QNAP Demos TVS-871T Thunderbolt NAS At Computex

Intel fed us a bunch of information yesterday on what the upcoming Thunderbolt 3 standard will deliver, and in our post, I mentioned that storage is an example of one thing that could benefit from our ever-faster connections. It’s interesting, then, that the folks at QNAP unveiled a perfect example of what I’m talking about at Computex.

Built on its preexisting TVS-871, QNAP’s TVS-871T 8-drive NAS adds Thunderbolt 2 to the mix, offering up to 20Gbps of throughput. If standard NAS hard drives are used in the TVS-871T, that could deliver throughput of ~800MB/s at the low-end, and 1.2GB/s at the high-end. Given that, USB 3.1 would also be suitable, but with dual Thunderbolt 2 ports, there’s the potential to see some ridiculous performance if NASes are teamed.

QNAP’s 8-drive TVS-871 NAS

Thunderbolt-based storage devices are not new, but the fact that the TVS-871T can also work over a network is what makes it special. That means it could be plugged straight into the PC it’s sitting next to via Thunderbolt, while everyone else could use traditional networking.

On that topic, the TVS-871T ships with quad 1Gbps ports, but that can be upgraded to 8 quad 1Gbps ports, or 4 10Gbps ports. Flexibility is the name of the game here.

There’s been no mention of price or a release date, but on account of the demo at Computex being a joint effort between Seagate and QNAP, it sounds like there’s a chance that the final released product could come in a flavor that bundles in massive drives that could help take advantage of what Thunderbolt 2 can offer.

Intel is pushing Thunderbolt harder than ever, and as it helps negate the issue of not being able to easily get 10Gbps Ethernet into the home, I look forward to seeing more NASes supporting the protocol going forward.