Hardware
The TS-412 is powered by Marvell's Kirkwood 88F6281 (88F6-B1A2) processor, which features a 256KB L2 cache and typically operates between 1.0 and 1.2GHz. QNAP are running it at the maximum designed frequency of 1.2GHz and even at this speed, the chip doesn't feature any kind of passive cooling.
Although it has become relatively common for today's NAS devices to use SO-DIMM slots, QNAP has opted to solder the memory ICs directly to the PCB. Mounted on the PCB are two 128MB Hynix HY5PS1G831C memory chips (256MB combined), which are rated at DDR2-800 (CL2.5-6-6-6).
The PCB is also donning a pair of Marvell Alaska 88E1116R single-port Gigabit Ethernet controllers, which connect directly to the Kirkwood processor.
A separate PCB houses the Marvell 88SX7042 SATA 3Gb/s controller which uses the PCI Express interface to provide bandwidth for four SATA ports that support JBOD, RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 5 + hot spare.
QNAP has gone with a 100% solid capacitor design, which is said to improve the TS-412's durability. While we don't doubt that's true to some extent, it's always difficult to quantify such claims.
This wouldn't be much of a NAS without storage and the TS-412's compatibility list includes many Hitachi, Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate and Western Digital hard drives. Early adopters will be happy to know that 3TB drives from Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital are supported using the latest firmware.