Final Thoughts

QNAP's TS-412 Turbo has proven itself to be a solid all-around product as it does everything relatively well. Performance-wise, you could say it's a jack of all trades but a master of none. However, the build quality and overall design are excellent, being aesthetically pleasing and highly functional. Best of all, the humble hardware inside was powerful enough to justify the TS-412's asking price ($460).

As with previous QNAP products, the TS-412 Turbo NAS was extremely easy to outfit with hardware and configure. The QNAP Finder software is efficient, the Quick Configuration Wizard makes setup a breeze, and the all-important QNAP v3 User Interface is now highly refined and very powerful. In fact, we feel it rivals the Synology DiskStation Manager as the best consumer-level NAS software.

For those seeking an affordable 4-bay NAS device, the TS-412 Turbo NAS is hard to fault. Thecus' N3200XXX is one of the closest contenders in a similar price range, but it only supports three drives. Even if that doesn't matter to you, the N3200XXX was faster throughout our file transfer tests, we feel the TS-412's superior software, power consumption and build quality make it the wiser choice.

If you're just an average home user who isn't looking to max out a Gigabit Ethernet connection, we believe you'll be well served by the QNAP TS-412 Turbo. Unfortunately, folks who demand desktop-like performance will have to look well beyond the TS-412's $460 price tag. Products such as the TS-439 Pro II+ or Synology's Disk Station DS411+ are more suitable, but at $700+, you can expect to pay dearly for the speed increase.