QNAP stands for Quality Network Appliance Provider and are in the market for designing quality NAS drives. Looking at their mission statement should prove that they are serious about producing quality NAS drives as it states to be the world leader in NAS solutions. Big boots to fill!

Generally QNAP produce disk-less devices. This means that you essentially buy the shell and put your own hard drives in it, which can help to control cost. You get all the software required to run, operate and administer your NAS, it is just the hard drive(s) you need to supply.

QNAP are generally seen as one of the fastest NAS devices from independent tests, e.g. the QNAP TS-509 with a gigabit Ethernet read results are well above the 70MB/s range. The TS-509 can hold up to 5 drives and be configured with RAID 5, see my other article for RAID descriptions and whether you need it (To Raid Or Not to Raid NAS is the Question). The TS-509 is more aimed at the business users but that's not to say it can't be used by home users as well. It all comes down to how deep your pockets are and what you need from a NAS device.

QNAP do provide single drive solutions but remember that this is still a point of failure and some of my other articles around online backups might shed some light into this (Why Online Backups Can Make You Sleep Peacefully)

QNAP provide a range of functionality from file sharing to UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) support, from sophisticated backup software, encrypted remote replication. They are definitely at the top of the pile of NAS devices in my books.