QNAP TR-004 4-Bay USB3.0 RAID Expansion Enclosure

I have a QNAS TS-451+ with 4x4TB drives in raid 5. Its nearly at its capacity now so the options are either to buy 4 new higher capacity hard drives or to get an expansion enclosure. I went with the expansion enclosure route as its less disruptive and cheaper ( I already had 3x2TB drives already)TR0004 was easy to set up (You Tube is your friend) and now I have 4TB extra to go with my 11TB in the TS-451+. When have the enclosure in software control in QTS, the QNAP software recognize it as an external storage in that can be managed via QTSUsing the setup to store my movie files (Plexmedia server)and backup files. So far no issues.Special thanks for PLE for shipping this quick time (from New Zealand). Shipping time was better than some Australian based shops.

A BIT NOISY, BUT DOES THE JOB SO FAR!

Have to agree with Cheshire, this unit is a bit noisy when operating. We got to the point that we couldn't find archival material without wrangling through about a dozen external desktop drives, including a mix of Firewire drives, and a bunch of 1TB and 3TB drives for storing digital audio and video archives. Purchased this little box from B&H along with 4 Seagate 16TB drives, and set them up as RAID 10 for 32TB of archival storage. Yes, they are slow (there's a lot of data being loaded and RAID processed for storage!). But this unit was easy-peasy to setup, and it does the job needed. It clunks along next to my desktop, and is a bit of a noisy annoyance with almost continuous activity. BUT, it apparently can also be daisy-chained to increase storage capacity, which ... MoreHave to agree with Cheshire, this unit is a bit noisy when operating. We got to the point that we couldn't find archival material without wrangling through about a dozen external desktop drives, including a mix of Firewire drives, and a bunch of 1TB and 3TB drives for storing digital audio and video archives. Purchased this little box from B&H along with 4 Seagate 16TB drives, and set them up as RAID 10 for 32TB of archival storage. Yes, they are slow (there's a lot of data being loaded and RAID processed for storage!). But this unit was easy-peasy to setup, and it does the job needed. It clunks along next to my desktop, and is a bit of a noisy annoyance with almost continuous activity. BUT, it apparently can also be daisy-chained to increase storage capacity, which may become necessary once we migrate all our digital recordings, and then start transfer of a boatload of legacy analog reel recordings (after baking tapes for playback!).All in all, a nifty box, simple to setup, and easy to configure with QNAP software to get an archive process started on over a half-century plus of live audio concert recordings. And if 32TB isn't adequate, we'll likely add more to expand storage capacity with similar products from QNAP via B&H (B.T.W. B&H sets the industry standard benchmark for quality, knowledge, super service, and competitive cost; it doesn't get much better than this outside of free!)

Easy setup great custome svc

I purchased the qnap because I could not set up a drobo 5n I purchased a couple of years ago. The drobo 5n software no longer works. I've only ever used drobo. I set up qnap yesterday with the help of one of Qnap tech rep. They were so easy to get a love person Joshua, which is very important to me. Joshua helped with every step and was really patient with my set up. I synced the Qnap with Time Machine. So far very good. We set it up just like drobo. If one hard drive fails you can hot seal it with a new drive and you don't loose any info. The rep at B&H was great too. He gave me direct ph# to Qnap customer svc.

Fine Quality 4-Bay Drive Expansion Enclosure

Before purchasing the TR-004, I already had a TR-002 for a year and experienced the great quality and flexibility that model had to offer. I recently decided to ad the TR-004 to my drive storage solution and I am not disappointed. With the added drive bays and configuration options, I have more choices and flexibility than before. I am using this on my Mac and the only downside I have found is that I can not boot from disk0 on either the TR-002 or TR-004. The problem appears that the unit performs a POR after selection of boot drive just long enough that the Mac boots back to it's internal drive. The solution I have around this problem is to use an external WD drive or a USB external 2.5/3.5 docking station for boot when needed. I have found both the TR-002 and ... MoreBefore purchasing the TR-004, I already had a TR-002 for a year and experienced the great quality and flexibility that model had to offer. I recently decided to ad the TR-004 to my drive storage solution and I am not disappointed. With the added drive bays and configuration options, I have more choices and flexibility than before. I am using this on my Mac and the only downside I have found is that I can not boot from disk0 on either the TR-002 or TR-004. The problem appears that the unit performs a POR after selection of boot drive just long enough that the Mac boots back to it's internal drive. The solution I have around this problem is to use an external WD drive or a USB external 2.5/3.5 docking station for boot when needed. I have found both the TR-002 and TR-004 to be quiet in operation when using Seagate NAS drives. I would like to think WD NAS drives are quiet too, but have not used WD NAS drives to verify.With the TR-004, you can configure for individual drives, JBOD, RAID0, RAID1/10 and RAID5. If you're wanting to use the drive bays as separate disks, then be sure to set the option switch for individual drives, or else all drives will be erased and treated as one.So, based on my experiences and observations, I would recommend to anyone requiring an expansion enclosure.

Great little RAID box

I've got it loaded up with 4 12TB Toshiba X300 drives configured as RAID10 and it's been working great for a week now. Only 2 things keep me from giving it 5 stars. First, the locks on the drive bays are a joke. There's no proper indication of whether they're open or closed and the little metal pieces clipped on to the plastic axles popped off when I opened the bay doors. Not a big deal for me since it isn't in any sort of secure environment, but perhaps a more robust bit of construction is called for there. Second, the Windows app that pops up every time the box is connected (I leave mine on all the time so this only happens when I reboot the computer) has no setting to start itself minimized. So minor gripes, and overall it does what it's supposed to, with ... MoreI've got it loaded up with 4 12TB Toshiba X300 drives configured as RAID10 and it's been working great for a week now. Only 2 things keep me from giving it 5 stars. First, the locks on the drive bays are a joke. There's no proper indication of whether they're open or closed and the little metal pieces clipped on to the plastic axles popped off when I opened the bay doors. Not a big deal for me since it isn't in any sort of secure environment, but perhaps a more robust bit of construction is called for there. Second, the Windows app that pops up every time the box is connected (I leave mine on all the time so this only happens when I reboot the computer) has no setting to start itself minimized. So minor gripes, and overall it does what it's supposed to, with transfer rates in excess of 200 MB/sec over USB 3. Very happy with the device.

Great value for its price

A 4-bay RAID capable enclosure for this price is truly a great value. Admittedly, connected through USB-3.2 Gen 1, it is surely slow for a high traffic professional storage. But for a home-based large volume storage the solution is just right. I placed four 16TB drives in the enclosure and configured them to RAID-5. Using Windows 10, I formatted it to a virtual drive, and all this went without a hitch. 46.3TB in size, fantastic. QNAP has some issues with its firmware, but these are minor problems. For example, it took me a better part of one hour to install a firmware upgrade. The reason was a quite ambiguous translation to English (restart meat really power down and power up. Also by a seldom coincidence, one of my 4 drives was defective. And of course, I placed it ... MoreA 4-bay RAID capable enclosure for this price is truly a great value. Admittedly, connected through USB-3.2 Gen 1, it is surely slow for a high traffic professional storage. But for a home-based large volume storage the solution is just right. I placed four 16TB drives in the enclosure and configured them to RAID-5. Using Windows 10, I formatted it to a virtual drive, and all this went without a hitch. 46.3TB in size, fantastic. QNAP has some issues with its firmware, but these are minor problems. For example, it took me a better part of one hour to install a firmware upgrade. The reason was a quite ambiguous translation to English (restart meat really power down and power up. Also by a seldom coincidence, one of my 4 drives was defective. And of course, I placed it in the 1st bay. QNAP never managed to boot due to this defective drive. I heard only never ending click-click-click noise, and I saw no progress. Only when I removed the drive, the device booted. And so I identified the defective drive. But when I tested this drive in my Dell workstation, the firmware correctly caused a timeout, and displayed a defective drive message. I am sure that a less experienced user would be perplex, and maybe even tried to return the QNAP enclosure. Furthermore, once I received a replacement for the 4th defective drive, I found no possibility to add it to existing 3-drive RAID 5 setup. I had to reformat the RAID5 drive and restart the backup from the beginning. Thus please be aware of the small limitations in the TR-004. Still, I am a happy camper, and I think that for the price user gets a great value without an alernative.

QNAP missed the mark

This product could be good with some tweaks but as-is I'm quite unhappy with it and considering returning it to B&H.Most annoying feature: when a RAID group is in a degraded state (ie, disk failure) the device emits a VERY loud series of warning/alarm beeps every couple of minutes. Good idea, right? Actually no, because there is NO WAY to mute the alarm and it will continue to beep for as long as it takes to swap in a spare disk and/or rebuild the RAID group...even if that takes 24 hours (or longer). So good luck trying to sleep through the alarm if you have this device in a home or home/office setting. It is unreal that the manufacturer didn't think to include a mute option.The chassis feels robust but the individual disk caddies feel cheap and flimsy. The ... MoreThis product could be good with some tweaks but as-is I'm quite unhappy with it and considering returning it to B&H.Most annoying feature: when a RAID group is in a degraded state (ie, disk failure) the device emits a VERY loud series of warning/alarm beeps every couple of minutes. Good idea, right? Actually no, because there is NO WAY to mute the alarm and it will continue to beep for as long as it takes to swap in a spare disk and/or rebuild the RAID group...even if that takes 24 hours (or longer). So good luck trying to sleep through the alarm if you have this device in a home or home/office setting. It is unreal that the manufacturer didn't think to include a mute option.The chassis feels robust but the individual disk caddies feel cheap and flimsy. The latches feel like they will break with even just the slightest force required to remove or insert the caddies into the chassis, and the plastic lock to prevent accidental removal of each caddy is stiff and feels prone to stripping.I realize that this is considered an entry level product but it could've been so much better for just a marginal price increase.I also own a QNAP TS-869 PRO 8-bay NAS and the two aren't even comparable. Where the 8-bay NAS feels solid, the TR-004 feels like a cheap toy.

Works, but difficult install and boot up Win 10 machine

Installing the QNAP TR004 I am using the QNAP TR004 as a DAS to a Intel NUC D54250WYK running Win 10. I assembled the 6T WD Red drives (WD60EFAX) in the DAS and set the switch to Hardware Raid 5. I then plugged it in and installed the QNAP software. Once the software came up, it saw the TR004, but I could only see the individual drives in the QNAP software. I had forgotten to switch to administrators, so Disk Manager was not available. Once rebooting to admin and restarting the QNAP app I could see the drives in DiskManager, but saw no way to setup a raid 5 array. After changing the switch to software control and reloading, the red button to setup a raid array was visible (restarted app). I clicked on it and added all 4 drives to the raid 5 volume. Then Disk Manager ... MoreInstalling the QNAP TR004 I am using the QNAP TR004 as a DAS to a Intel NUC D54250WYK running Win 10. I assembled the 6T WD Red drives (WD60EFAX) in the DAS and set the switch to Hardware Raid 5. I then plugged it in and installed the QNAP software. Once the software came up, it saw the TR004, but I could only see the individual drives in the QNAP software. I had forgotten to switch to administrators, so Disk Manager was not available. Once rebooting to admin and restarting the QNAP app I could see the drives in DiskManager, but saw no way to setup a raid 5 array. After changing the switch to software control and reloading, the red button to setup a raid array was visible (restarted app). I clicked on it and added all 4 drives to the raid 5 volume. Then Disk Manager could see the raid drive and I could format it. After setting up a GPT partition and quick formatting as exFat, I restarted. The system would not boot up, even after trying several times. I unplugged the drive and booted up. Then inserted the usb connector and that finally mounted the TR004 and I reformatted as NTFS doing a full format. A day later I tried rebooting again but it would never quite come up. Many times I got a message “Bios has detected unsuccessful POST attempt(s). Possible causes include recent changes to BIOS Performance Options or recent hardware change.Press ‘Y’ to enter Setup or ’N’ to cancel and attempt to boot with previous settings.” Pressing Y did no good, because I could see no setting that needed changing. If I press N it would still never boot up if I had it formatted as exFat, but will boot with difficulty if NTFS. Somewhere in there I found that I had to change the DIP switch back to the “Hardware Raid 5” setting. I don’t believe I could ever get it to boot after formatting the raid while it was set to software control. I usually had to pull the usb cable and let the computer boot, then plug in the. TR004 after booting. It will boot now in the following steps. A long boot time with black screen, then the POST error dialog, I press N, long time again, then it goes to normal boot process. I have never had this problem with any other external drive, exFat or NTFS. I am still looking for solutions.

good for adding onto existing QNAP RAID

I have a 4 slot QNAP RAID that was getting filled up after several years of use. The expansion unit I was expected to move too was no longer sold. This unit was made to replace. Not the best as its SATA-3 and is really not a full feature RAID. The built quality of is cheap with mostly plastic components when my existing QNAP is mostly metal. New generation home QNAP units looks to be built on cheaper parts. I decided to buy it as it allows my existing QNAP to manage it. It was on sale and made it a simple option till I replace my NAS option which may be a truenas or other option. The support from QNAP has been average and nothing to say I will definitely buy it again. B&H was very efficient from order to delivery and would definitely buy from them again.

the ultimate belt-and-suspenders solution

First off, big props to B&H support team member Marco for spending nearly an hour on the phone with me helping me arrive at this decision. Basically I needed a DAS RAID device that could not only replace my seven random hard drives that have cluttered my desk for years, but also provide drive security in case a drive failed, AND also show up on my system as a single external drive that Backblaze would recognize and back up to the cloud (benefit of DAS instead of NAS).Installation of the drives (Seagate Iron Wolf 10TB x 4, sold separately) was super easy, and I was quickly up and running my new RAID 5 and transferring files from the old drives.A note: I'm personally less worried about blazing fast speed because I'm 99% using this RAID for archive purposes only. ... MoreFirst off, big props to B&H support team member Marco for spending nearly an hour on the phone with me helping me arrive at this decision. Basically I needed a DAS RAID device that could not only replace my seven random hard drives that have cluttered my desk for years, but also provide drive security in case a drive failed, AND also show up on my system as a single external drive that Backblaze would recognize and back up to the cloud (benefit of DAS instead of NAS).Installation of the drives (Seagate Iron Wolf 10TB x 4, sold separately) was super easy, and I was quickly up and running my new RAID 5 and transferring files from the old drives.A note: I'm personally less worried about blazing fast speed because I'm 99% using this RAID for archive purposes only. I'll only rarely need to work live off files on this box. So 7200 RPM drives connected via USB-C is just fine for me.It's a little loud on the desk, though it kind of sounds like Chopper from Rebels, so it's a little bit endearing.