The document discusses new features in QNAP Turbo NAS QTS 4.0 for SMB including: - Support for up to 8 SAS RAID expansion enclosures for scalable capacity expansion. - QNAP Flexible Volume which provides dynamic storage pool expansion, instant volume expansion, and thin provisioning. - Performance enhancements including SSD caching to accelerate IOPS and support for SMB 2 for faster file sharing. - Advanced data protection features such as SMART data migration and RAID read error correction. - Improved virtualization support and integration with VMware vSphere and Windows Hyper-V including offloading of storage operations using VAAI and ODX for better performance.

1. QNAP Turbo NAS
QTS 4.0 for SMB
Simple, Secure, Scalable and Reliable

2. Legal Disclaimer
•
•
•
•
•
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH QNAP®
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TO ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS GRANTED BY THIS DOCUMENT.
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PRODUCTS, QNAP ASSUMES NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER, AND QNAP DISCLAIMS
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY, RELATING TO SALE AND/OR USE OF QNAP
PRODUCTS INCLUDING LIABILITY OR WARRANTIES RELATING TO FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR INFRINGEMENT OF ANY PATENT,
COPYRIGHT OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT.
QNAP products are not intended for use in medical, life saving, life sustaining, critical
control or safety systems, or in nuclear facility applications.
QNAP may make changes to product specifications at any time, without notice. The
information here is subject to change without notice. Contact your local QNAP sales office
or your distributor to obtain the latest product specifications before placing your product
order.
QNAP, QNAP logo, and VioStor are trademarks or registered trademarks of QNAP
Systems, Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property
of others.
Copyright © 2013, QNAP Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

3. VMware Legal Statements
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4. What’s New in QTS 4.0 for SMB
Capacity
Expansion
QNAP Flexible
Volume
Exceptional
Performance
Enhancement
Advanced
Data
Protection
New
Virtualization
Experience
Office
Collaboration

5. Capacity Expansion

6. • Supports up to 8 SAS RAID
expansion enclosures
• Creates a storage pool on a
RAID expansion enclosure
• Expands the storage pool
capacity easily
• Detects missing RAID
expansion enclosures to
protect the data
RAID Expansion Enclosures
Big Capacity and Instant Expansion

7. Missing Mode Detection
• Auto-detects RAID expansion enclosure connections
– Enters the missing mode when disconnection occurs
– Blocks IO accesses while in the missing mode
• Recovers from the missing mode to the normal state
without losing data

8. Locate Hardware Easily
Locate the NAS, RAID expansion enclosures,
hard drives, and RAID groups in the server
room with just a single CLICK!

9. QNAP Flexible Volume

10. QNAP Flexible Volume
• QNAP Flexible Volume Introduction
• Benefits of QNAP Flexible Volume
–
–
–
–
–
–
Dynamic storage pool expansion
Instant volume expansion
Flexible volume allocation
Thin-provisioned volume with space reclaim
Block-based iSCSI LUN
Ease of management (dashboard, disk management,
notification)

11. QNAP Flexible Volume Introduction
HDD Management > Storage Pool > Volume > Shared Folder
Shared
Folder 1
Shared
Folder 2
Volume 1
Shared
Folder 3
LUN 1
Volume 2
LUN 2
Storage Pool
RAID Group 1
RAID Group 2
Hot
Spare
Internal Hard Drives
2013/12/12
QNAP Confidential
RAID Group 3
RAID Expansion
Enclosure
11

12. Storage Pool
•
Flexibility
–
–
–
–
•
Aggregates HDDs as a big storage pool to provide the flexibility for capacity deployment
Supports different types of RAID groups*
Max 128 storage pools
Max 308 TB per storage pool
Capacity threshold notification
Storage Pool
RAID Group 1
(RAID 6)
RAID Group 2
(RAID 5)
Internal Hard Drives
RAID Group 3
(RAID 10)
RAID expansion enclosure
* Configuring the same RAID type in a storage pool is recommended to get the best practices of performance or capacity utilization

13. RAID Group
Provides the flexibility to increase HDD fault tolerance
RAID Group 1
(RAID 6)
RAID Group 2
(RAID 5)
• Supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 5 + hot spare, 6 + hot spare,
and 10 + hot spare
• Supports hot spare drives of RAID and enclosures
• Online RAID expansion and migration

14. Dynamic Storage Pool Expansion
• Add new hard drives to existing RAID groups
• Add new RAID groups to the storage pool

15. Instant Volume Expansion
• Expand volume capacity over 16TB
• Online size expansion
• Supports thin provisioning dynamic allocation
Over 16 TB
up to 250 TB

16. Flexible Volume Allocation
• Quickly create multiple volumes on storage pool for different
applications
• Online capacity expansion
• Thin provisioning for dynamic allocation
• Volume capacity threshold notification

17. Thin Provisioning Volume
• Allocate space when data is written to disk
• Volume size can be up to 250 TB
• Space reclaiming support in various ways
Physical Space
Without Thin Provisioning
Physical Space
With Thin Provisioning

18. Thin Provisioning Space Reclaim
• Space Reclaim for Thin Provisioning
– Batch and manually scan for deleted files
– Reclaim space from deleted blocks and release
capacity to the storage pool

19. Use Volume as iSCSI LUN
•
•
•
•
Mount volumes as iSCSI LUNs
With better performance yet less overhead
Supports thin provisioning
Supports online resizing
LUN
Online Resizing
Thin
Provisioning

20. Dashboard
Quick overview of the storage health on a single page

21. Disk Management
• All new graphic design
• Intuitive operation
• Effortlessly manage large numbers of HDDs

22. Capacity Threshold Notification
Configurable threshold
for low volume
capacity alerts
Email, SMS
notification

23. Exceptional Performance
Enhancement

24. SSD Caching
•
•
•
•
•
Accelerates the IOPS performance of volumes
Volume-based read cache
Improves IO utilization for random read operations
Supports hot-swapping SSD drives and auto updates the cache data
Supports 2x SSD for caching up to 1TB capacity

25. Accelerate I/O Performance
•
•
Increase the IOPS by up to 20 times IOPS with highly random IOmeter
workload
Reduce the latency by almost 3 times for applications of mail database
Testing Environment:
Host PC:
1. CPU: Intel(R) Core i7-4770 3.4GHz 3.4GHz;
2. Memory size:16GB
3. OS: Windows 7 professional SP1 64bit
4. HDD: Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH162
NAS configurations:
1. 3.5"HDD:Seagate ST4000NM0033*8 with RAID 5
2. SSD HDD: ATA OCZ-VERTEX4*4
Note: Cached IO performance of SSD caching is based on application and IO pattern. Before using
this feature, please make sure your application is read-intensive operation.

26. Supports SMB 2
•
•
•
•
Faster transmission speed with large MTU
Improves the performance with multiple users
Read performance doubles depending on the IO latency
Supports symbolic links
2

27. Advanced Data Protection

28. SMART Data Migration
• Proactively detects possible drive failures and migrates
the data to a new healthy spare drive
• Triggered by bad block remapping and S.M.A.R.T.
thresholds
• Reduces potential data loss and rebuild time

29. Drive Error Recovery Control Support
• Supports TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) or ERC (Error
Recovery Control) compatible hard drives
• Data is returned faster and the risk of losing data is reduced

30. RAID Read Error Correction
• Auto corrects RAID blocks with read errors by
using healthy blocks
• Supports RAID 1, 5, and 6

31. Drive and RAID I/O Error Logging
• Kernel-level drive or RAID I/O errors
• Drive I/O retry warning
• Warning of corrections for RAID read errors

32. RAID Hot Spare / Global Hot Spare
• Hot Spare drives for the Local RAID groups and Global enclosure
• The Global Hot Spare drive can be used by any RAID groups in the
same enclosure
• Dedicated enclosure hot spare drives can be configured for the NAS
and each RAID expansion enclosure
RAID Group 1
RAID Group 2
Hot Spare
(for RAID Group 1 )
Hot Spare
(for RAID Group 2 )
Global Hot Spare
(for RAID Group 1&2)

33. New Virtualization Experience

34. New Virtualization Experience
• VMware vSphere
– Supports VMware VAAI
– QNAP vSphere plug-in
• Windows Hyper-V
–
–
–
–
Supports ODX (Offloaded Data Transfer)
SCVMM
Thin Provisioning
Certified for Windows 2012

35. QNAP for VMware vSphere

36. Supports VMware VAAI
What is VAAI?
VMware vStorage APIs Integration (VAAI) is a set of APIs
that allow ESXi hosts to offload processing for certain
storage-related services to storage systems.
Benefits:
The integration of QNAP NAS with VMware VAAI offers the
optimal performance for customers to deploy a virtualization
environment.

37. QNAP Supported Features
• VAAI for iSCSI
–
–
–
–
Full copy (hardware-assisted copy)
Block zeroing (hardware-assisted zeroing)
Hardware-assisted locking
Thin provisioning and space reclaim
• VAAI for NAS
– Full file clone
– Extended statistics
– Reserve space
Note:
1.
Firmware 4.0.4 or above is required.
2.
Visit the QNAP virtualization features page for supported NAS models and more details.

38. VAAI for iSCSI : Full Copy
What is Full Copy?
VAAI OFF
Enables the QNAP storage to make
full copies of data within the NAS
without needing to have the ESXi
host read and write the data.
Benefits:
• Reduces the loading of ESXi hosts
• Faster virtual machine clone
processing.
Read
Write
ESXi Host
VM’
iSCSI datastore
VAAI ON
Effective usage:
• vCenter Cloning
• Storage vMotion
• Deploy VMs from templates
VM
VM
Copy
VM’
ESXi Host
iSCSI datastore

39. VAAI for iSCSI : Full Copy Performance
Test environments and verification steps:
• TS-EC1279U-RP, 12* Seagate ST3000DM001-9YN166 (SATA), RAID 6
• Measured time to clone a 30 GB VM containing data (not an empty thin provisioned VM), using a normal storage and QNAP new Firmware with
VAAI.

40. VAAI for iSCSI : Block Zeroing
What is Block Zeroing?
VAAI OFF
Enables the QNAP NAS to zero out
a large number of blocks to speed up
the provisioning of VMs.
Benefits:
• Reduces the loading of ESXi hosts.
• Faster allocation of the capacity for
virtual machines.
Effective usage:
•
•
Create Thick Provision Eager
Zeroed virtual disks.
Write data to Thick Provision
Lazy Zeroed virtual disks.
Write 0 to 0x01
Write 0 to 0x02
Write 0 to 0x03
Write 0 to 0x04
Write 0 to 0x05
ESXi Host
0 0 0 0 0
iSCSI datastore
VAAI ON
0 0 0 0 0
ESXi Host
Write 0
iSCSI datastore

41. VAAI for iSCSI: Block Zeroing Performance
Test environments and verification steps:
• TS-EC1279U-RP, 12* Seagate ST3000DM001-9YN166 (SATA), RAID 6
• Measured time to create a 30 GB VM with eager zero hard drives, using a normal storage.

42. VAAI for iSCSI: Hardware-Assisted Locking
What is Hardware-Assisted
Locking?
Hardware Assisted Locking enables
granular locking of block storage devices
rather than entire LUN locking in SCSI. It
provides a much more efficient means to
avoid retries for getting a lock when many
ESXi hosts share a single datastore.
Benefits:
• Permits the QNAP NAS to scale to more
VMs and more ESXi hosts w/o performance
penalty.
VAAI OFF
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
ESXi Host 1
VM
VM
ESXi Host 2
iSCSI datastore
ESXi Host 3
VAAI ON
Effective usage:
• Power on VMs
• Create VMs or templates
• Create VMFS datastores
• …. and more
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
ESXi Host 1
VM
VM
ESXi Host 2
iSCSI datastore
ESXi Host 3

43. VAAI for iSCSI : Hardware-Assisted Locking Performance
Performance verification steps:
VM2
VMware ESXi 1
VMware ESXi 2
0100100
10
1. Create a virtual machine (VM1) on
the ESXi host 1, and use IOmeter
to generate I/O load on iSCSI
datastore.
2. Create 16 virtual machines (VM2
to VM17) on another ESXi host 2
and perform the virtual machine
power ON operations
simultaneously.
3. Record the throughput of the VM1.
………..VM17
VM1
Gigabit switch
VM1
VM2
VM3
…....
VM17
QNAP iSCSI datastore

44. VAAI for iSCSI: Hardware-Assisted Locking Performance
w/o VAAI
VM1 starts to I/O
Power ON VM2 ~VM17
Performance drop
w/ VAAI
VM1 starts to I/O
Very small
performance impact!!
Power ON VM2 ~VM17

45. VAAI for iSCSI: Thin Provisioning and Space Reclaim
What is Thin Provisioning
Space Reclaim?
Releases the LUN space when
virtual disks were deleted or
migrated.
Benefits:
• More accurate reporting of disk
space consumption.
• Avoid out-of-space condition
• Increased NAS space utilization
and save $.
w/o VAAI
Free Space
(100 GB)
VM2 (20 GB)
Free Space
(100 GB)
Delete VM2
VM1 (30 GB)
VM1 (30 GB)
w/ VAAI
Free Space
(100 GB)
VM2 (20 GB)
Free Space
(120 GB)
Delete VM2
VM1 (30 GB)
VM1 (30 GB)

46. VAAI for NAS: Full File Clone
What is Full File Copy?
VAAI OFF
Similar to the Full Copy in iSCSI, it
enables the QNAP storage to make
full copies of data within the NAS
without needing to have the ESXi
host read and write the data.
Benefits:
• Reduces the loading of ESXi hosts
• Faster virtual machine clone
processing.
Read
Write
ESXi Host
VM’
NFS datastore
VAAI ON
Effective usage:
• vCenter Cloning
• Storage vMotion (cold clone)
• Deploy VMs from templates
VM
VM
Copy
VM’
ESXi Host
NFS datastore

47. VAAI for NAS: Extended Statistics
What is Extended Statistics?
Enables vSphere to query space
utilization details for virtual disks on
QNAP NFS datastores. This
includes the size of a virtual disk
and the real space consumption of
the virtual disk.
Benefits:
• More accurate reporting of disk
space consumption.
• Increased NAS space utilization
and save $.
w/o VAAI
1. How much disk
space does the
virtual disk1 take?
VM1
100 GB thinprovisioning
disk with 20 GB
data
ESXi Host
NFS datastore
w/ VAAI
1. How much disk
space does the
virtual disk1 take?
VM1
ESXi Host
100 GB thinprovisioning
disk with 20 GB
data
NFS datastore

48. VAAI for NAS: Reserve Space
What is Reserve Space
Historically, vSphere only supported
building thin virtual disks on NFS.
By supporting the Reserve Space, a
space pre-allocated virtual disk
(thick provision eager zeroed disk)
is possible in QNAP NFS
datastores.
Benefits:
• Better virtual disk read/write
performance (thin provision disks
v.s. thick provision disks)
w/ VAAI
Thin provision
virtual disk
Thick provision
virtual disk
NFS datastore

49. QNAP v.s. Competitors
Primitive
Full copy (iSCSI)
Block zeroing (iSCSI)
Hardware-assisted locking (iSCSI)
Thin provisioning space reclaim(iSCSI)
Full file clone (NAS)
Extended statistics (NAS)
Reserve space (NAS)
The comparison table is based on QNAP QTS 4.0 firmware
QNAP
QTS 4.0
Competitor A
Competitors B

50. QNAP vSphere Plug-in
The QNAP vSphere Plug-in is provided for users to manage the
VMware datastores on the QNAP Turbo NAS directly from the vSphere
Clients. Additional NFS or iSCSI datastores can be easily created for
multiple ESXi hosts in just a few clicks!
Benefits:
•
•
•
Increase the productivity and efficiency.
Easily control the status of the Turbo
NAS and datastores.
Support NFS or iSCSI datastores.
Notes:
1.
Supported NAS firmware: 3.7.3 or above.
2.
Supported Windows OS: Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2, SP1/ Windows 7x86, 32-bit, SP1/ Windows 7 x86, 32-bit, SP1
3.
For more details, please refer to the vSphere plug-in user guide.

51. How vSphere Plug-in Improves Productivity?
Sample task scenario:
You have two ESXi hosts and want to connect to a shared iSCSI
datastore.
Steps (w/o vSphere Plug-in):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Connect to the NAS
Create iSCSI target on the NAS
Create iSCSI LUN on the NAS
Connect to vSphere Client
Connect the ESXi host #1 to the iSCSI
target
Rescan all HBA
Create a datastore
Connect the ESXi host #2 to the iSCSI
target
Rescan all HBA
Steps (w/ vSphere Plug-in):
1. Connect to the vSphere Client
2. Create a datastore via QNAP
vSphere Plug-in
3. Done !!
3 Steps
Only

52. QNAP for Microsoft Hyper-V

53. Supports Microsoft ODX in Windows 2012
What is ODX?
Similar to VMware Full Copy function,
the Microsoft Offloaded Data Transfer
(ODX) enables the QNAP storage to
make full copies of data within the
NAS without needing to have the
Windows hosts read and write the
data.
Benefits:
• Reduces the loading of Windows
hosts
• Improves the performance of copy
and move operations for Windows
hosts using the QNAP iSCSI storage.
w/o ODX
3
Data
Windows Host 1
1
2
Read
4
Data
Windows Host 2
Write
data
5
Results
NAS
Virtual
disk 1
Virtual
disk 2
w/ ODX
3
Token
Windows Host 1
1
Offload
Read
4
2
Token
Windows Host 2
Offload
Write w/
token
6
Results
NAS
Virtual
disk 1
5
Data
Virtual
disk 2

54. Microsoft SCVMM (System Center Virtual
Machine Manager)
• SCVMM is designed for management of large
numbers of Virtual Servers based on Microsoft
Virtual Server and Hyper-V.
• Monitor, configure QNAP iSCSI storage in
SCVMM console.

55. Thin Provisioning for Windows 2012
• Supports Windows 2012 thin provisioning
identification and optimization

56. Space Reclaim
• Windows Server 2012 System administrators can
use the Optimize Drives utility to reclaim space.

57. Certified for Windows 2012
QNAP TS-x79, TS-x70, TS-x69
are certified for Windows Server
2012.
This certification signifies that all
TS-x79 , TS-x70, TS-x69 products
meet Microsoft standards for
compatibility and recommended
practices when used with the
Windows Server 2012 operating
system, and are supported in
Hyper-V environments.

58. Qsync for SMBs

59. Qsync for SMB
What is Qsync?
Qsync allows users to synchronize their files between
multiple computers, and between users by sharing.
Benefits:
The use of Qsync permits to keep the latest copy of the files.
It is possible to share folders between users so that each
users can have the latest version of the files modified by
others. Ideal for collaboration!

60. Qsync for SMB
How it works?
•
•
•
•
Qsync synchronizes files in the user's Home folder.
Files remain accessible only by the user.
When a folder is shared, it becomes a Team Folder.
Team folders can be shared among multiple users.

61. Sync Files Between Different Devices
User 1
PC 1
1- File updated
in Qsync folder
User 1
PC 2
User 1
PC 3
2- The updated file is
replicated to all
devices of User 1

62. Share Files with Colleagues
User 1
PC 1
1- File updated in
a Team Folder
User 1
PC 2
User 1
PC 3
User 2
PC 4
2- The updated file is
replicated to all devices of
all members of the team
folder.

63. Domain Account Support
• Supports unlimited domain account
• Supports Windows DC and LDAP

64. Summary
• New storage architecture provides big capacity and
instant expansion
• Flexible volume allows users to deploy storage
space without hesitation
• System gets exceptional performance enhancement
• Advanced data protection provides higher data
reliability
• Improves efficiency by leveraging new virtualization
experience
• Synchronization utility helps users enhance
productivity and office collaboration

65. Thank you!