There is no doubt that a small number of brands dominate today's NAS market, making it very difficult for a newcomer to claim a part of the sales pie. It is always nice to see new brands with interesting products, though, and competition is always good for us consumers.

QSAN has a long way to go until its NAS operating system and application ecosystem can compete with QNAP's and Synology's offerings. This is normal given those brands have had years to properly develop and flesh out their OS, while QSAN has just started. Their QSM OS looks very interesting, and even at this stage, it looks to have huge potential. It just takes time to cover everything and develop applications that cover all major areas. I strongly believe that a modern NAS product and its OS should primarily provide multimedia and surveillance applications, especially if meant for home use. Another option I would like to see in QSM is the ability to set the fan speed, either through a profile or manually (or ideally both). It is immensely important for users to be able to adjust the fan profile to their needs. For instance, I have an Asustor NAS in the lab with some HDDs that get really hot, so I set the fan speed to "high" in order to cool them properly.

The strong point of the XN3002T server is the ZFS filesystem, which allows for very short RAID rebuild and synchronize operations since those operations take much longer with servers using the EXT4 filesystem. On the other hand, ZFS appears to consume more system resources, and the weak CPU isn't able to cope with the task, especially when multiple clients ask for increased amounts of data at the same time. I wasn't able to finish the multiple client tests with more than two PCs connected to the NAS, and this is a problem I hadn't encountered before, even with mainstream NAS models.

The XN3002T is an interesting product; however, its price is quite stiff, especially if we take into account the weak CPU it is equipped with. In the $300 price range, this product would have much better chances, but with a $500 price tag, it will have to face some fierce competition. Most NAS users aware of the ZFS filesystem and its benefits, and notable downsides, also won't be looking for a home-centric NAS but, rather, one capable of dealing with heavier loads. This makes the higher-end QSAN NAS the more interesting unit to take a look at since a stronger CPU and generally more capable system is clearly required to fully utilize the extra capabilities of the ZFS filesystem in tougher situations.