QNAP TS-209 II Turbo NAS

Building the TS-209 II

QNAP's TS-209 II fascia detaches very easily, meaning the hard drive bays are immediately apparent. Simply removing a few thumbscrews is all it takes to get the drive cages out, then four screws in the bottom of your hard drive and they easily slot back in. QNAP could have used some rubber grommets here to isolate potential drive vibrations and there's no additional noise reduction on the inside of the grey aluminium shell.

Without the front on it's not exactly a good looking device, but once the disks are in there's little need to take it on and off regularly, and even if you do it's only held on with thumbscrews. With the fascia attached the TS-209 II is an incredibly smart device, even if the shiny surface is a bit of a dust magnet. Two large grills in the side allow airflow through and out the back to the 80mm fan exhaust.

The LEDs and buttons at the front are nicely done too - they are clear to understand and the light doesn't leak either side making it look more stylish and to be honest the black looks far better than the cheap grey plastic on TS-409 Pro we recently looked at.


We feel that despite the hard wearing, finger print resistant metallic grey coat given to the aluminium shell, it should probably be black to match the fascia, because it reeks too much of "consumer product built to a formula" that you're only meant to see from the front on, rather than an object of style in its entirety.

Of course, we could be over thinking it, but given that bit-tech's forums are chocked full of modders dedicated to making things look good from all angles, having something you're proud to feature in your living room is a must for many. What's more, given the increased reliance on sleek and stylish design in many of today's most desirable consumer products, there's no place for an ugly grey box in a state-of-the-art living room.

At the back, things are a bit more normal - there's a single RJ45 network socket for Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports, a power socket and a hard reset button just for the rare occasion when things go well beyond wrong.


Size wise it's very dinky 17.5 x 21 x 11.5cm that should fit into nooks and crannies around the living room or on a bookshelf with relative ease.