At the end of November, in cooperation with Western Digital and QNAP, we called on our readers and community members to apply for our latest reader test. We were looking for two testers who wanted to test two WD REDs with 4 TB storage space each in a brand new NAS from QNAP at home and write a comprehensive test report for our forum about them. We have now started the selection of the participants.

Western Digital will provide each tester with two WD REDs with 4 TB storage each. The 3.5-inch drives are specially designed for continuous operation and have the adapted firmware NASware 3.0, which on the one hand improves system performance and reliability, but on the other hand is also intended to reduce downtimes and simplify the integration process. In addition, there are technologies such as IntelliPower and 3D Active Balance Plus for reduced vibrations and the associated lower background noise. In addition, the wear and tear of the read and write head should be reduced and the service life extended.

The WD Red 4TB uses SMR technology, which is suitable for NAS Systems with light SOHO workloads. At the same time, Western Digital promises high data transfer rates of around 168 MB / s. The drives are integrated via SATA III and can be interconnected in different RAID modes in the QNAP NAS. According to the manufacturer, the NAS disks are very economical in idle and are content with 3.1 W, whereas a very good 4.3 W should be achieved during access. The two later testers will be able to find out whether these values ​​are actually achieved in practice.

A single model of the WD RED 4TB is currently from around 95 Euro, so in a double pack it is 190 Euro.

The NAS system as a test basis

The two hard drives are to be tested in a QNAP TS – 253 D. The NAS system is powered by an Intel Celeron J 4125 with four CPU speeds of up to 2.7 GHz Cores is fueled and can fall back on a 4 GB working memory, which can even be upgraded later thanks to standard SODIMM memory banks. The NAS including link aggregation can be integrated into the network via two 2.5 GbE LAN connections. A total of two drives with 2.5 or 3.5 inches can be installed – an expansion card via PCIe-x4 is also possible, with which, for example, additional cache memory or a fast 10 – GbE interface have it retrofitted.

In addition to the two LAN interfaces, the QNAP NAS offers three USB 2.0 interfaces and two 3.0 ports, via which external storage media or printers can be made available via the network. As a real multimedia NAS, there is also an HDMI port for connection to the television. An infrared interface for using a remote control is also included. The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 600 accelerates H. 253 – Material during decoding and encoding on the hardware side.

All components are cooled via a 70 – mm fan with 17 dB (A) should act particularly quietly. The power consumption of QNAP is just over 8 to almost 12, 5 W specified. The system is supplied via an external 51 – W power supply. The testers also have to check these values. The dimensions of the NAS system are 168 x 105 x 226 mm.

Round 410 Euros are used for the QNAP TS – 253 D currently proclaimed. The test package has a total value of around 600 euros. Two readers can now test the package for free.

These are the participants

We have now started the selection of the participants and are happy to announce that the two forum users “LTurbos” and “kevinho” will soon be able to use the HDD and NAS package for will get their tests. You will be notified shortly via private forum conversation and informed about the further progress. After receiving the test samples, you have four weeks to independently publish your reviews for the community in the network sub-forum!

We hope you enjoy testing and look forward to detailed test reports!

Provisional process:

• Application phase until 13. December 2020
• Selection of applicants + shipping: from 14. December 2020
• Test period until 17. January 2021

Fine print:

• Employees of Hardwareluxx Media GmbH, QNAP and Western Digital as well as their relatives are excluded from participation
• The participants are selected by the editors of Hardwareluxx
• An account in the Hardwareluxx forum is absolutely necessary for participation
• The participants will be notified by PN
• All test samples will remain with the testers after the test reports have been published
• If the test reports are not posted online on time, the manufacturers reserve the right to invoice the full amount
• The reviews remain exclusively with us in the forum