QNAP TS-459 Pro II

QNAP TS-459 Pro II

You can't find a faster four-bay network-attached storage box than QNAP's TS-459 Pro II. But at $1180 (as of March 23, 2012), this feature-laden multibay NAS box is not for the financially faint of heart. Equipped with a 1.8GHz Intel Atom D525 dual-core CPU and 1GB of memory, the TS-459 Pro II turned in the second-best performance of any box in our 11-model roundup. Only its stablemate, the QNAP TS-879 Pro proved faster. The TS-459 Pro II wrote our large 10GB file at a whopping 111 megabytes per second and read it at 99 MBps; and it wrote 10GB of smaller files and folders at 64 MBps. For some reason, the TS-459 Pro II fell to fourth place in reading the same files and folders, turning in a speed of just 49 MBps, compared with the 57 MBps logged by the fastest drive on this test, the Western Digital Sentinel DX400. Overall, though, the speedy TS-459 Pro II ranked second in our performance tests for a roundup of 11 NAS boxes, bested overall only by the TS-879. As befits its price, the TS-459 Pro II has top-notch hardware. On the front of the unit, you'll find four locking drive bay trays, an LCD status display, a USB 3.0 port (most boxes offer only USB 2.0 on the front), and a quick-copy button. You'll also see Enter and Select buttons next to the LCD, for setting the initial array type when you add drives.