QNAP QM2-2P10G1TA Hardware Review - NVMe & 10Gbe PCIe Ugrade Card

It desperately needs an update to PCIe Gen3 or Gen4. One nice feature we saw was the ability to use this card in everything from QNAP NAS with QTier to a ASUS Threadripper 3960X workstation to a Supermicro 1U server, to a HPE MicroServer. QNAP did a great job making this a general-purpose architecture. Performance-wise, this solution offers a unique capability of adding network and storage to a single card. Storage performance can be labeled as NVMe, but is far from the performance we see in native PCIe 3.0 x4 slots. As the card is loaded, that performance drops even more. It seems to offer more than simply checking boxes that a NAS can support NVMe and 10Gbase-T but it is not the same as a PCIe Gen3 solution. At under $250 the card is not exactly inexpensive. Purchasing a 10Gbae-T adapter plus a dual M.2 PCIe card (without a switch) can be done for a little over half of that amount. Still, there is a uniqueness to the solution when one has a single PCIe slot that makes this card still useful.

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[fins]

Hey great videos as usual. I bought the QNAP TS-253b (upgraded to 8 gig RAM)and 8 TBs after watching your review several years ago and is mostly used for my 2000+ plex server. My question is would I benefit from installing the QM2 pci card and notice anything for Plex?

[MikeAzul]

Very useful information on this card and the bottlenecking on a 2x2 pcie port like my 453D.

[michaelscott]

Wanted to thank you for all your hard-work, love your videos, has been a big help! I ended up buying a TS-653x, have drives coming, waiting for a deal on two M.2 4 drives... not sure which is the best upgrade card to add to my setup. I do a lot of picture and video editing. Was about to buy the QM2-2P-384, not sure the system I have can take advantage of that card?

[TheLDunn]

These sorts of videos are so handy.

For me, I expect a NAS will be a relatively long term investment (my last one died this year after ~12 years service), so for me its important to do my research well, I’m not just buying for now, but for the future.

Therefore it seems to me that picking a NAS based upon its PCIe slot upgradability is certainly a factor one should be carefully that it just has them, but what version PCIe slots it has.

With NVMe speeds up in the 3000MB/s range, and capacities likely to increase while prices fall, I can well see that these might become the storage medium of choice in the not too distant future, not just for use as cache for HDD’s running around 250MB/s

With 4K video streams up around 1700MB/s, I’d either need to have multiple HDD’s in my RAID to get the speed up to that sort of level, more than just for storage (8xHDD), or go for half as many SSD’s that typically run twice as fast as HDD’s, so 500MB/s, typically being throttled by SAtA to 600MB/s anyway, or, one NVMe on PCIe then, capacity becomes the issue with NVMe currently, so would probably need multiple NVMe’s to get the capacity required anyway....just thinking about what my ‘optimum’ system might be.

....and it also suggests 10GBe, let along 1GBe or 2.5GBe is not really going to be sufficient either, that maybe 25GBe (2500MB/s) is going to be more optimal when playing around with editing raw 4K footage (if that is something I actually end up doing over the next 10 years, which I feel is a reasonable assumption).

I guess, the take out from all this, is that your NAS is only as strong as its weakest link. If you only have one HDD giving 250MB/s, then there is little point upgrading to 25GBe if you only have 1GBe ports, there is little point in populating with NVMe on a fast PCIe bus as your main if you go for super fast NVMe via PCIe to get the speed you want, but then realise you need lots of them to get the capacity you required, you could end up with way more speed at the NVMe than you actually need and maybe SSD or HDD’s would have been the more optimal solution, or....final one, if you are not planning to shift lots of data, like a 4K raw video stream, then there is little point in upgrading to any of these super fast solutions.

It’s about working out your wants/needs over the lifetime you expect to use the NAS, then looking for the best balance of storage capacity, storage speed & your network speed (to your main device), then look for the NAS that best supports those least, that’s what I think is required, but I could be wrong!

[BertM]

This is a great product for older systems that get converted into NAS. I am using a AQC-107 card in the 16x slot where the videocard used to live. With this device I could run a NVME drive instead of a SATA SSD.

[gabrielcr]

Hello, would you please make an updated video about their latest card: QM2-2P10G1TB? i have one but i'm hesitant to use it for caching, initially bought it just for the ethernet adapter... but i was wondering on adding a couple of 1tb NVMes for cache.. not i'm not too sure.. there is virtually no revies for info on the forums about the performance of the QM2-2P10G1TB. Thank you!

[KolasinskiDaniel]

Hi. Have you already tested whether in QNAP NAS it is possible to install third-party m.2 expansion cards other than QM2 and if they work properly as caching disks? I'd like to upgrade my TS-453D

[salvamando]

Great video and information. I have a stupid question: can I install this into my windows PC? I ask because I have one PCIe 4.0 slot left in my machine and I have to choose between having a 10gbe adapter or NVME adapter. Wishful thinking?

[UwUOwO-gkyg]

Is this compatible with TVS-h674...looking 2x 10Gbe card if available...is there 4Gen PCIe cards available for H674?

[Suzukii-DIY]

Love your content. Extremely insightful. Now if only there were an "unofficial" video release suggesting best GPU'S to use in the like the TS-x73a line and other QNAP NAS that do not have embedded GPU's for PLEX transcoding. Any ideas off the top of your noggin? I currently received the TS-673a unit with 5-8TB IRONWOLF drives, not realizing there was no native video output. I may return it though in a few days.

[ierosgr]

Does it have a raid chip on board? ... or is it a plain hba controller? (jbod) . I need it to pass through the disks for zfs

[chenchenzhu]

Do you manage to drive the NIC close to 10Gbps? I only get 6.66 Gbps tested with iperf3. There are very few test results for it. Thanks!

[ming]

I just bought a 653D and I want to put this PCIe card in it. My question is if I populate both NVMe slots with 1TB NVMe SSD's, can I set one SSD to caching and the other to bulk storage at the same time or do both SSD's need to be set the same way?

[Chadawickerbee]

Can you please test the QM2-2P10G1TB, QM2-2P410G1T😁 I love your in-depth analysis 👏

[cdphotography]

Which version of the QM2-2P10G1TA is faster/better M.2 SATA or M.2 PCIe NVMe ?

[killstreakpinterest]

Can anyone help me answer this, if I install this card on my qnap nas, and using the 10GbE port to connect directly to my laptop thunderbolt port, can I use the existing 2.5GbE port for internet network connection? If not, then does the two ethernet port are redundant and cannot be utilized at all? If yes, then what's the point of giving two 2.5GbE port in the first place if i can only use one? I'm trying to make my nas as direct access storage while at the same time making my nas to be accessible to my colleagues, as the way how a nas supposed to be. I appreciate anyone that can help me answer this.

[MarcGutt]

With one NVMe or RAID0 it's ok, but with RAID1 it should be limited to 450 MB/s (because the same data is written to both NVMe) and this is a huge downside in my eyes. But with something like snapraid that runs only if Network is in idle, could be a solution. Is there a driver for linux available? Like to use this card in an Unraid server.

[sonnycoton]

Just fitted one of these to my 653b as i wanted 10gbe for large file transfers but i have now a much slower 40MB/s over 10gbe compaired to 100MB/s over 1Gbe. Read speeds are around 400MB/s now up from 100MB/s. ive enabled cache on two 1TB WD SN750's but no change and now dissabled it. I have Win10 machine with Asus SFP+ 10Gbe card to a Zyxel 10Gbe Switch via DAC with SFP+ to RJ45 connected to the NAS via CAT7 cable.

[paulz]

Very true Nas these days really need to be running Pcie 3.0 at least, and the first nas maker to come out with a purely only a NVmie 10gbe nas with onboard PCie 3 interface will be a winner, smaller size and 2/4tb nvme drives have come down a lot in price and will continue to do so. Why muck around with 2.5gbe go straight to 10 guys, the size of data these days needs that 1000mps transfers.
Hence back to the interface pcie 2 just makes Nvme not worth it, sata go abut 550mps nvme on a 2x4 interface goes about 770 mps a 3.0 interface will make it a nice 900 or twice that of sata ssd

[Chucklesrailarchive]

Does anybody know the difference the QM2-2P10G1TA and the older QM2-2P10G1T ?