I recently added a QNAP TS-221 to my network for additional storage and for resiliency using RAID 1. This is an older, cheaper, two bay NAS – not the most robust model available and far from the best, but adequate for what I want it to do. The biggest shortcoming in my environment is a lack of block based LUNs, this unit can only create file based LUNs. It’s also rather slow being an ARM based unit, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Some quick notes on connecting this to a Linux host after an LUN has been created via the QNAP interface:

Interestingly – and i may be alone here; I have been using a BitLocker protected LUN as a laptop target for file history in Windows 10. This seems to work without any file system corruption and creates no availability issues when the laptop is not on my home LAN.
Listing Available iSCSI Targets:
1 2 3 4 5 | iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p qnap.nuuk.local # Output 192.168.2.220:3260,1 iqn.2004-04.com.qnap:ts-221:iscsi.archive2.dddfaa 192.168.2.220:3260,1 iqn.2004-04.com.qnap:ts-221:iscsi.archive3.dddfaa 192.168.2.220:3260,1 iqn.2004-04.com.qnap:ts-221:iscsi.test.dddfaa |
Listing Currently Connected Targets:
1 | iscsiadm -m session |
Logging into / Connecting Targets retrieved from the prior step:
1 2 | iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2004-04.com.qnap:ts-221:iscsi.archive2.dddfaa" --portal "qnap.nuuk.local:3260" --login iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2004-04.com.qnap:ts-221:iscsi.archive3.dddfaa" --portal "qnap.nuuk.local:3260" --login |
Logging out / disconnecting from a target:
1 | iscsiadm -m node -T "iqn.2004-04.com.qnap:ts-221:iscsi.archive2.dddfaa" --portal "qnap.nuuk.local:3260" -u |
Mounting an iSCSI target at startup via fstab:
vi /etc/fstab
1 | UUID=4c44f8bb-717c-45b5-837a-75fba66642e7 /media/iscsi2 ext4 _netdev 0 0 |
Quick note – with this particular QNAP product / firmware version, newly created LUNs cannot always be connected to without rebooting the unit.
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