NAS devices these days are much more than a convenient place to store and share files on your network. They’re packed with advanced functionality. They can also be noisy, because cramming multiple hard drives into a small enclosure typically makes fans a necessity.

That’s generally not the kind of device you’d want to put in your entertainment center. QNAP’s HS-453DX is different. It’s built to be seen and not heard.

The HS-453DX is a sleek, compact unit. Most importantly, it’s completely fanless. It features a pair of 3.5-inch bays that support Seagate’s massive 14TB hard drives (among numerous others) and two M.2 slots for additional SSD capacity.

While they can only add another 2TB of extra space for your files the extra performance they offer might come in handy. QNAP recommends sticking to 5400RPM HDDs to keep heat under control, and those aren’t the kind of drives you’d want running virtual machines or a full-blown Linux OS. Yes, those are both things you can do with the HS-453DX.

Spin the box around and you’ll find a bevy of ports. The 453 has two USB 2.0 and three USB 3.0 (2 type A, 1 C) ports, 10G and gigabit Ethernet, two 3.5mm audio inputs and one output, and dual HDMI outputs. QNAP has smartly equipped the 453 with an IR sensor so that you can control it with a remote instead of a mouse or keyboard. WiFi connectivity is not included but QNAP does support several USB adapters in case you want to go that route.

There are actually two different models of this NAS, the HS-453DX-4G and -8G. Both are powered by the same Intel Celeron J4105 quad-core 1.5 GHz chip. The difference? One ships with 4GB of RAM and the other has 8GB. You’ll want to opt for the latter if you plan to run VMs or Linux on it.

They normally list for $599 and $699, but QNAP has knocked about $20 bucks off on their web store.

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Lee Mathews

Computer tech, blogger, husband, father, and avid MSI U100 user.

8 replies on “QNAP’s new fanless NAS is designed for entertainment centers”

  1. They are concerned with noise, yet designed this for 3.5″ drives and make it fanless?

  2. Looks cool but even with 2 14tb drives it’s not enough storage for anyone serious about having a home media server.

    1. “it’s not enough storage”

      XX Tbytes is never enough storage.

      Would a petabyte be enough? (Hardware prices around USD 120k and just think of the utility bills.)

      1. I think you could get a solution for less than $120k. 1000TB / 8TB = 125 drives. $150 for a 8TB drive ($19k for all the drives). Two 72 disk racks (Supermicro CSE-417E26-R1400UB) @ $3k each ($6k). Then two server boards, cpus, and 125 sata ports on expander cards for another $6k. I bet you could get a petabyte for under $32k. Not as fancy, but decent. If each movie was 4GB in size you could have (8000GB / 4GB) = 2000 movies per 8TB drive… for a total of 125 * 2000 = 250,000 movies. Not bad for $32k.

        1. Electricity might not be too bad if all the drives are spun down, except for the one you are accessing. Even at 4W per drive, that is 500W. That would be roughly $500 in electricity for a year.

  3. Never bought a NAS. I have 6 drives in my Lian Li micro atx tower (all spun down except for OS drive which has frequently accessed files). Has an ivy bridge i5 and has been on 24/7 for 6 years now. Idles at 28W. It is my primary desktop.

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