Specifications, Availability and Pricing

The new x79 series from QNAP are designed to replace the x59 series and there have been some improvements in the specifications department. One of the biggest improvements comes in the CPU side of things as we move away from the Intel Atom series processor to the new Sandy Bridge based ones. In the case of the new TS-879 Pro and TS-1079 Pro, they both get the Dual Core i3-2120 at 3.3GHz and 2GB of DDR3 RAM.

The pricing side of things is where the NAS path becomes a bit scary. Coming in at $2,599.99, the TS-1079 Pro is an expensive device and the first thing people tend to say is that they can build a much more powerful system that can do more for less, and while it's true, there's just a certain something about a NAS. Its convenience, power draw and ease of use are just some of the benefits. Compared to the TS-859 Pro+ at $1,549.99, the slightly higher spec'd TS-1079 Pro sporting an extra two bays and some other higher spec'd components make this NAS look very expensive as well.

While the TS-1079 Pro is available at the moment, the TS-879 Pro+ which is shown on the QNAP website hasn't really shown up yet. A lot of that is probably due to the TS-859 Pro+ still being around and still being extremely capable. The reason the TS-1079 Pro has hit, though, would be the fact that the x59 series wasn't graced with a 10-Bay NAS.

We'll get into everything in our final thoughts, but for now let's leave it at that and move onto the software side of things.