DAS capabilities in 253a/b 251a etc.

[vinay]

Hi,

I understand that QNAP 253a/b and maybe various 251 versions include what's called "DAS", meaning, that it is possible to connect a computer to the storage as an external drive through USB or Thunderbolt. Is that the case?
If so, when attaching computer to the storage device that way - does it work and appear exactly the same as external hard disk does?

Reason I'm asking is as follows and may be very relevant to many other customers.

I'm using crashplan that runs on windows for backup (as many other people). The issue with moving to NAS is that crashplan doesn't support backing up directly from the NAS and if backing from another computer then windows is not formally supported because when a drive is mounted to windows crashplan service doesn't have access (permission issues of the service). There are workaround to that but they are not supported by crashplan and I don't want to use an unsupported configuration with an important service such as backup.

However, crash plan does support external disks under windows.

So if I could connect my windows machine to the QNAP and QNAP would appear as an external hard drive, that would solve my (and other's) backup issues, you would even be able to make sure such configuration is officially supported by Crashplan and that would help quite a few people.

So back to the initial question - do above models (and/or others) support DAS in a way that a windows computer would see the storage device exactly like an external disk when connected through USB/Thunderbold?

Thanks

[storageman]

No, Qnap shares or mapping external disks \\192.168.1.100\USB Disk 1 is still not a DAS. Still over a share protocol.
The closest to DAS is using ISCSI.

[vinay]

How can I use ISCSI with QNAP? Is it supported in these model? Will QNAP appear as an external drive in that configuration?

[dolbyman]

iscsi is supported on all qnap models ...setup is explained in the manual

[vinay]

Will it appear as an external drive and support my cloud backup plan as described in the initial post?

[dolbyman]

never used crashplan, but the drive will appear as external block storage device

[OneCD]

BTW: @dolbyman - congrats on your 10k posts!

[dolbyman]

BTW: @dolbyman - congrats on your 10k posts!

woop woop .. still not able to delete spam posts .. lol

[vinay]

never used crashplan, but the drive will appear as external block storage device

Sounds good then, I found another thread somewhere where someone indeed said Crashplan knows to backup iScsi targets.
And just to verify - iScsi will allow me to see the same data that is accessed by other machines over the network through standard mounts, is isn't some separate volume with separate storage on the NAS, right?

[dolbyman]

ISCSI will be a separate block storage (as mentioned before) file or pool based (your choice) .. it will NOT be accessible via share to other network devices

[vinay]

Oh, so it doesn't help.

[dolbyman]

I think in your original post your were referring to "quick access" that feature just creates a virtual network adapter when you plug your device into the QNAP so it is also NOT a DAS

[storageman]

ISCSI will be a separate block storage (as mentioned before) file or pool based (your choice) .. it will NOT be accessible via share to other network devices

Not quite true, nothing to stop you then sharing that PC/server mapped drive to other network users.
Obviously if the PC/server is off no access for network users to the LUN/share even if the NAS is up.

[Trexx]

OP - You may want to look at the upcoming QNAP Live video for the TR-004. Depending on your needs, might be closer to what you are looking for.

https://live.qnap.com/en/video/show/1851