The Inside

To open the TS-509 up we are voiding the warranty, QNAP has nothing to hide and doesn't mind.


Unfortunately I can't fully open everything up without breaking it. I can get plenty of information about the hardware used though. And I'm surprised, it seems to be a very nice toy for people not minding to void warranty.


The first things I noticed are the SATA cables connect to the motherboard. Due to one being spaced further away from the rest, the absence of three connectors is easily noticed. Perhaps an eight bay device can some day be made using this motherboard.


Memory initially seems to be a single DDR2 SO-DIMM socket, looking behind it reveals a second socket left empty. Upgrading the TS-509 memory capacitry this way is kid's work.


When looking inside the unit, a huge heatsink catches attention, obviously the CPU is located here. As the specs mention, there is a desktop CPU under it, hence the size of the heatsink. Unfortunately getting a good look is impossible, as the drive bays are connected to the front and back which makes me unable to remove the motherboard. Looking from the side this clearly is Socket 775, the CPU could therefore be replaced with something more powerful.


As promised, I'm getting back to the VGA connector. I've connected a monitor to it and got a signal, you can actually see Linux boot. And yes, a keyboard works as well. There is a slight downside here, the signal keeps flashing. You get an image for two seconds, then it's gone for 10 just to say hello to you again and leave. I'm guessing this is some BIOS issue as it happens before Linux boots as well.

The nice thing is that we have x86 hardware here, common computer parts and both input and output options, which basically means one could use this device like any other PC.
Before launching this review I spoke to QNAP, I mentioned how great it is that everything can be upgraded though that this is at the expense of warranty. Apparently QNAP had a lot of spare warranty stickers because the response was, besides unexpected, that they handle warranty by serial number and don't care about the sticker. So unless you're going through extremes with this, warranty should be fine.