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QNAP TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Sunday, October 12, 2008
Additional Features - Applications
Software
The QNAP TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS does come with several features that take it a little beyond what a normal NAS is designed to do. For instance not only is there a Web server but comes with PHP4 installed. If that wasn't enough you also get a copy of MySQL thus transforming this simple NAS into an application server. The only downside is that while you can upgrade the web applications that you install you cannot upgrade the PHP or MySQL versions or install additional software like NetHack or a different database server like PostreSQL.
Below are the server applications that come with the TS-509 Pro (except for phpBB3, we installed that just to say we could.
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Below are the server applications that come with the TS-509 Pro (except for phpBB3, we installed that just to say we could.
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Joomla! Is a PHP based CMS system similar to DotNetNuke. It enables you to configure a website with little to no knowable of web programming. Of course being the web Zealots we are here at Ninjalane we just chuckle at the concept.
This has to be one of the coolest additional features, a built in BitTorrent client. Simply upload the .Torrent file and let it do its thing. You can even configure how long you wish to seed for after the download is complete.
A copy of phpMyAdmin was included so you an edit the MySQL database. We prefer to use the standalone client for MySQL database administration but in a pinch the web interface will do the trick.
The last application is a media downloader that is nothing more than a web interface to download files from the NAS over the web. There is no need for fancy FTP software with this app simply drill down thru the folder structure and find the file you're after.
A copy of phpMyAdmin was included so you an edit the MySQL database. We prefer to use the standalone client for MySQL database administration but in a pinch the web interface will do the trick.
The last application is a media downloader that is nothing more than a web interface to download files from the NAS over the web. There is no need for fancy FTP software with this app simply drill down thru the folder structure and find the file you're after.
As was mentioned earlier one of the deciding factors behind if a device is enterprise ready is how powerful the hardware is. The TS-509 Pro comes with a 1.6Ghz Intel Celeron Processor and 1GB of DDR2 memory. This combo rivals most standalone servers making it a very smart and compact option available for any sized office. You could even serve up the company website from here and not worry about random spikes in traffic or server load as this box can take just about anything you throw at it.
