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QuTS hero 5.0Beta
High-performance ZFS-based operating system with greater reliability
ZFS-based QuTS hero ensures performance and data integrity
Faced with the explosive growth of data, VDI popularity, increasing SSD adoption, 8K media, and other disruptive IT trends, modern businesses need dependable storage systems to meet future demands. QNAP’s new “QuTS hero” operating system combines the app-based QTS with a 128-bit ZFS file system to provide flexible storage management, comprehensive data protection and optimized performance to meet the needs of business-critical applications.
Learn More: Why QNAP business NAS uses ZFS
Empower your business with QuTS hero now!
What’s new!
Upgraded to Linux Kernel 5.10, QuTS hero supports next-generation hardware platforms and protects your digital assets with enhanced security features.
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Dedicated ZIL - SLOG
By storing the ZIL and read cache (L2 ARC) data on different SSDs for processing read and write workloads separately, you can benefit from better overall system performance and improved SSD utilization and lifespan, ensuring that your flash storage investments are fully optimized.
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Increased security level
Supports TLS 1.3 to improve security and performance, auto-update of the operating system and apps to ensure your NAS operates under optimal conditions, and SSH keys for authentication that help secure access to your NAS, preventing password breaches or similar potential attacks.
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WireGuard VPN
The new QVPN 3.0 integrates the popular, lightweight, and reliable WireGuard VPN, providing you with an easy-to-use interface for setting up a secure connection – an especially great tool for home/remote working.
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Enhanced image recognition with Edge TPU
By leveraging Edge TPU to QNAP AI Core (the AI-powered engine for image recognition), QuMagie can perform faster face and object recognition while QVR Face strengthens real-time video analytics for instant facial recognition.
Learn More: Coral M.2 Accelerator, Coral USB Accelerator
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Predict drive health and failure with the help of AI
The DA Drive Analyzer – developed in partnership with QNAP and ULINK Technology – is an AI engine that predicts the expected lifespan of drives, allowing you to take preemptive steps to prevent data loss from predicted drive failure.
Learn More: DA Drive Analyzer
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Free exFAT support
exFAT is a file system that supports files up to 16EB and is optimized for flash storage (such as SD cards and USB devices) - helping accelerate large media file transfer and sharing.
Learn More: QNAP NAS supports exFAT
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Instant Clone
After synchronizing data via SnapSync from a primary to a secondary NAS, you can further conduct Snapshot Instant Clone on the secondary NAS. This assists in copy data management and data analysis without interfering with production server operations and the primary data. Instant Clone is also useful for DevOps, such as app development, database testing, analysis, and reporting.
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Optimized resource allocation with QoS
Quality of Service (QoS) helps ensure that applications/tasks maintain a required level of performance. For example, assign a 25GbE port to real-time SnapSync tasks for ensuring disaster recovery planning, a 10GbE port for file transfer and sharing within LAN, and a 1GbE port for HBS backup jobs via the Internet. You can further utilize QuWAN (Software-defined WAN) to automatically mesh multi-site VPN with load balancing support, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), and WAN accelerating (Multi-WAN aggregation) for optimum network deployment.
Learn More: QuWAN SD-WAN solution
Improve your storage performance with inline data deduplication, compression, and compaction
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Inline Data Deduplication
Inline deduplication is block-based and is carried out before data is written to storage. This greatly optimizes storage usage while significantly decreasing storage capacity requirements.
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Inline Compression
Compress data to reduce storage I/O workloads for improved performance. In VDI, deduplicated virtual desktops are easily cached to achieve optimal virtual desktop performance.
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Inline Compaction
Especially helpful for increasing SSD storage efficiency when highly-repetitive data or massive small files (e.g. transaction logs of banks or e-commerce) are generated. It delivers higher cost efficiency for all-flash storage systems.
Self-Healing ensures data integrity and reliability
Data integrity is key to the reliability of applications and databases. As SSD adoption grows, businesses will encounter a greater risk of data loss as it is difficult to recover data from a dead SSD. Designed with a focus on data integrity, ZFS uses end-to-end checksums to detect and correct silent data corruption caused by hardware defects, bugs in firmware or metadata errors. If an integrity violation is detected, ZFS automatically repairs the damage using data from another mirror before the data is passed to applications. QuTS hero is also WORM (Write Once, Read Many Times) compliant to ensure that data, once written, cannot be modified.
Robust data protection and flexible capacity utilization with RAID Z
QuTS hero supports conventional RAID configurations (RAID 0 (Striped), RAID 1 (Mirror), RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, RAID 50, and RAID 60) and adds support of RAID Triple Parity for protecting against three-disk failures and Triple Mirror for an identical copy of data stored on three disks. Designed to deal with petabytes of data, RAID Z demonstrates an outstanding tool for creating ready-to-use high-capacity RAID in a matter of seconds.
Multi-level cache technology with both read and write boosts performance
ZFS simultaneously supports main memory read cache (L1 ARC), SSD second-level read cache (L2 ARC), and ZFS Intent Log (ZIL) for synchronous transactions. The L1 ARC works with the L2 ARC to minimize hard drive access requirements while boosting read performance. The ZIL is useful for applications with large synchronous random write workloads (such as databases), as data will be written to the ZIL first and then written to storage, helping to decrease latency and improve write performance.
Snapshots multiply backup protection
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Near-limitless, instant snapshots bring you peace of mind
Supports up to 65,535 snapshots for iSCSI LUN and shared folders (if 1 snapshot is created every hour, 24 snapshots per day, then up to 7 years of snapshots can be created without needing to delete any!). Copy-on-write technology makes snapshot creation almost instantaneous without affecting ongoing data writing.
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Snapshot Replica simplifies data protection
Efficiently replicates snapshots to a remote server by copying only the changes made. This can save time and bandwidth, and can be run manually or on a scheduled basis.
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SnapSync for remote snapshot replication enables enterprise-class disaster recovery
Supports block-level SnapSync for remote snapshot backups. It only transfers changed data to save required storage space and to improve backup speeds. Real-time SnapSync ensures that when a change is made to the files in the target storage space, a remote replication will be processed. In the event of a primary site failure, SnapSync assists businesses to resume essential services in the shortest time.
Note: SnapSync is supported by QNAP NAS models featuring the QuTS hero (4.5.3 or later) and QES ( v2.1.1 v11 or later) operating systems. These NAS can be paired with each other to provide the perfect backup storage solution.
Prevent simultaneous multi-SSD failures with QSAL
SSD lifespan is determined by a finite number of writes. It is highly possible that several SSDs in the same RAID reach their end-of-life at the same time, causing a RAID crash with data loss. QNAP’s patented QSAL (QNAP SSD Antiwear Leveling) algorithm regularly detects the lifespan and durability of SSD RAID. When SSD lifespan is in its final 50%, QSAL will dynamically distribute the over-provisioning space to guarantee each SSD has enough time to rebuild before it reaches end of life. This can effectively prevent simultaneous multi-SSD failures and improves the reliability of the entire system. QSAL has little effect on storage space utilization, only causes a negligible decrease in performance, and significantly improves overall data protection for flash storage.
Note: QSAL can be activated at any time and is compatible with SSD Parity RAID that has not been configured before. It is recommended to enable QSAL before the SSD lifespan reaches 50% to prevent the risk of damage to the SSD RAID due to insufficient rebuild time.
Pool over-provisioning ensures write performance
With Pool Over-provisioning, space can be flexibly reserved in a storage pool to allow new data to be written into a complete block even if the pool is almost full, thus improving the performance of fragmented pools. For write-intensive workloads and performance-demanding applications (such as SQL transaction logs, backups, surveillance, and medical videos) you can set higher pool over-provisioning to attain higher write performance.
When big blocks are written to hard drives
When small blocks are written to SSD
Includes the full QTS App Center
QuTS hero includes the full App Center ecosystem, allowing you to boost your NAS functionality with tools for backup/sync, business, content management, surveillance, productivity, and much more.
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Comprehensive backup
HBS centralizes backup, restoration, synchronization, and features QuDedup technology to deduplicate backup data at the source to accelerate backup and restoration. HBS is an incredible asset for managing 3-2-1 backup strategies.
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Virtualization and containers
Virtualization Station and Container Station facilitate flexible and economical virtualization applications. The Network & Virtual Switch app boosts interoperability between QNAP NAS, virtual machines, containers, and physical network interfaces while fulfilling easy management of both virtual and physical networks.
Note: ZFS uses 50% of the host memory for the Adaptive Replacement Cache (ARC) by default. To maintain optimal system functionality, it is recommended to limit virtualization applications to a maximum of 50% memory. -
File synchronization
Qsync simplifies file sync between NAS, desktops, notebooks, and mobile devices, while also allowing timely group file sharing for optimized teamwork efficiency.
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Enterprise cloud backup
Boxafe allows you to backup or sync files, emails, calendars and contacts from Google™ G Suite and Microsoft® Office 365® into the NAS to safeguard enterprise cloud data.
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Virtual machines and Windows® data backup
With no license fees to pay, Hyper Data Protector is the best way to backup/restore multiple endpoint devices, including VMware®/Hyper-V virtual machines and Windows® PCs/servers (Available soon) – all via a QNAP NAS.
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Cloud gateways
Includes over 20 mainstream cloud service providers, and features HybridMount file-based cloud gateway and VJBOD Cloud block-based cloud gateway services. These allow you to easily mount public cloud storage on NAS for near-unlimited storage potential and low-latency access.
Affordable Fibre Channel SAN storage solution for post-production
Storage Area Networks (SAN) deliver reliable high performance, making it a preferable storage option for post-production environments that require low-latency and fast data transfer. By using a QNAP 16Gb/32Gb Fibre Channel card, a QuTS hero NAS can be easily added to existing SAN environments at an affordable price point. With exceptional IOPS performance, powerful data reduction capabilities, self-healing against silent data corruption, and comprehensive backup/restoration features, QuTS hero NAS provides a perfect high-capacity, FC-compatible data center for professional video studios.
Learn more: QNAP 16Gb/32Gb Fiber Channel expansion cards
Special edition QNAP NAS with QuTS hero preinstalled
QNAP provides the following special edition QNAP NAS with a preinstalled QuTS hero operating system. Take advantage of high-performance hardware and expandability with the cutting-edge storage management, data protection and optimized features of QuTS hero!
Tiered storage configuration for a QuTS hero NAS
Basic requirements for setup are similar to QTS. We recommend you to follow these steps to acquire optimal storage efficiency and performance for QuTS hero.
File transfer performance
Compared to QNAP’s QTS operating system, the latest QuTS hero operating system delivers better data transmission performance and capacity of realizing the full potential of 10GbE data transmission. QuTS hero also outperforms QTS in multiple small file transfers.
| Operating System | QuTS hero | QTS 4.4.1 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| iSCSI | 4KB File | Random Write | 33917 | 11191 |
| Random Read | 93407 | 88152 | ||
| SMB 3.0 | 4KB File | Random Write | 34168 | 11367 |
| Random Read | 67922 | 80669 | ||
| SMB 3.0 File Transfer |
1* 10GB File | Upload | 1154 | 1136 |
| Download | 1162 | 1142 | ||
| SMB 3.0 File Transfer |
10000* 1M File | Upload | 256 | 26 |
| Download | 453 | 51 | ||
Test Environment:
NAS: TS-h1283XU-RP
1. F/W: H4.5.0.1105 build20191030
2. CPU: Intel® Xeon® E-2236 CPU@3.40GHz
3. SSD: Samsung® 850 PRO 512 GB x 12 (RAID 5)
4. RAM: 32 GB (8 GB x 4)
5. Thick volume; Block-based LUN
6. 1GbE NIC: Intel I211 Gigabit Network; 10GbE NIC: QXG-10G2SF-CX4
PC environment
1. CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-6700 CPU@ 3.40 GHz
2. OS: Windows® 10
3. Memory: 64 GB
4. 1GbE NIC Onboard; 10GbE NIC: CX3
Inline data compression helps boost QuTS hero data transfer performance. During simultaneous file transfer from multiple clients, inline data compression enabled QuTS hero performance is 1.6 times faster than QuTS hero or QTS without inline data compression.
1 x 10GbE SMB 3.0 – File Transfer
| Number of Clients | QuTS hero with Inline Compression | QTS or QuTS hero without Inline Compression | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upload | Download | Upload | Download | |
| Client x 1 | 1.1 GB/s | 1.0 GB/s | 1.1 GB/s | 1.0 GB/s |
| Client x 2 | 2.2 GB/s | 2.2 GB/s | 1.9 GB/s | 1.86 GB/s |
| Client x 3 | 3.1 GB/s | 2.9 GB/s | 2.19 GB/s | 2.69 GB/s |
| Client x 4 | 4.4 GB/s | 4.1 GB/s | 2.72 GB/s | 2.95 GB/s |
| Client x 5 | 5.4 GB/s | 4.5 GB/s | 3.26 GB/s | 3.49 GB/s |
Note: Each client was set to transfer a 10GB RAW file through 10GbE connectivity.Performance figures may vary according to file type and compression rate.
Test Environment:
NAS: TS-h1283XU
1. F/W: H4.5.0.1140 build20191204
2. CPU: Intel(R) Xeon® E-2236 CPU@3.40GHz
3. SSD: Samsung 860 PRO 512 GB x 12 (RAID 5)
4. RAM: 32 GB (8 GB x 4)
5. Thick volume
6. 1GbE NIC: Intel I211 Gigabit Network
7. 10GbE NIC: QXG-10G2SF-CX4
8. 10GbE NIC: Intel Ethernet Controller 10G X550T (x2)
Client x 4 environment
1. CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-6700 CPU@ 3.40 GHz
2. OS: Windows® 10
3. Memory: 64 GB
4. 1GbE NIC Onboard
5. 10GbE NIC: CX3 (Client x 1)
6. 10GbE NIC: X550 (Client x 3)
Client x 1 environment
1. MacOS Mojave 10.14.6
2. Processor 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7
3. Memory 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
4. 10GbE NIC: QNA-T310G1S
The more RAM, the higher ZFS performance
Memory plays a vital role in ZFS performance - especially in high-speed data transfer, data deduplication, ARC, and caching. It is recommended that you install as much memory as possible to attain the highest benefits of ZFS performance and optimized business workloads.
About NAS migration and RAID management for QuTS hero
As ZFS metadata management is different from Ext4, QTS-based NAS drives cannot be directly used by a QuTS hero-based NAS (and vice versa). Users can install new hard drives to start QuTS hero. If QTS users want to use their existing drives in QuTS hero, they must first ensure all of their drive data has been backed up, and then initialize the hard drives. It is recommended that users thoroughly evaluate their storage needs before installing QuTS hero.
Expanding the storage capacity of a QuTS hero NAS requires adding a complete RAID group to the Storage Pool. Once a RAID group is created, it does not support expanding a RAID group by adding an individual hard drive and does not support migrating RAID levels. Users can allocate spare hard drives for Hot Spare protection or creating additional RAID groups. Users must have enough drive bays to facilitate storage expansion needs in the future when configuring storage in different stages.
| Storage expansion methods | QuTS hero operating system | QTS operating system |
|---|---|---|
| Add an individual disk to an existing RAID group | ----- | |
| Add a RAID group to a Storage Pool | ||
| Replace all member disks of a RAID group with higher-capacity disks | ||
| Connect JBOD expansion units |
QuTS hero or QTS?
Make your choice based on this information.
| QuTS hero | QTS | |
|---|---|---|
| Filesystem | ZFS | Ext4 |
| SSD Cache | Read Cache | Read/Write Cache Read Cache Write Cache |
| Inline Compression | Yes (LZ4 compression, ideal for RAW files and document files) |
No |
| Inline Deduplication | Yes (At least 16 GB RAM required) |
No |
| HBS with QuDedup for Remote Backup | Yes | Yes |
| Power Failure Protection (Hardware) | Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) | Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) |
| Power Failure Protection (Software) | ZIL Copy-On-Write (Service continues after power recovery) |
No (Risk of filesystem-level corruption on power-loss and system downtime required for “Check File System”) |
| Permission Management | Rich ACLs (14 types) | POSIX ACLs (3 types) + certain special permissions |
| Capacity Expansion | Upgrade RAID capacity Change higher capacity disk drives Attach expansion enclosures/JBODs |
Add a disk drive to a RAID group Upgrade RAID capacity Change higher capacity disk drives Attach expansion enclosures/JBODs |
| Data Security | Better (Self-Healing & Copy-on-Write) |
Standard |
| Overall Performance | Requires higher-performance CPU and more memory | Better |
| Recommendation SSD Configuration for Video Editing Applications | Use SSD Pools Note: Set the block size 128K when creating Folders/LUNs |
Editing (from original/RAW files): Use SSD Pools Post production: Enable Read/Write cache Note: Set the block size to 32K or 64K when creating Volumes, and choose “All I/O” for cache mode. |
QuTS hero White Paper
This white paper helps organizations better understand the reliability-focused design of the QuTS hero operating system. Readers can learn how to leverage the technologies and benefits of QuTS hero to conquer modern data storage and applications challenges.
Notes
- QuTS hero requires a NAS with at least 8GB memory.
- Inline Data Deduplication requires a NAS with at least 16GB memory (at least 32GB memory is recommended for optimal performance).
- QuTS hero is not supported by dual-controller NAS systems.
- As QTS and QuTS hero use different file systems, the NAS system must be re-initialized before switching between QTS and QuTS hero. Users must back up their data and system settings beforehand.
- Release Note: https://www.qnap.com/go/release-notes/quts_hero/
Join Now!
QuTS hero h5.0 Beta Program
QuTS hero h5.0 improves data security and functionality. QNAP now invites you to download, install and experience the QuTS hero h5.0 beta. Please remember to provide your feedback so that we can improve the official release of QuTS hero h5.0 based on your usage experience.
How to participate
- Check your NAS compatibility with QuTS hero h5.0 Beta.
- Download and install the QuTS hero h5.0 beta from here.
- Complete and submit the online form to finish the Beta Test feedback process. (Note: You must sign in with your QNAP Account on https://www.qnap.com/ and then submit the application form.)
- The Beta Test period ends at 23:59 (UTC+8) on October 15, 2021
- All feedback and bug reports must be made to QNAP before 23:59 (UTC+8) on October 15, 2021
Terms and Conditions
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QNAP collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise treats the personal information of participants with great consideration.
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QNAP will not disclose, rent, sell, or otherwise transfer participants’ personal information without their consent, except as otherwise set out in these Terms and Conditions.
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Participants testing developmental software must tolerate the unpolished nature of a pre-release product. Backing up important data is recommended before upgrading.
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Participants grant QNAP the right to use their beta test feedback for the purpose of QNAP products/services development and improvement.
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Participants agree to participate in surveys if QNAP finds their feedback showing insightful information.
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QNAP reserves the right to modify the terms and conditions without prior notification at any time.
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Participation in the QuTS hero h5.0 Beta Test is deemed acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.
QuTS hero h5.0 Beta Feedback Form
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