AS7004T upgrades

[MikeG.6.5]

I asked this once before here, as well as creating a ticket for it. the response I got when I asked the question is "Not supported at this time."

The question is this: Has Asustor done any research into either upgrading or offering the 70xxT series with an i5 or i7 CPU?

Some history with this question:

QNAP is now releasing an i5 and i7 version of their TVS-871 now. People have been modding the various x71 models QNAP offers to either of these CPUS for well over a year now, and QNAP took the hint and started making models with those chips for purchase. This eliminates the need to void the warranty to put the chips in themselves, and gives the customer an extremely high end CPU NAS straight from the manufacturer.

For someone that does a lot of CPU intensive operations with their NAS, such as video transcoding or video streaming requiring transcoding this mod or option could be a serious upgrade in capability. With a competitor realizing the need for high end CPU's in their NAS devices, I thought I was raise a flag with Asustor so they can also think seriously about offering this as a potential product.

When I asked the question I was in a somewhat different relationship than the one I have with Asustor now. And I think I might be in a bit better standing than I was when I originally asked the question.

I've been building PC's for a while now, so for me to do the upgrade myself isn't a major deal, but before I go through the potential expense, or worst case, burning up my NAS I thought I would get feedback from the manufacturer. I think I have found a couple of likely i7 candidates. If Asustor wants to test them and give me an idea which would be better???

For reference, this site tracks CPU's and potential upgrades: http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/C ... -4330.html

The two that look the most promising to are here: http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/C ... 4770K.html
and here: http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/C ... -4771.html
This one has potential too: http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/C ... -4790.html

For the R&D department to test these in the labs would be trivial, one at a time. I'm sure that other R&D expenses could easily cover the costs of testing them on a couple of machines and giving feedback of the viability. Something might need to be done with cooling, as all three chips I present here run a bit hotter. A larger heat sink might be needed to shed the extra heat. A whole new model line, using the same PS, case, MoBo, etc, all by swapping out a CPU. This could be a huge R&D win... (AS75xxT and AS77xxT?)

And if Asustor wants to have a live test bed for this, they can always send me the chip and I can run it for a product test... I swear I'll be around to provide feedback!

[Shawn.S@AST]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the suggestion! I will suggest our product development team to consider a high cpu sku.

We have tested i5 and i7 before in AS7008T, AS7010T or AS7012RD before but those cpu are the first generation of Haswell CPU (tick) and the cpu that you listed here is second generation of Haswell (tock). The BIOS needs to be updated before it can support the tock CPU.

However, for AS7004T, it maybe a different story because AS7004T is compact in size so the heat solution is heat pipe + heatsink, which is different from AS7008T etc..We may need to borrow the new CPU and do some testing to see if it will overheat.

If we have any update, I will let you know asap!

[MikeG.6.5]

This is promising! I was afraid I would have to buy a chip and try it myself, then post the results, either failure or success. Right now, can't afford to try it. I don't have a machine I would be able to live without.

If the 7008 and other models just need a bios upgrade, that should be fairly simple to do.

I don't understand what you meant about the 7004, though. Does it use a different board then the other models? Wouldn't it need a bios ugrade as well?

As far as the heatsink/heatpipe is concerned, the fan draws right through the heatpipe. It may mean the fan runs at higher speeds, but if the CPU itself is working smarter and not harder, then heat buildup should be reduced. If I max out the CPU now doing something, in theory, I'm going to use roughly 50% of the CPU with any of these other chips. (Actually, the CPU will likely run 100% but for half the time. making it 50% over-all, right?)

Just a tad confused is all.

In either case, this is promising news, both for existing owners and those wanting to invest in a high end NAS for the future. Granted the i3 in the 70xx series is high end, but 3 years or 5 years from now it's likely to be middle of the road. Planning this now makes sense from a marketing standpoint and from a purchasing standpoint.

As more people get more media requiring transcoding, the extra power these chips provide will be HUGE in the coming years.

[Shawn.S@AST]

Hi Mike,

We have done testing for the following CPU:

Intel® Core™ i7-4770 Processor (8M Cache, up to 3.90 GHz)
Intel® Core™ i5-4670 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz)

The above 2 CPU are 85W.

For AS7004T, AS7008T or AS7010T, under the ambient temperature of 40 degree or room temperature of 25 degree, and heavy stress testing, the cpu temperature will rise to 100 degree, the cpu will get into throttling. The unit is still working but in lower throttled frequency.

And we test another CPU, Intel® Core™ i5-4430S Processor, 65W, AS7004T CPU will still rise to 100 degree but for AS7008T and AS7010T, the CPU temperature can be around 80 to 90 degree under 40 degree ambient temperature and heavy stress testing.

It looks like that the room for upgrade will be more feasible in the case of AS7008T and AS7010T as both got bigger room for ventilation.

We will test another i7 CPU with 65W later on...

[snapshot]

What about the 45W i5-4690T and i7-4790T? Okay, they're slower than the 85W versions but should still be enough of an improvement to be worthwhile.

[MikeG.6.5]

Or the i5-4590s, i5-4690s or the i7-4790s. All of these chips are 65W models. and the 4590s and the 4790s are the chips QNAP is using in their models of NAS. The seem to have a similar issue with heat, I would expect.

References for the QNAP CPUs: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?t=103381

Notice that this post originated almost a year ago. It specifically lists the current chips in their TVS-X71 units as well as some of the validated chips that have been tested to work. Most of the thread after the first post is garbage, but that first post is pretty significant.

Also of note, QNAP has 5 and 8 bay expansion units that attach to their models of NAS with either USB3.0 or Thunderbolt. They look very similar in design to the NAS externally, but are just raid enclosures. And I'm thinking that the NAS itself handles the raid configurations, not the enclosure. This could be a rather interesting avenue to look at for product development, too. With all of Asustor's NASes coming with at last 1 USB 3.0 in the back of the unit, having a drive enclosure that matches the NAS and increases the storage capacity integrated into the NAS OS would be awesome.

Someone with a NAS with all drive bays full could easily upgrade the capacity of the unit without having to buy a new NAS. Buy an enclosure, stick in some drives and the NAS is good to go for another couple of years. No need to migrate to a new NAS, or change brands. Just throw in some more drives.

Personally, I'm dreaming of a rack mounted 12-bay NAS, with 2x 12-bay external rack mount enclosures with an i7 pulling around 12K passmarks for a Plex Media Server. Fiber 100Mbps upload and Link Aggregated NICs. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

[Shawn.S@AST]

Hi Mike,

We have completed the USB 3.0 raid enclosure hardware already and now are working on the software part to make the raid enclosure raid manageable from the NAS itself. This will take some time but we are progressing well.

For the rack mount 12 bay NAS, maybe you can consider AS7012RD or AS7012RDX with dual 10GB NIC card?

[MikeG.6.5]

Shawn,

That's great news indeed, for those desiring more storage with their smaller drive bay models.

Any recent news on the i5 or i7 CPU upgrades? It would be great to have some options for upgrades in the upcoming years for this model.

Thanks!

[MikeG.6.5]

QNAP just came out with the TVS-x82 series of NASes that have a starting CPU of an i3-6100. Is there any other discussion going on in Asustor's Tech or R&D departments about a heftier CPU in the 700x line? (Perhaps making a 7100 series?)

[orion]

QNAP just came out with the TVS-x82 series of NASes that have a starting CPU of an i3-6100. Is there any other discussion going on in Asustor's Tech or R&D departments about a heftier CPU in the 700x line? (Perhaps making a 7100 series?)

It seems that i3-6100 is the next generation CPU compared to the current AS7 series. I believe it should be another main board, rather than replacement of CPU only on the current AS7 series.