The QNAP TS-230 ($199) is an entry-level two-bay NAS designed for use as a personal cloud and data backup repository. It has an attractive, tool-free enclosure and is easy to install, and QNAP’s QTS operating system makes it easy to create volumes, share folders, and configure the device as a personal cloud server. You also get a generous selection of apps with the TS-230, but our Editors’ Choice winner, the $169.99 Synology DiskStation DS220j, offers even more apps and better performance for less money.

Simple and Stylish

With a surprisingly attractive baby blue finish, the TS-230 is designed to be placed just about anywhere in your home. It measures 7.4 by 3.5 by 6.1 inches (HWD) and has two internal hot-swappable drive bays with tool-less sleds that will accommodate 3.5- and 2.5-inch drives with a maximum storage capacity of up to 36TB (18TB X 2). As with most of the NAS systems that we review, this one doesn’t come with drives.

The front of the device has LED indicators for system status, LAN activity, drive activity (one for each drive), and USB One-Touch Copy activity. There’s also a power button, a USB 3.0 port, and a One-Touch Copy button that lets you copy data backups from a USB device to the NAS or from the NAS to a USB device.

The back panel is home to one gigabit LAN port, two USB ports (2.0 and 3.0), a Reset button, and a power jack. You won’t find any multi-gig ports on this NAS like you will on more expensive models such as the QNAP TS-253D-4G and the Asustor Lockerstor 2 AS6602T. A single 80mm fan prevents the drives and internal circuitry from overheating.

The TS-230 is powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core CPU, 4GB of flash memory, and 2GB of DDR4 RAM. It supports hardware-accelerated video transcoding and can be paired with QNAP two-bay, four-bay, and eight-bay expansion units. This NAS supports RAID 0, RAID 1, Single Disk, and JBOD configurations.

As with other QNAP NAS drives, the TS-230 uses the Linux-based QTS operating system. It has a Windows-like user interface that makes it easy to configure, manage, and customize the NAS. The main window is populated with icons for doing things like managing storage, downloading apps, creating files and shares, running malware checks, and more. More icons are added as you download apps from the QNAP App Store, which holds up to 78 QNAP and third-party apps that let you use the NAS as a multimedia server, a surveillance station for security cameras, a backup server, and more. By way of comparison, the Synology DS220j’s Package Center offers more than 100 apps.

The QTS Control Panel is where you go to edit system settings, create users and user groups, manage network connections, and set up server applications. Tap the File Station icon to locate and access files and folders on the NAS, assign folder permissions, and upload files. The Storage and Snapshots icon opens a utility that allows you to monitor and manage storage. Here you can create RAID groups and storage pools, back up data using Snapshots (disk image captures), and check disk health. You can use the Malware Removal utility to scan for harmful files and remove them from the NAS, and QSync Central lets you automate file synchronization across multiple devices.

QNAP TS-230 Installation and Performance

Configuring the TS-230 for first use was relatively easy in testing. I installed two Seagate 10TB Ironwolf drives, powered up the NAS, and downloaded the QNAP Qfinder Pro utility. I opened the utility and the TS-230 was instantly recognized. When I clicked on the drive’s entry in the utility, I was taken to a QTS screen where I clicked Start Smart Installation. I verified that I was using the latest firmware version, gave the NAS a name, and created a password. I used DHCP to automatically obtain an IP address and waited several minutes for the drives to be initialized.

Once the NAS restarted, I clicked on Go To NAS Management, which launched the QTS management console and created a volume and a storage pool configured for RAID 1 with a total storage capacity of 9.02TB. After waiting close to 12 hours for the drives to synchronize, the TS-230 was ready for testing.

To test NAS performance, we use a 4.9GB folder containing a mix of music, video, photo, and office document files to measure read and write performance. The TS-230 turned in decent results on these tests, but it couldn’t keep pace with our Editors’ Choice for affordable two-bay NAS drives, the Synology Diskstation DS-220j.

The TS-230’s write speed of 72MBps was a bit faster than the TerraMaster F2-210, but the DS-220j beat it by 12MBps. The more expensive Asustor AS5202T led with a speed of 90MBps. The TS-230 managed 77MBps on the read test, tying the TerraMaster F2-210 but trailing the Asustor AS5202T by 10MBps. The Synology DS-220j led with a speed of 90MBps.

A Good NAS for First-Time Users

If you want to create your own personal cloud for storing and sharing photos, video, and important documents, the QNAP TS-230 will easily get the job done. It’s easy to install an configure, provides reasonably fast file-transfer performance, and offers a wide selection of apps that let you use it for backups, as a media server, as a surveillance station, and more. That said, our Editors’ Choice winner for affordable NAS devices, the Synology DiskStation DS-220j, is a bit faster and offers more apps, making it a slightly stronger buy for $30 less.