QNAP does not encourage or support the installation of custom or third-party firmware on our NAS systems. Our team invests significant effort into building and validating QNAP’s QTS and QuTS operating systems to ensure not only optimal performance and feature integration, but most importantly, the security and integrity of your data—which we believe is your most valuable asset.
Installing non-official firmware introduces serious risks, such as:
Loss of data protection features like snapshots, access controls, and malware defense.
Reduced system stability and performance, as third-party firmware may not be optimized for QNAP hardware.
QNAP’s software platform is designed to provide a secure, reliable, and well-supported environment for managing and safeguarding your data. Using unofficial firmware compromises these assurances and may leave your NAS—and your data—vulnerable.
We strongly recommend continuing to use the official QNAP firmware and taking advantage of the extensive tools and updates we provide to help you protect what matters most.
As this is relevant to the topic: I recently purchased a new TS-264 to replace my failing TS-569 Pro.
After a day of testing, I erased QTS and installed Debian. Debian is far more stable and better supported than QTS. It starts-up and shuts-down faster. It runs far fewer services. Its cron daemon is completely reliable. It’s also what I had been running on my TS-569 Pro for the last several years.
It’s no surprise QNAP Staff would discourage the use of any OS other than QTS, but any NAS owner should be able to install whatever OS they choose.
QTS isn’t maintained indefinitely for all NAS models, so at some point, it’s safer to stop using QTS and start using a supported OS.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate QNAP’s perspective and the considerable effort your team invests in developing QTS.
That said, I believe there’s a noticeable lack of focus on some fundamental features within both the operating system and the core applications. While I would prefer to rely on native OS and apps, it becomes challenging when essential functions are either missing or incomplete.
For a NAS in this price range, it’s disappointing when its capabilities are reduced to little more than basic network-attached storage.
If you are going to take the NAS hardware and run your own OS, why even bother buying a NAS in the first place? Why not just buy a PC and create your own NAS. You could likely buy that hardware a lot cheaper than buying the NAS…
The hardware form factor and features (e.g. hotswap trays) is not that cheaply available. I have seen a lot of discussions that cheap NAS are the best and cheapest way for small scale TrueNAS,Proxmox, etc installations.
Because I like the size of the 2 bay unit. It suits my needs.
My experience with QNAP hardware has been generally positive, so I’m happy to keep using it.
The price is irrelevant: I’m not trying to prove I can make the same NAS only cheaper. But, as it turned out, this one was on-sale and came with a free RAM upgrade to 16GB.
Dear @amnesia
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, and I truly appreciate your candid feedback.
At QNAP, we value customers like you who are willing to highlight not only what’s working, but also where we can do better. It’s through such constructive input that we can continue to refine our products, strengthen the core features of QTS and QuTS hero, and ensure we are aligned with the expectations of users who demand more from their NAS.
We understand your concerns and Thank you once again for engaging with us. Please feel free to share any specific examples or suggestions you may have—we’re listening and committed to making improvements where they matter most.