A Look Inside

It's time now to strip down the NAS and discover what components it hides inside the casing.


As you can see we completely dismantled the NAS to show you its internals. Reaching so deep inside the TS-669 Pro isn't the easiest thing in the world but our experience with QNAP products made the whole process go smoothly. The fact alone that the price of this NAS exceeds $1000 should be reason enough for you to not try to take it apart, possibly breaking it in the process.


All you have to do to gain access to the internals is remove three screws in the back of the case and take out the one-piece top and side cover. The rear side of the small mainboard is protected by a thick plastic shield against shorts, since it is close to the metal casing. The second RAM slot is located on this side, in order to make the RAM upgrade process far easier. Also the plastic shield is cut around the slot so you don't have to completely remove it to install the memory module. This makes RAM upgrades a breeze.


After we removed a lot of screws, several cables and the rear side of the casing we finally gained access to the front side of the mainboard. The two big heatsinks cool down the Atom CPU and the chipset.


A close shot at the dual-core Atom CPU and its heatsink, passive cooling is enough for this low TDP processor.


There is one ADATA DDR3 1333 memory module (1 GB) already installed on the mainboard.


The two NICs are controlled by two Intel ICs.


The monitoring IC is an ITE ΙΤ8721F.


An Asmedia ASM1442 controls the HDMI port which currently is de-activated and reserved for future use.


The EEPROM IC is an Altera EPM3054A.


The single PCIe slot and the battery of the mainboard. Right next to the battery we find a CY28400ZXI-2 IC which is the differential buffer for PCIe and SATA ports.


The PCIe expansion card that holds all SATA ports is directly connected to the PSU through a 20 pin connector. Nearby we find two SANYO (OS-CON) polymer caps. Three Marvell 88SE9125 controllers are installed on this card and among others also offer compatibility with the SATA 6 Gbps protocol.


The functions of the LCD screen are handled by a Microchip PIC16F73 8-bit microcontroller.


The two cooling fans are provided by Y.S. Tech and their model number is FD129225LB (90mm, 12V, 0.15A, 1900RPM, 40.2CFM, 80000 MTBF). They use ball bearings so they will last fairly long, definitely much longer than a sleeve bearings one. Exactly the same fans are used in TS-419II P and TS-469 Pro models (only one in each).


We left the SFF PSU that powers the NAS for last. Its model number is DPS-250AB and it is manufactured by the famous PSU OEM Delta Electronics, one of the best in this area with highly reliable and good performing products. The 250W of power (17A max at +12V) it can deliver are more than enough for the needs of this NAS and according to the 80 PLUS organization this PSU meets the 80 PLUS requirements. Finally the small 40mm fan it uses is very quiet and its output noise is totally overpowered by the noise of the two 90mm fans that cool the NAS.