QNAP QM2-2S10G1TA User Manual

M.2 SSD＋10GbE

revealed

NAS/PC supported,

experience super speed
NVMe SSD

QTS 4.4.1 fully utilize

SSD’s performance

M.2 SSD＋10GbE cache card

Revealed

Select the QM2 card you need

QM2-2S-220A

QM2-4S-240

QM2-2P-344

QM2-2P-384

QM2-2P-244A

QM2-4P-284

QM2-4P-342
QM2-4P-384

Support

10GBASE-T

port

Expand four

M.2 ports

QM2-2S10G1TA QM2-2P10G1TA

M.2 SATA M.2 PCIe Gen 2 M.2 PCIe Gen 3

Clear naming rule – featured 10GbE

QNAP M.2 PCIe cache/10GbE card

Number of
supported M.2
SSD

M.2 SSD + 10GbE

Supported M.2 SSD
connector type
P: PCIe NVMe SSD

S: SATA SSD

10GbE
port

Single port
BASE-T
RJ45

throughput

revision

Clear naming rule - M.2 cache only

QNAP M.2 PCIe cache card

Number of
supported
M.2 SSD
2: 2 x SSD
4: 4 x SSD

Supported M.2 SSD
connector type
P: PCIe NVMe SSD
S: SATA SSD

PCIe
interface
34= Gen3 x4
28= Gen2 x8

NVMe SSD
slot
bandwidth
4= Gen3 x4
2= Gen3 x2

SSD cache and 10GbE in one card

QM2-2P10G1TA

Supports maximum 2 x PCIe NVMe SSD (M-key),
provides Gen2 x2 on each slot

QM2-2S10G1TA

Supports maximum 2 x SATA M.2 SSD,
provides 6Gb/s on each slot

Expand cache capacity or 10GbE redundant

TS-1283XU TVS-672XT

Expand cache capacity by installing

QM2 in idle PCIe slots

Provide redundant 10GbE for fail-over

Built-in 10GbE

3

rd

party operating system support

QNAP NAS don’t need to install Driver, Windows/Linux platforms please visit QNAP
website to download the driver

Note: M.2 SSD compatibility and function supported depends on the hardware design and
platform. Please check with your motherboard manufacturer for details.

Low-profile PCIe add-on cards,
bundled with full-height

bracket.

Self-monitored with thermal
sensors to control the speed

of smart fan modules.

Active cooling module

Compliant with PCIe

standards

AQC-107S

Linux & Windows
Dual platform supported

Multi-Gigabit supported

Support Multi-Gigabit NBASE-T standard.

QSW-804-4C

QSW-1208-8C

Provides 12 ports of 10Gbps

transfer

Provides 8 ports of 10Gbps

transfer

CAT 5e CAT 6

CAT 6A

& CAT 7

100 M

✓

✓ ✓

1G

✓ ✓ ✓

2.5G

✓ ✓ ✓

5G

✓ ✓ ✓

10G

✘ ✓

(55M)

✓

Efficient cooling dissipation

10GbE
10GBASE-T port

M.2 slots

M.2 thermal pad is
bundled, provides
more efficient heat

transfer

Active cooling fan

Fin array heatsink

QM2-2P10G1TA performance up

QM2-2P10G1TA

QM2-2P10G1T

Random read enhanced nearly 25%

Iometer on PC, tested in QNAP Lab,

PC Environment

1. CPU: Intel (R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU@ 3.40GHz.

2. OS: Windows 10.

3. Memory: 64 GB.

4. SSD: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB M.2 SATA *2, Software-RAID 1.

(IOPS)

RR-4K RW-4K

272808

205057

200760

203626

QM2-2P10G1TA

QM2-2P10G1T

NAS/PC supported,

experience super speed

NVMe SSD

Ideal choice to boost performance: M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs

You don’t need to change

motherboards or HW
configurations, just simply
install the QM2-2P10G1TA on

your PC’s Gen2 x4 slot then

you can enjoy the high
speed of NVMe SSD

20Gb/s

32Gb/s

M.2 PCIe Gen 2 x4
M.2 PCIe Gen 3 x4

16G/s

M.2 PCIe Gen 3 x2

Interfaces Theoretical Speed

★ Mainstream

M.2 SATA III

6Gb/s

M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs have more than 2Xa

performance enhancement

Leave the 3.5” slots for huge capacity HDDs

Huge capacity

storage

Install NVMe
for cache

Freely upgrade a normal pool to a Qtier pool
without starting over

QM2 SSD
RAID

Without changing existing configurations

PCNAS

High performance NVMe in PC

Upgrade your PC to NVMe!

PC Environment

1. CPU: Intel (R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU@ 3.40GHz.

2. OS: Windows 10.

3. Memory: 64 GB.

4. PC SSD: ADATA Prod_SP550 120GB

5. QM2 SSD: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 256GB M.2 NVMe *2, RAID1;
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB M.2 SATA *2, Software-RAID 1.

(IOPS)

RR-4K RW-4K

272808

55972

200760

13893

QM2-2P10G1TA

SSD

(IOPS)

RR-4K RW-4K

156973

55972

70823

13893

QM2-2S10G1TA

SSD

QM2-2P10G1TA QM2-2S10G1TA

QM2 series on Windows PC

Catch the NVMe SSD information

from device manager

Disk partition

Set RAID1 protection

QTS Supports M.2 SSD Cache Acceleration

Accelerates IOPS performance
Applies SSD cache to all volumes and LUNs with a single

setup process, or specified volumes only

Reduce I/O latency

Global read-write cache

Read

Write

HDD storage

SSD storage

Application layer

Read caching

Read/Write caching

Expand high-speed M.2 SSD tier with Qtier

HDD storage
SSD storage

Application layer

Qtier 2.0

Total capacity = hard drives + SSD

Total capacity = hard drives

Read/Write caching

Sequential
Random

Hot data & reserved block

Cold and archived data

Keep flexibility to accelerate performance
of key data and increase
cost/performance ratio

Storage space and SSD caching

I/O aware

Tiering on

Demand

Live Demo

Install QM2 on PC

to enhance performance

QTS 4.4.1

Fully utilize SSD’s

performance

SSD Evolution Trend

QNAP QM2 in QNAP NAS is ideal on sharing data, applications and virtualized server applications
for multi users. Install the QM2 on the NAS which has no other HDD slots available then combine
with the 10GbE port and QTS 4.4.1’s remove and re-create Qtier solution, keep improving the

random access speed (IOPS) to experience dramatic performance improvements.

Disk Type SW (MB/s) RW (IOPS)

HDD 100 350

SSD 300 60000

One Global Cache with Three Modes

QNAP SSD Cache can be applied to all volumes and LUNs once set with 3 modes:

Read-Only ➔ Copy frequently used data to SSD
Read-Write ➔ Not only copy data, new data can also be temporarily stored in SSD

Write-Only ➔ Only new data will be written into the cache

Data from clients and storage will be cached at the block-level in real time

How Read-write Cache work:

HDD

IO Intensive

Application

When SSD Space not enough

SSD

WriteWrite

Read Read

The Write-only Cache Increase ROI of

SSD Cache with high Writing Demand

Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-spaces/understand-the-cache

SSD SSD

NVMe

SSD SSD

NVMe

Writes

are cached

Reads

are NOT

• Write-only cache is promoted by Microsoft

for endurance control.

• QNAP believes that Write-only Cache can
increase the ROI of SSD in below scenario:

1. File Server focusing on write operations

2. Database with more write operation

(Such as IoT monitoring server)

3. Use high endurance SSD

(Intel Optane™)

The Advantage of Software-defined Over-provisioning

• SSD vendor will reserve 7% or more SSD space for internal operation usage.

• QNAP allow user to test and increase the over-provisioning ratio from the software to increase

that consist performance and endurance of SSD.

Reference: http://www.atpinc.com/technology/ssd-over-provisioning-benefits-configure

FIO used with parameters: --direct=0 --bs= 4k(random)1M(sequential), --io depth=1(random) 32(sequential), --file size= 90G

Alternative for Cache: Qtier Tiering Storage

On QTS, PCIe NVMe SSD can only work as SSD Cache currently.

Hot Data
Warm Data

Cold Data

QNAP allows the combination of

SSD and HDD RAID into the same
pool and migrate data automatically
based on accessing pattern.

Before Tiering

1

4

2

Data Access
Pattern Changed

3

After Tiering

Start Tiering

Qtier

Engine

Support SATA, SAS, M.2, QM2 and
U.2 SSD with QNAP Over-provisioning.

Provide higher capacity as SSD can
be used to store data

SSD
RAID

SSD RAID 5

HDD RAID 6

HDD RAID 6

While SSD Tier is already
created with SATA Disk, how

can I replace it with QM2 to

expand the NAS while
improving the SSD Tier
performance?

Challenge: Changing SSD Tier Interface

Challenge

SSD
RAID

QTS 4.4.1 Support Remove Qtier SSD Tier

SSD RAID Usage

SAS HDD RAID Usage

SSD RAID Usage

Pool Metadata

SATA HDD RAID Usage

SSD RAID Usage

Pool Metadata

• QNAP QTS 4.4.1 supports remove Qtier SSD Tier, the users can remove then re-create SSD tier
as required.

• When removing the SSD tier, all the storage pool data will be retained as data on SSD only to be

moved to HDD.

Storage pool

Test of recreating Qtier SSD Tier

• In QNAP Lab, 4 250 GB SSD need to be replaced with 500 GB SSD. The operation is conducted

with both Replacing Disk & Remove SSD Tier.

• The time for removing and re-creating the SSD tier is almost 2 times faster than replacing disk.
The replacing disk method also does not support changing SSD on different interface.

* Using TVS-1282T with 4 enterprise HDD for testing.

Remove and Upgrade

SSD Tier

Replacing Disk

0

(Mins)

Consumed Time (Mins)

10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 505

23

44

Choose Between SSD Cache & Qtier

The best SSD configuration may only be measurable once it is configured. The SSD Cache and

Qtier have different advantages.

* TVS-871T-i7-16G with QM2 card and ADATA 512GB

SSD cache and Qtie SX8000NP

SSD Cache Qtier

0

1400

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

Sequential R/W (MB/s)

SSD Cache Qtier

10000

80000

70000

60000

50000

40000

30000

20000

Random R/W (IOPS)

0

Write

Read

Real Time Performance Boost

1. For accessing with burst IO such as file
syncing and video editing.

2. Can be changed to Read or Write only with

bypass block size.

SSD Cache

Qtier 2.0

Fully use SSD Capacity

1. For boosting IO with fixed pattern such as

mail or database server.

2. With IO Aware Qtier can also support
database operations.

QM2Highlight points with QTS

• Improve random access performance when the NAS
has no idle HDD slots and 10GbE ports

• Improve NAS performance by using read only, read-

write and write-only 3 type of caches for the whole
NAS storage space via QM2

• Software-defined Over-provisioning increase

Performance and endurance of SSD

• QTS Qtier improves both performance and capacity, in
QTS 4.4.1，users can easily change the SSD to QM2 in
the SSD Tier.

• 4.4.1 Beta will be released at End of May!

QTS 4.4.1 fully utilize SSD’s performance

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