliability matter the most. In comparison, cost is the top criterion for nearly everyone in the regular bracket.

Some of the things I didn't like about the TVS-472XT aside from its high price are the cheap drive trays, very long boot time, which is a con of every QNAP NAS server I have evaluated thus far, and the lack of included Thunderbolt 3 cables. I also expected higher transfer speeds. I should note here that I tried to install a couple of old Kingston M.2 SSDs into the corresponding slots to test for speed increases, but those weren't recognized by the NAS. Given I didn't have any other M.2 drives, I only tested with HDDs.

The list of advantages when it comes to the TVS-472XT is too long to mention in its entirety here, so I will only focus on the many I/O ports this server has, which practically cover every possible usage scenario. You can have it directly connected to compatible clients through its Thunderbolt 3 ports for incredibly fast transfer speeds while simultaneously having other Ethernet clients utilize its networking ports. The QTS OS allows you to fine-tune everything, but exploiting it fully does take some experience because of the many settings it provides.