Qnap ES1640dc Active-active dual controller NAS, offering near-zero downtime for enterprise applications with its high availability.
The ES1640dc is whole-new product line developed by QNAP for mission-critical tasks and intensive virtualization applications. With Intel® Xeon® E5 processors, dual active controllers, ZFS, HPE Helion compatibility and fully supporting virtualization environments, the ES1640dc delivers “real business-class” cloud computing data storage. The ES1640dc features the brand-new QES operating system that allows almost limitless snapshots, block-level data deduplication, and thin provisioning with reclaim, assisting businesses in building the most cost-efficient VDI platform and storage for critical data. The ES1640dc provides the same user experience as the current QNAP NAS and QTS system, allowing business users to enjoy the easy learning curve and quickly deploy the system, and making it ideal for small and medium businesses with budget constraints or large-scale IT divisions coping with mission-critical tasks.
- Dual active controllers, NVRAM cache, dual mini-SAS channel backup, 40GbE-ready, SAS 6Gb/s-enabled (Compatible with SAS 12Gb/s)
- QES operating system which is based on FreeBSD and ZFS
- Data deduplication and compression allows hosting over 200 VDI in one chassis
- Near-limitless snapshots and SnapSync for efficient disaster recovery
- NAS and iSCSI/IP-SAN storage supporting VMware®, Microsoft® Hyper-V, KVM and advanced virtualization features
- Fully supports OpenStack® iSCSI Cinder driver, and compatible with HPE Helion
- Scalable design, up to 1 PB total storage capacity
- 5 year warranty – Global warranty inclusive
Intel® Xeon® E5 dual-controller for nearly zero downtime high-availability
The ES1640dc is powered by two Intel® Xeon® E5-2400 v2 processors and features dual active-active controller architecture, ensuring businesses with nearly zero downtime high availability as the standby controller can quickly take over if one controller breaks down. The ES1640dc connects to the JBOD enclosure (EJ1600) via the dual path mini-SAS design to sustain continuous operations even if an external JBOD cable is disconnected. Designed around redundancy, the ES1640dc is the best realization of reliable enterprise storage for uninterrupted mission-critical enterprise tasks and productivity.

Dual controller NAS: high reliability and high availability
“Reliability” is the primary priority for mission critical business applications. The ES1640dc adopts dual active-active controllers to provide the most reliable base for business IT storage.

If one controller fails, the other one will immediately take over to provide high availability with the least downtime.
Meets various iSCSI/NFS/CIFS network data transmission requirements.
The PCIe slot supports a dual-port QSFP+ 40GbE NIC to provide massive data transmission potential and to simplify network cabling.
Dual-controller architecture that supports SAS 6Gb/s hard drives / SSDs, providing versatile storage choices for enterprises.
Battery-protected DRAM write to cache data protection and Flash read acceleration provides industry-leading random access performance to benefit virtual machine deployment.
(1) NVRAM dedicated DDR3 memory modules – supports 16GB, power required by C2F is supplied by BBU.
(2) Dual-channel DDR3 system main memory – each channel supports 16GB, providing up to 32GB total capacity.
Stores cache data written by DRAM to ensure information is not lost if the system experiences a sudden power failure.
Increases the ES1640dc’s potential storage capacity to over 1 PB with expansion enclosures.
Provides the performance required by software-defined storage and commercial mission-critical applications.
Field-replaceable unit (FRU) applies not only to the controllers but also to the cooling fans, power supplies, and the BBU battery pack for C2F (Copy-To-Flash), providing a cost-effective way to maintain complex systems and to replace defective parts.


NVRAM cache reducing the risks of losing write cache data
To increase random write performance and reliability, the ES1640dc features NVRAM modules (DRAM Write Cache with Copy-to-flash) to protect write data. When data is written into NVRAM, there are dedicated backup battery units to protect writing to the cache, and at the same time the data is replicated to a backup controller, to achieve 100% data integrity. NVRAM-backed write cache in the dual-controller architecture presents high performance, fault-tolerant, and helps reduce flash SSD write amplification.
*To ensure write cache data safety, it is recommended to annually replace the BBU.

QES operating system combining ZFS file system
The ES1640dc features the brand-new QES (QNAP Enterprise Storage) operating system, which is based on the simple and efficient FreeBSD kernel and the ZFS file system that has been proven through years of experience to be most suitable for high-end enterprise applications. QES supports dual active controller architecture and remote disaster recovery, can be directly integrated into OpenStack® cloud environments, and is designed for intensive virtualization and VDI applications with optimal performance. Continuing the same user experience with the QTS operating system, QES provides business users with an easy learning curve to quickly deploy the ES1640dc, and provides the best storage solution jointly with the current QNAP NAS.
Overview of QNAP Enterprise ZFS NAS and the QES operating systems
QES QNAP Enterprise System |
QTS QNAP Turbo NAS System |
|
---|---|---|
Hardware platform | Enterprise ZFS NAS ES series NAS |
QNAP Turbo NAS TS / TVS / TAS / TDS series |
Operating system kernel | FreeBSD | Linux |
File system | ZFS | Ext4 |
myQNAPcloud | Yes | Yes |
App support | Qmanager, Qfile | All available apps |
File Station | Yes | Yes |
App Station | No | Yes |
Virtualization Station | No | Yes |
Container Station | No | Yes |
Dual active controller | Yes | No |
NVRAM (Write to cache) | Yes | No |
40G Ethernet network | Yes | Yes |
Intel Quick Assist | No | Yes |
Snapshot upper limit | 65536 | 1024 |
Single LUN snapshot upper limit | 65536 | 1024 |
Deduplication | Yes | No |
Real time data compression | Yes | No |
End-to-End Data Integrity | Yes | No |
Application consistency | Snapshot Agent VSS Hardware Provider (QNAP NetBak Replicator) |
Snapshot Agent VSS Hardware Provider (QNAP NetBak Replicator) |
Remote disaster backup and recovery | SnapSync | Snapshot Replica |
ZFS – the best file system for business data storage
The ES1640dc features ZFS, a combined file system and logical volume manager, to support various advanced functions for high-end enterprise storage, including powerful storage expansion, flexible storage pools, simplified management, high-performance SSD cache, nearly limitless snapshots and cloning, data deduplication, in-line compression and thin provisioning with reclaim for optimized utilization for virtual machine storage. ZFS is designed with a focus on data integrity, and uses its end-to-end checksums to detect and correct silent data corruption caused by hardware defects, bugs in firmware or metadata errors, effectively protecting user’s data.

Deduplication and compression to maximize VDI storage performance
There could be over 90% duplicate data from OS images and applications that are spread over virtual desktops. The ES1640dc supports block-based data deduplication to optimize storage usage from redundant data. Deduplicated virtual desktops become easier to be cached to achieve optimal virtual desktop performance. In-line data compression helps shrink data size, further optimizing storage usage. For mastering storage in a virtualized environment, the ES1640dc provides businesses with the most cost-effective remote virtual desktop platform and mission-critical information warehousing.

Strong disaster recovery made by nearly limitless snapshots and SnapSync
The ES1640dc supports up to 65,536 snapshots for iSCSI LUN and shared folders. When executing a remote snapshot backup, it only needs to transfer changed data, and can use deduplication and compression to significantly reduce the amount of transferred data. The ES1640dc can provide remote backup SnapSync for snapshots at the shortest interval of every five minutes, fully supports VMware vCenter Site Recovery (SRM) technology, provides Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) for SRM, and provides enterprise-class remote backup & disaster recovery solution to fulfill business continuity.

Well-rounded backup solutions to secure data
QNAP Netbak Replicator is an easy-to-use and VSS-aware backup software, and helps businesses to create complete backups in datacenter and virtualization environments without needing to purchase expensive and complex commercial software. To build a QNAP Snap Agent and VSS Hardware Provider operating environment, all applications (including VSS Service, Requestor, Provider and QNAP Snap Agent) can be deployed with VSS-Aware applications on the same server, and the minimal requirements are only one ES1640dc and one server for it to be operational.

Storage for comprehensive virtualization applications
The ES1640dc is certified for VMware® vSphere 6.0, and is compatible with Microsoft® Hyper-V and KVM, benefiting flexible deployment and management in virtualization environments. The ES1640dc supports VMware VAAI and Microsoft ODX to increase performance by offloading server loading for ESXi server and Hyper-V respectively, and supports QNAP vSphere Client plug-in, Web plug-in and QNAP SMI-S provider with enhanced efficiency of operations and management in virtualization applications.
Learn more: VMware® Ready™, Microsoft® Hyper-V™, VMware VAAI,Microsoft ODX, SMI-S provider for Microsoft SCVMM

Compatible with HPE Helion for extending horizons to OpenStack cloud
As QNAP’s first “OpenStack Ready” product line, the ES1640dc is not only suitable for virtualization and virtual desktop environments but also the best choice for cloud applications. QES supports OpenStack® Cinder and iSCSI Cinder Node drivers, and provides block-level storage space to virtual machines. It not only accelerates the deployment of virtual machines and enhances virtual machine image access efficiency through iSCSI, but it is also easier to integrate into commercial cloud storage platforms. QES can be easily coupled with HPE Helion* to provide simpler and more reliable private enterprise hybrid cloud solutions, to ensure that enterprises can still enjoy uninterrupted, highly available, highly-stable services in dense virtualized environments.
Learn more: HPE Helion OpenStack® 3.0: Integrating QNAP Enterprise Storage NAS

5 year warranty – Global warranty inclusive
QNAP’s ES1640dc offers 5 year warranty with 3-year global warranty inclusive at no extra cost. This premier warranty demonstrates QNAP’s attention to the essential business needs of continuous operations and non-interrupted services to their customers.
Learn more: QNAP warranty services

Seamless capacity expansion
The ES1640dc supports efficient capacity expansion by cascading multiple QNAP RAID expansion enclosures to meet the needs of growing business data, providing businesses a cost-efficient storage solution for large data archiving and virtualization applications.
Featuring dual controllers, dual-loop architecture, the ES1640dc and the corresponding JBOD expansion enclosures all provide dual-channel (Dual Path) to tolerate single node failure. Even if an external JBOD cable is disconnected due to external damage to the mini-SAS cable, it can still run normally. This is essential for better intermachine data protection and capacity scalability.
The maximum total storage capacity available by connecting RAID expansion enclosures:
NAS Model | RAID Expansion Enclosure | No. of RAID Expansion Enclosure | Total HDD No. (NAS + Enclosure) | Max. Raw Capacity (TB)* |
---|---|---|---|---|
ES1640dc | EJ1600 | 7 | 128 | 1024 |
6 | 112 | 896 | ||
5 | 96 | 768 | ||
4 | 80 | 640 | ||
3 | 64 | 512 | ||
2 | 48 | 384 | ||
1 | 32 | 256 |
*The maximum capacity is calculated by using 8TB HDDs.
CPU | Intel Xeon E5-2400 v2 family processor Intel Xeon 6-core Processor E5-2420 v2 (15M Cache, 2.20GHz) |
---|---|
Memory | System memory: DDR3 RDIMM Total memory slots: 6 (Dual controllers; 2 x main memory DIMM and 1 x write cache DIMM for NVRAM for each controller.) 32GB for main memory DIMM and 16GB write cache DIMM per controller. |
USB | 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 port |
Hard Drive | 16 x 3.5″/2.5″ SAS 6Gbps hard drive (compatible with SAS 12Gbps hard drive), or 2.5″ SAS SSD |
Maximized Raw Capacity | 128TB (Configuration: 16 x 8TB hard drives) |
Hard Drive Interface | SAS 6Gb/s |
10/100/1000 Mbps LAN Port | 1 for each controller (for remote management) |
10Gbps LAN Port | 2 x RJ45, Intel X540-BT2 for each controller |
PCIe Slot | PCIe Slot x8 (Gen3 x8): reserved for 40GbE or 10GbE LAN card PCIe Slot x4 (Gen2 x4): reserved for dual path Mini-SAS |
Cache | mSATA SSD dedicated to NVRAM, SATA signaling |
Form Factor | 3U rackmount |
Dimension | 618(D) x 446.2(W) x 132(H) mm (excluding front grips) |
Weight | Net weight (NAS only): 26.75 kg / 58.97 lb Gross weight (with packing and accessories): 36.94 kg / 81.44 lb |
Sound Level | Sound pressure (LpAm) (bystander position): 66.1dB |
Power Consumption | Sleep mode: 314.86 W In operation: 501.40 W |
Power Supply | 770 W (Redundancy for fault tolerance) |
Fan | Hot-swappable fan module (60*60*38mm; 16000RPM/12v/2.8A x 3) |
Electro-Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) | • FCC Class A (USA only) • CE Mark ( EN55022 Class A, EN55024) |
SAFETY Standard | • EN60950 • BSMI • VCCI • CB • LVD |
Front
1. | Hard Drive Tray | 3. | Power On Button |
---|---|---|---|
2. | Hard Drive LED Indicators | 4. | LED Indicators System Power LED (Blue): on/off System Status (Green/ Red): in operation, system errors, low power, degraded RAID mode, memory failure, fan/power supply failure, system/disk temperature too high, storage pool reaching threshold value, system performing take-over, power supply unit unplugged LCD Status Display (Two-digit number): Status of JBOD connection |
Rear
1. | Password & Network Settings Reset Button | 9. | PCIe Gen2 x4 Slot, with dual path Mini-SAS (SFF-8088) expansion card on board |
---|---|---|---|
2. | Power Supply LED (Green/ Orange) | 10. | PCIe Gen3 x8 Slot, reserved for 40GbE LAN card |
3. | RJ11 to RS-232 serial | 11. | BBU |
4. | 1GbE Management Port | 12. | BBU Status Light (Green/ Red/ Orange) |
5. | 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 Port | 13. | Controller Status Light (Green/ Orange) |
6. | 2 x 10GbE (RJ45) Port | 14. | Fan Status Light (Green/ Orange) |
7. | Power Button | 15. | Battery Status Light (Green/ Orange) |
8. | Reserved Mini-SAS Port (SFF-8088) | 16. | High Availability LED (Green/ Orange) |
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