QNAP Expansion units will soon be available, making it possible to scale up the existing server to 400TB and above ( not all series are expandable, you should have an expansion slot in the machine like x79 machines)
Since the expansion modules connect to your NAS server though a SAS port, you need to install a SAS card in your NAS server. Each Expansion unit has 2 ports - SAS in and SAS out . Through SAS out you can connect one more expansion unit.
Expansion modules are available in 2 modles - a 16 slot REXP-1600U-RP and a 12 slot REXP-1200U-RP . Both are rack mountable.
In theory , a TS-EC1679U-RP (16 slot machine) can connect to 8 more REXP-1600U-RP , resulting in a total of 144 slot server with max RAW capacity of 576 TB using 4TB hard drives.
QNAP has been a market leader in Network attached storage , and the introduction of expansion modules is a welcome addition to the product range.
