It is just slow previewing in a library, with about 1000~2000 photos. This has been a problem since I bought TS-873A three years ago, and never get solved after so many updates.
The CPU usage is low when the photos are loading, the memory has been upgraded to 64GB, where more than 30GB is available for QuMagie. Same problem after a fresh and full reboot of the NAS. Indexing and face recognitions are all finished at the time of test. The system and all the apps are installed on an RAID1 pool with 2x 2TB Samsung 970 EVO SSDs. Original image data lives on a RAID6 pool with 8x 20TB HC560 HDDs. Performance of other apps seems ok.
It really seems a software problem to me. Wonder if QNAP team is aware of the issue.
It’s not a problem with the TS-873A. It’s that the CPU in the TS-873A is not all that powerful. CPU load has nothing to do with it.
What will show you the real performance is to SSH into the NAS and run the command top.
You will see an output like this (this is from my TS-873A right now):
The important number is load average. The three numbers are the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes. This is roughly the number of threads that the CPU is busy handling. These threads might not take a lot of CPU percentage, but they are tasks that are keeping the CPU busy. The Ryzen Embedded V100B in the TS-873A has 4 cores with each core capable of processing two threads simultaneously. This means that a load of anything over 8 threads will cause slow response. In my case here, it is nearly 10. That’s because I am currently running some backup jobs. The NAS is busy. But look at my CPU model time: 44%. So lots of CPU “time” available but yet I am still bottled up with thread processes. This tells the real story on why your NAS is slow.
If I now try to access my QuMagie library, that load average will jump up higher. Even if the NAS is doing nothing, accessing QuMagie will cause the number to go above 8 and the NAS will feel slow. Just the nature of the game.
I tell people that if they want to do a lot of things like photo libraries, multimedia, etc. on their NAS to then buy the most expensive NAS with the biggest processor they can afford. I honestly wish I had spent a little more and got something better than a V1500B. It’s a good processor, but just a bit underpowered for what I would like to use it for.
I also have a TVS-673XT and I upgraded its CPU to an i7 and it is significantly faster. I would make that my main NAS except for the fact that I have a smaller NVME drive array in that NAS and that model has an issue with one of the chips in the Intel chipset where it could die at any time. I’ve already had it repaired once.
I wish I could upgrade the processor in the TS-873A but unfortunately, the V1500B does not come in a socket and instead is soldered directly to the motherboard.
