QNAP TS-439 Pro Network Attached Storage Review

Almost exactly one year ago, we've reviewed the QNAP TS-409 network attached storage system. The QNAP TS-409 offered brilliant reliability and stability in our long term tests -- of which lasted an uptime of 221 days, 1 hour, and 54 minutes until connections to Disk 2 overloaded, partially due to a user error! The system also provided excellent performance according to our benchmarks, as well as efficient power usage for a lower power bill, since it's going to be running 24/7. But it wasn't by all means perfect. Hardware wise, it suffered from a relatively slow Marvell 88F5281 500MHz CPU, and only 256MB of DDR2 memory. Once multiple simultaneous connections are established to the system, performance dramatically decreased, and its hardware huffed and puffed to keep up with the bits and bytes moving quickly over our Gigabit network. Software wise, the web configuration interface wasn't exactly appealing and intuitive. Times have changed, however. While we got a nice feel of the new standard QNAP AJAX user interface via an updated firmware available to previous QNAP devices (Including the TS-409 in question), the hardware didn't change. One year after we wrote our initial article, a brand new QNAP TS-439 Pro arrived at our doorstep as we eagerly anticipated seeing what QNAP has in store for us. Now featuring an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor and four times the memory of its predecessor, along with a couple Gigabit LAN ports, how well would the TS-439 Pro stack up? We carefully examined the unit, plus our usual battery of tests, and arrived at our conclusion in the end. So, tag along, as we bring you to the QNAP TS-439 Pro Turbo NAS!