TS-453D - not seeing in Qfinder / on network but...

[scottyrae]

I'm relatively new to dedicated NASs - I'd previously just been using my old PCs via remote desktop as file servers, media server (plex), print server, download PCs, etc. I bought my 453D last year with the intention of maybe replacing my old PC. I followed one of the online setup guides and set up as a JBOD with 4 x 10Tb drives and installed Plex server but not really been using it beyond as a file server and Plex media server. I set it up, can't quite remember how, It just worked, so for the last year or so I've had no need to worry about it

I decided I wanted to finally try setting up something new on it over the last few days - set up a virtual windows 10 instance to finally replace my old PC. It seemed to work ok, though the instance ran painfully slowly, so I thought whilst it was worth persisting with, I needed a lighter weight version of Windows and a RAM upgrade. I understand that, if I get the right spec RAM, I can go up to 32Gb, so checked on some forums for specific models that worked and bought 2 sticks of Kingston ‎KVR26S19D8/16.

Now this is where it gets complicated. Before I installed the RAM, I'd had a couple of system / (Avast) anti virus updates to my PCs - they must have been relatively major as both needed reboots. I then started having some connectivity problems with the NAS. It wasn't appearing on the network, and connecting through my PC using QFinder seemed to be temperamental. However I could always connect using Qmanager on my phone. It didn't really click with my that I was having problems at this point, and I might be mis-remembering too, but....

I upgraded the RAM.

The NAS booted up, had all of the required beeps, however couldn't see it in Windows Explorer / connect to it through QManager. However I could continue to connect using QManager on my phone, and it was showing everything working - showing the 32Gb RAM, all the disks, shares, etc. Just occasionally the NAS would pop up in Qfinder (and occasionally Windows Explorer), but would never connect, and when I hit refresh it would vanish.

Just to check, I removed the new RAM, reverted back to the stock 4Gb stick, and tried again - same problem.

So I think I've got a connectivity problem, not a memory problem, but for sake of completeness, thought I'd at least mention the new RAM.

It could be a firewall change as part of the Avast update, or it could be something else. But.... no idea what I'm doing around firewalls, and Avast doesn't seem to make it obvious. Also questioning how I've set up my NAS on the network in the first place in some respects, but... hey. Bit late for that now! Also don't know much about networking! I've got a couple of switches to extend the network, and it's all wired. All the lights are flashing, as I said, the LAN port is showing traffic in QManager, but just not appearing on the network.

Oh - just one more thing..... Plex works..... I'm suspecting via the Internet rather than on my own network.

(and now I'm probably going to get hammered for having my NAS connected to the internet, but hey, as I said, haven't a clue! Looking online, it suggests I enable SMB 1.0 on my PCs, but I'm sure I've seen someone somewhere saying don't - it's a massive security risk, so I haven't, but....)

Anyone able to give me some pointers?? and don't shout at me....Please?! Thanks!

[dolbyman]

Avast is one of these programs that "pentests" LAN devices for weak credentials (and gets the machine in question, locked out by QNAPs IP blocker)

Try removal of avast and lease a new IP for that machine from DHCP and try again

Side note, this machine is not really meant for GUI virtualization, it is a very low end Celeron, so using it as a hypervisor will result in very poor performance (no amount of RAM will change that)

[scottyrae]

Avast is ine of these programs that "pentests" LAN devices for weak credentials (and gets the machine in question, locked out by QNAPs IP blocker)

Try removal of avast and lease a new IP for that machine from DHCP and try again

Side note, this machine is not really meant for GUI virtualization, it is a very low end Celeron, so using it as a hypervisor will result in very poor performance (no amount of RAM will change that)

Thanks @dollyman - will give that a try. Am I removing Avast and keeping it removed, or can I reinstall? (I get the impression that Windows Security is probably enough these days / complete anti virus packages are bloatware, but again, just doing what I've always done rather than challenging myself!)

Any suggestions of anything that would allow GUI visualisation at not too expensive a cost? (to be fair, I'm not looking to do too much with this VM, and I'm sure I could do it with the NAS without the VM, but I know how to do it all in Windows and what programs to use - not really a clue about QNAP alternatives or how to configure. I use PIA VPN for example)

[dolbyman]

If you want cheap..just run Win10 on a old Laptop or NUC...just RDP in (Win Pro) so you dont need a monitor connected (if not using a laptop)

An old middle class I5 laptop from 2016 will have lightyears more power than a Celeron NAS

[scottyrae]

Huh. Which is kind of what I have been doing with my old PC... Maybe I was looking at it all the wrong way - I should have stuck with the old PC (i5 3570K) rather than buying a NAS and thinking I could do much of the same stuff! I can't remember the logic for getting the NAS any more - I suspect I just thought it was smaller and more power efficient, where the old PC wasn't really optimised for that sort of thing and was probably overkill for what I was using it for, but... at least I knew what I was doing with it!

Sure, I might get less power usage with the NAS, but it's not a system type I'm familiar enough with and I don't think I'm using any features that I couldn't use on a PC. I guess with the old PC I could try to cut down the size of my case (Fractal Design Define R4, though it does has a ton of drive bays) and I don't need the graphics card... but one of the benefits of it was that it was a backup to my main system. Maybe I sell the NAS instead? Might actually get more money for it! Hmm....

I just bought a TR-004 NAS expansion, but that works perfectly well on the PC too, so again.... why keep the NAS? Would need to figure out how to get JBOD disks into a PC without losing my data (or get my NAS back onto the network and then find enough disk space to copy it to, though most of it is just a backup of existing data...)

Oh no..... this isn't going well, is it!

[dolbyman]

Just a quick check on the raw CPU passmark

Celeron in the NAS
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... Hz&id=3667

i5 3570k
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cp ... GHz&id=828

While the Celeron wins on the efficiency...it loses on the grunt (and you need grunt for the VM part..not so much the NAS part)


The NAS as network storage or video sever would be just fine ..but just not for VMs (it's an added extra to run containers or some CLI only VMs)

[scottyrae]

To be honest, the VM route was to see if I could torrent in a way I understood, but my suspicion is it wouldn't have worked anyway.

I know the NAS can do it using one of the torrent apps, and I'm sure I could configure the VPN for PIA, but.... outside of my comfort zone here! and obviously the recommendations are not to connect to the internet and this seems a particularly risky way of connecting something that shouldn't be connected! It's also why I only ever did it on my backup PC - just in case anything went wrong.

And maybe that's also justification for keeping the NAS - it was always planned to be my backup / file server / media server - what a NAS is for really. But I'm still then running 2 devices when I was hoping to only run 1. Hmm. Needs some thought!

Also then wondering if I need / want the RAM upgrade. Genuinely any reason or value in having more than 4Gb on this NAS?

But it's all a moot point anyway if I can't access the NAS over my network!

[dolbyman]

Running a VM with a torrent downloader should be possible Just dont use a local VM GUI within the VM just use the remote control interface via http that most torrent downloaders have

combine that with a bridged network (for a dedicated IP of the VM) and a selective tunneling router (like asus routers with merlin firmware) and you can use whatever paid VPN provider you have, without bogging down the NAS CPU even more

In this case a slight bump from 4GB would probably be useful

[scottyrae]

OK, interesting....

I disabled Avast shields on my PCs and could get into my NAS via QFinder immediately after restart had completed. The NAS shares were also available in Windows Explorer on both PCs. However the QNAP apps were still starting up whilst I was in the admin console. It eventually locked up, and network errors appeared. The server vanished from Qfinder, and the shares vanished from Explorer. I'm now wondering if this is a NAS issue rather than a Avast / Windows one, or a combination of more than Avast / Windows?

EDIT: Have watched the app loading updates in the admin console - I lose connectivity as soon as QuFirewall loads. Can do everything up until that point.

EDIT 2: Removing QuFirewall resolves the problem. IEven with Avast re-enabled on my PCs. 'm pretty sure I don't want to remove / disable QuFirewall though, do I?!

[scottyrae]

Reinstalled the QuFirewall and all seems fine again. I can safely say I have no idea what happened or what went wrong. 1 wasted weekend! Though forced me to rethink before I'd gone too far.

Obviously this has made me question a whole load of things about my setup and my plans to change it. My current thinking maybe is to keep the NAS and the NAS expansion, upgrade to 16gB RAM (seeing as I bought it!), return the second 16Gb stick, and just use that as my always on NAS file store and media server. Still need to figure out how to configure this, and how best to optimise my setup, but that's maybe one for another post. and a lot of learning to do on NAS if I do keep it I think.

I think I might also keep a second PC to use for torrenting in the way I'm used to - at least short term until I better understand how I can use my NAS to do it safely. Whether I keep my existing second PC (i5 3570K, 32Gb RAM, 650W PSU, GTX 1070, 4 4TB+ hard drives and an SSD - so a half decent PC!), pare it down to a barebones and move the large hard drives to the expansion, or get rid of it completely and just get a small factor desktop or something is still to be determined. The original plan was to sell it, use the NAS, and use the money to fund a new primary PC (and then sell the old one - down to 1 PC plus the NAS). Hey ho...!

My head hurts now.

[dolbyman]

QFirewall is useless and hurts more than it helps..make sure the NAS itself is never ever ever exposed to WAN ..and it's all good (leave it removed)

[scottyrae]

At all? Even for updates? All manual?

[dolbyman]

That is not WAN exposure...you probably use a router with NAT for that

Exposure is forwarding port from WAN to NAS

[scottyrae]

Ohh ok, won't be doing that! Fine, should all be good then! Thanks so much Dollyman!

(and now I'm not able to access it with the new RAM anyway - ARGH!!!! Not having a good weekend!) - EDIT - Cos i'm an idiot and the network cable had been pulled I make clowns look good

[fintan]

Same happened to me with my TS-453A. QuFirewall blocked my local IP after I set up a new system (possibly due to it being dual-boot?). The tricky bit was that access over local network always briefly worked after re-starting the NAS so that the configuration seemed ok at first. Used another machine to login to the web interface and deactivate QuFirewall (not needed due to other measures being in place).