QNAP TS-262 – The Good, the Bad, the WTF?!

The QNAP TS-262 is a 2-bay NAS, running (currently) on QTS 5.2.something. It is powered by a 2 core Intel Celeron, using x64 architecture, so it should be able to address copious amounts of memory. In its base (and only) configuration, QNAP offers this NAS with 4gb of memory. Not great, but not bad. Outstandingly, this SOHO-Styled NAS is
equipped with a 2.5G network interface, offers dual m.2 SSD bays and a PCIe slot.

I got mine on offer for about 260 Euros, nice! What could go wrong?

Wait! This is a post about projects, what on earth could be a "project" about a NAS? Well, let me present the table of contents.

Table of Contents

1. Hardware
2. Software
3. Configuration (READ FIRST!)
4. Recommendations

Hardware

As stated in the intro, the NAS is powered by an Intel Celeron, N4505 single-threaded dual Core processor.
It's neither fast nor (too) slow, it chuggs along "okish" but will disappoint once hit with a load. It comes, per usual as an SOC style, so no upgrading the processor.
The RAM however is of dual slot SO-DIMM style, with one slot populated by a 4gig module. The NAS features multiple USB Type-A ports up to 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbit/s) speeds.

The Network interface is quite fast for a home NAS with 2.5G speeds and it could be equipped with a 10G nic, but that should be hard to saturate off of spinning disks, which I hope are configured as RAID 1. For me, this was one of the main features I wanted in my first NAS.

The TS-262 draws power from an external power-brick which in this case, I like, as it keeps the package smaller and cooler... which is important... the cooler part, I mean.

The NAS' white on gold enclosure feels extremely plasticy and generates resonance chamber to amplify any and all sounds coming off the drives. The enclosure also comes with an 70mm fan for which you can get the same replacement, but hardly anything from other manufacturers, as 70mm is not a common fan size.

However, let me remind you that we are speaking of a sub 300 EUR NAS here.

Software

QTS is the current operating system, there is no support for QUTS Hero (yet, or maybe ever?). It's fine I guess. This is my first NAS, I did not know what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised (and very unpleasantly a couple of weeks later).

• Does it work? Yes.
• Does it need work? Yes.
• Does it run docker? Yes, but I'd say it's targeted towards the wrong demographic (Look ma', no hands!)
• Can it VPN? Yes, if you're willing to stick to an older Tailscale version from the App-Market or sideload a newer one yourself (officially supplied by the Tailscale team).
• Is it secure? Who knows? I guess it's secure enough, but I wouldn't expose it to the internet.

What else?

• It has HDMI which I don't use.
• It can record security footage, which I don't have.
• It can be a multimedia-station, but there's plex and dolphin already.
• It can do on-chip face and object recognition, which I am trialing.
• It can write logs. Oh it loves logging. It writes all the logs. It writes the best logs. It logs everything. Did I mention that it logs? Oh and the docker
  implementation called Container-Station: Man... THAT THING LOGS, it's unreal. No seriously...it's unreal.

The higher-end NAS systems, when on QTS, run the same software. From what I can gather through forums posts, using the same or a very similar configuration. If I had gotten one of those in the, let's say 500 to 600 EUR range, I would have sent it back. But the TS-262 is cheap... sub 300 EUR cheap... and it works kinda. Mostly.

Configuration

I told you to come here first so here is the most important thing before you put your precious hard-drives in. Seriously! Put those drives down! On the table, I mean it.

Alright thanks. Now go and fetch the two largest SSDs you want to afford and put those in first. Are they in yet? Good then take em' out again, because you probably forgot to add heatsinks, right? RIGHT? These need heatsink, I am not kidding. I had mine thermal throttle at around 70 degrees C (for the American readers that far too many Fahrenheits for an ssd).

Why? Glad you ask. Let me introduce you the my project.

When initializing for the very first time, QTS is facing an important task. See, when cold-booting, the RAID arrays are not (or may not) be initialized yet. In order to safely store data, QTS generates a partition on the first drive (not RAID array) mounted as "HDA_ROOT".

From information findable online, QTS is copied from it's read-only storage onto all available raid arrays to make sure the system survives drive losses and is still able to boot even when drives are "missing". However, "HDA_ROOT" seemingly needs to be accessible to store the important configuration... and logs. Why? No clue, but some logs seem to be so important that they are being stored on that partition.

So when you initialize the NAS without any HDDs but SSDs, "HDA_ROOT" is generated on one of the drives. You want this! Even if it burns through the drive within 5 years, you want this. SSD storage get's cheaper by the day, grab a new drive plunk it in and Bob's your uncle. Just don't ask me how QTS is handling a restore of this
super-duper important partition form nothing.

Rendition by Dall E of how my SSDs feel

Will it be quieter? I hope, but I cannot guarantee, as I did not want to reinitialize my setup (i found other solutions).

And you know what? I unfortunately won't have to cross that bridge, as I did not have the information about the drive initialization yet. Or the info about the logging.

Are you wondering yet why I am little bit upset about the logging? Well, because, in my setup "HDA_ROOT" is on a hard-disk. And because I was a knob and a cheapskate, i bought the most inexpensive set of 10TB drives I could get. Seagate's "Exos" datacenter drives. As I moved to a 1TB Mac off a 5TB self-built PC, I wanted fast network storage. Fast I got, but also noisy. If you do not have an uninhabited basement or spare room with a fireproof door, you do want these drives in your home.

Period.

Once these drives are spun up and no data is read or written, they are surprisingly quiet. I am expecting the helium filling to dampen the spin-sounds. However, once the heads start to move, you will be positively sure that data is being moved. Imagine a cheap ratchet which goes click-click-click - well these drives are a professional, NASA spec ratchet and go "kachunk-kachunk-kachunk". As the drives are mounted in a vertical fashion and the arms are moving up-and-down, I had to move the NAS from shelf to shelf to find the most sturdy one which holds up against the vibrations best (and does not start rattling). Rubber mats are supposedly helping too, but a sturdy shelf did better.

Yay to buying noisy datacenter drives which will probably last me for the next 10 years, "yay"...

But where was I? Ah yes, the logging. When I got this NAS, I thought that the drives would only spin when data is being moved. Well... that's a no. Go ahead and Google "QNAP spindown" - done? Great, right? Right?

I actually moved away from having my drives spin down, as they do not stay spun down for too long because ... yeah you guessed it logs and config (and housekeeping).

Disable Samba, if you want a quiet NAS

Well... ok, that does actually help. On the one hand this will reduce disk access by a lot. On the other hand, I hope that it disables the base functionality of your NAS, so do-not-fucking-disable Samba, unless you are are absolutely certain that you won't not need network drives on Windows, Linux and Mac, and do not need time machine.

Also, make sure that you remember (or behold, document) the changes you did and read back into enabling Samba on a QNAP NAS in a couple of years when you need it
and it fucking does not work.

Disable any other service you initially bought this NAS for

Please don't. It's fine. Just accept that the disks will probably not spin-down for an extended period of time.

DIY

Reducing (spinning) disk access

Oh, you're still here and wonder what I did to the TS-262? Well, I know my way around Linux systems. Not in-depth 2-days-since-I-last-compiled-the-kernel-deep, but deep enough that I feel (maybe too?) comfortable prodding here and there to see what gives.

Man, I hope it reboots

With my NAS and how I use it, there were some things I felt comfortable enough moving around, while keeping (sym)links to the files in place. It is not business relevant and I have backups.

How I got there. Easy! On the QNAP page, you'll find this gem of an article: https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/faq/article/why-cant-my-nas-drives-enter-standby-mode In the "solution" part, QNAP provides you with a script which lists the latest drive accesses with the according files. Run that script and exit it once your HDDs
are listed. Follow our current objective and ignore anything else for now. As I said earlier, we are going to sacrifice our SSDs for peace and sanity so we do not care on what's written there (yet).

In the results, I saw that Samba, for example is logging all connected clients and does general housekeeping. I moved the folder onto my SSD raid and symlinked it back it's original source. Once I checked that samba was still working correctly I started moving more stuff around. By now, I could have the HDDs spin down after
15 Minutes of inactivity, but there is still one access which will spin them up again.

I have no clue what this access is, the supplied tool shows nothing, I suspect raid housekeeping.

Open the pod bay door (or add some tape)

As I do not have an uninhabited basement or a network-attached room with a fireproof door, making the NAS as quite as possible was my main goal. After making sure my drives generate as little noise as (possibly?) possible, I thought about other avenues to make it even quieter. I already started research on noise-dampened boxes, which need to be well ventilated. This proofed harder to find than I thought, when I remembered that I had something like that just standing around.

Remember when I said that I just switched from a self-built PC to a MacBook? Yes, I gutted my old gaming PC and encased my NAS with a shiny NZXT mini ATX case.

Although this case is well ventilated, I hadn't solved running the fans yet. To make sure the NAS would not suffer a heatstroke, I started monitoring temperatures. Those were borderline acceptable, but I still opted for running the NAS without it's pod bay doors.

Over during a time-machine backup the temps rose high enough for me to abort the plan of running my NAS inside a PC without adequate cooling. I took it out but forgot to attach the plastic cover for the drives.

Man, what a difference.

Without the doors, the aforementioned resonance chamber was open enough not to resonate anymore. The drives run far from inaudible, but the NAS is quit enough for office use now. It also runs much cooler now, allowing the fan to run on it's lowest setting. If you do not plan on using docker on your TS-262, I would guess that this should be enough to make using the NAS an enjoyable piece of hardware.

UPDATE

One can also add a couple of layers of clear tape around the edges of the magnetic cover to prevent "the rattle"

ALL THE LOGS!

Remember my displeasure about the log situation on QNAP NAS systems? Let's take a look what's going... Ah I'll just tell you. Docker is configured in debug mode by default. All containers are as well.
From the start, I had installed container-station on my SSD raid array, so I did not notice how bad the situation was. Running the disk-access program started shedding light on it.

I think you should read this log, and this one, and this one and ...

I configured docker to run without logs.
Problem solved.
My SSDs run about 10 degrees C cooler now.

Swap

So you got a NAS with m.2 drive options. Let's say you placed SSDs into said m.2 ports and configured QTS to run SSD caching (which works!) and wonder why there is still frequent disk access?
I know swap memory is the first thing which comes to your mind, right? Want to take a wild guess where system swap is located? Right, on the HDD. QNAP was so nice to protect my SSDs by keeping the swap on my hard drives. I think that's fair, as those disks will be burnt by docker anyways and having swap is better than docker logs right? Nope, I put my swap where my mouth is, on my SSDs. Remember what I told you in the beginning? Right, say goodby to those drives.

Recommendation

Can I recommend this NAS? Absolutely, as I won't have to suffer the consequences.

In all seriousness, from what I have seen so far, I can recommend this NAS. I took it apart more that once, will do it again (SSD-Heatsinks and a better fan) and it holds up perfectly. I would gamble that most of the problems (if not all of them) are present on the complete SOHO QNAP NAS lineup. I hope that QUTS hero is not such a big pain to configure, but I'd double-check the docker configuration for sure.

Who would I recommend this NAS, or QTS NAS systems in general, to? Enthusiasts! That's who. Is it good? Yeah, kind of. Is it fire-and-forget? Nope.

Get this NAS if you can answer at least two questions with YES:

• You know how use SSH and how to exit VIM?
• You know how to move files around, generate symlinks and evaluate file contents without a gui?
• You are willing to tinker with new hardware.
• You know that those two poor SSDs are already gone.
• You have a separate room to place the NAS.
• You only want the spend sub 300 EUR on a 2.5G NAS with up to 64gb of memory and invest the rest in datacenter drives.

Would I get it again? If it's my first NAS, maybe. But after researching 70mm fans and SSD heatsinks on Aliexpress, I know that once the HDDs give out, I'll be building my own NAS from scratch which I can configure how I need/like it, unless cloud storage has become so cheap that I can store all my stuff there.

Also, if I interpret the information right on the QNAP website, I do think that QUTS hero will need a core processor, or that QNAP will only port QUTS hero to NAS systems equipped with 4 core processors. As the TS 26x family only has a dual core processor, it probably will not receive the QUTS hero update.

Disclaimer

Don't do anything I told you in this post. It will probably break or reduce the lifespan of your system, but please share better solutions. Oh and if you did initialize with SSDs first, please tell me if you can achieve prolonged spin-downs.