QNAP TurboNAS Firmware 3.5 Deep Dive Part One: ISCSI Target

Here are the two targets that I set up on the NAS.

You now need to set up the initiator to see this target in the operating system that you want to use with the NAS .  I failed to get this to work as my WHS2011 is running in VMWare Server, which does not support ISCSI discs, so I can’t show you that, but the setup process is pretty easy.  This document from QNAP shows the setup process for Hyper-V and Server 2008.  As you can see, the process is pretty straightforward.

Conclusion

QNAP’s TurboNAS 3.5 software supports very easy setup of ISCSI targets.  This means that you can use a QNAP Turbo NAS as a storage solution for multiple servers as long as they support virtualization of storage.  At $799 diskless from Amazon.com, it’s clear that this is a very cost-efficient solution to your server storage needs.  If you implement a virtualization solution that supports ISCSI, such as VMWare Workstation or VirtualBox, you could put a NAS onto your network and use a small box for your home server, separating the storage solution from the server solution.  That’s powerful!

A special thanks to our own John Keller (AKA ITBeast) for his advice on how to configure the ISCSI initiator setup in a virtual environment.  In addition, thanks to QNAP for lending me the TS-459 Pro+ Turbo NAS that I used for this post!