QNAP TS-364-4G 3-bay NAS Review

The TS-364 is the latest incarnation of QNAP’s 3-bay NAS design. Aimed at the home/office environment, the TS-364 comes with a quad-core processor, 2.5GbE as standard, a pair of NVMe M.2 ports supporting SSD caching, and a mix of USB 3.2 Gen1 and Gen2 ports.

At the heart of the TS-364 is an lntel Celeron N5105 quad-core CPU (2.00GHz, boost up to 2.9GHz, 4MB L3 cache) which is backed by 4GB DDR4-2666MHz memory. Fear not, if you feel that you need a bit more oomph in the memory department, the two SO-DIMM slots provided support for up to 16GB of RAM. The CPU also adds an AES-NI encryption engine to the mix. Additionally, there is support for a pair of PCIe Gen 3 NVMe M.2 2280 slots which, although only running at x2 speed, can be used for storage pools, cache acceleration or Edge TPU for AI image recognition.

Any NAS is only as good as its operating software and the latest v5 of QNAP’s QTS is a very good one. It’s a quick and easy to install OS thanks to the wizard that walks you through the installation process. QTS has a graphically rich interface which is useful for first-time users to navigate around the software and get to grips with NAS and all its features. For more experienced users delving behind graphic interface reveals a whole host of options for the more advanced users to get to grips with. With over 130 apps in the App Center, there are plenty of software options available to tune the NAS to your specific needs.

The TS-364 comes with a pair of USB3.2 Gen 2 ports and a single USB3.2 Gen 1 port that is built into the One Touch Copy button on the front of the NAS. The pair of Gen2 ports on the rear panel allows the TS-364 to be connected to a number of QNAP's expansion enclosures to increase its storage capacity. There are three tower units (TL-D800C 8-bay, TR-002 2-bay and TR-004, 4-bay. The TL-D800C & TR-002 are USB3.2 Gen 2 and the TR-004 is USB3.2 Gen 1) and a couple of rack mounted ones (TL-R1200C-RP 12-bay USB 3.2 Gen 2 and TR-004U, 4-bay USB3.2 Gen 1).

QNAP's TS-364 solves the problem of providing better data protection for a NAS in the entry-level market sector where budgets may not stretch to units with more bays. A 2-bay NAS can provide RAID 1 data protection but if you want RAID 5 protection then you need to opt for a more costly 4-bay NAS option. The TS-364 gets around this by offering a more cost-effective RAID 5 solution by using the least number of drives needed to build a RAID 5 array; three.

We found the QNAP TS-364 on Box for £450.99 (inc VAT) HERE.

Pros

• 2.5GbE Ethernet.
• NVMe M.2 support.
• RAID 5 support.
• QTS 5.

Cons

• M.2 ports only run at x2 speed.

KitGuru says: QNAP’s TS-364 is a feature-rich 3-bay NAS with 2.5GbE connectivity, NVMe based SSD caching and USB 3.2 Gen 2 and is just the job if you want more data protection than a 2-bay NAS can offer but don’t want to stretch the budget to a 4-bay unit.

Become a Patron!

Be sure to check out our sponsors store EKWB here