Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Edit (10/10/2018): 2 years and 5 months later after buying this, it seems one of the NICs on the NAS has died. Luckily, there's a 2nd that I'm now using. I haven't adjusted the stars or the below review for this, since it so far hasn't impacted my usage of it. But it's something to look out for. One day it just stopped responding on the network and I had to change the Ethernet cord to the 2nd NIC. Some more troubleshooting made me believe it straight up died, even though the status and duplex lights on the back seem to be OK. Could just be bad luck. I did a bunch of research before buying this little guy. All in all I can say that I am very happy with the features and options he has. I will preface by saying I'm not a super power user. I know basic linux and ssh usages, but stick to normal GUI interface controls. I also purchased 8GB of RAM separately, because paying the price to have it come shipped with it was a little ridiculous. Current Setup: - 8GB of crucial RAM Crucial 8GB Kit (4GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3 - 12800) CL11 SODIMM Notebook Memory Modules CT2KIT51264BF160B / CT2CP51264BF160B - 2x 3TB WD Red hard drives in RAID 1 WD Red 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX - 1TB WD external hard drive via USB to store miscellaneous media files - HP All in one printer shared to the network via USB - IP Address using an IP reservation policy on my router (this is important, see cons) - Implemented a LetsEncryt SSL certificate and hooked it up to a subdomain on a domain I already own. Accessible from anywhere. - Private VPN using the QNAP VPN client for Windows 10 and iOS devices. Pros: - Many QNAP and third party apps are supported. - Plex Server works great to PS3, Xbox 360 and iPhones. Transcoding 1080p videos is pretty seemless. - The QVideo, QFile, QPhoto etc apps for the iPhone are super convienent. Transcoding to these from the NAS works very well too. - Great read/write speed on my network for my current needs - Easy to use private VPN out of the box for Windows 10 and iOS devices - Supports native LetsEncrypt SSL certificates - The Virtual Workstation feature is pretty amazing for running a Windows PC on the NAS. - Setting up users and group permissions was simple - Very easy to navigate user interface. The look and feel is very sleek. - Plug in play sharing of my non networked HP all in one printer was a sinch. Scanning took some time to be able to setup, but in the end it works pretty well Cons: - I had an issue were almost every other day the NAS would lose it's IP address on the network. In HD Station from the HDMI out the IP address would be blank and the green status light would be off. The only way to fix it was to unplug and replug and ethernet line back in to the network switch it was attached to. After I setup an IP reservation policy on my router based on the NAS MAC address, this issue has seemed to go away though. Was very aggravating for a while though. - Every now and then Plex Server seems to stop working. I have to restart the NAS and then it will start working again. - Download Station doesn't work too well for private trackers. Use Transmission instead. It has much more features too. - I feel like a lot of the default security options were a little too open. Google "QNAP How to make your nas more secure" for a QNAP post on closing some of these down. It's a good getting started guide to fixing some of the simple issues.