There are actually five ways to reset your QNAP NAS running QTS 5.0, including soft and hard resets. The soft reset will only change your account and network settings while the hard reset will wipe all the drives, allowing you to start fresh much like Windows 11.
How to reset your QNAP NAS
Reset button
There are two ways to use the reset button to change some settings on your QNAP NAS. The first soft reset only clears the network settings and resets the admin password to the MAC address of the enclosure.
- Press and hold down on the reset button for approximately three seconds until a beep sounds.
- Re-connect to the NAS using your browser.
- Enter username "admin."
- The new password is the first MAC address (found on the NAS sticker under "MAC1") .
Once the NAS has been reset, the following takes place:
- TCP/IP configuration: Obtain IP address settings automatically via DHCP.
- TCP/IP configuration: Disable Jumbo Frame.
- TCP/IP configuration: If port trunking is enabled (dual LAN models only), the port trunking mode will be reset to "Active Backup (Failover)".
- System port: 8080 (system service port).
- Security level: Low (Allow all connections).
- VLAN will be disabled
- Service binding: All NAS services run on all available network interfaces.
Should you want to clear users, groups, and shared folders as well as the above, you'll want to perform the same soft reset process, but hold the button for longer.
- Press and hold down on the reset button for approximately 10 seconds. (You'll hear beeps at three and 10 seconds.)
- Re-connect to the NAS using your browser.
- Enter username "admin."
- The new password is the first MAC address (found on the NAS sticker under "MAC1") .
No data will be lost performing the above two reset processes.
QNAP QTS
There are three further ways to reset your NAS using the QTS OS. The first is "Reset Settings" where no data will be deleted. The second is "Restore Factory Defaults & Format All Volumes," which essentially clears the NAS and resets everything to defaults. Finally, there's "Reinitialize NAS" that will clear everything and allow you to reinstall the OS.
- Log into your QNAP NAS.
- Go to Control Panel > Backup / Restore > Restore to Factory Default.
- Select from the following:
- Reset Settings
- Restore Factory Defaults & Format All Volumes (hard reset)
- Reinitialize NAS (hard reset)
- Click OK.
How to pick the best hard drives for your NAS
Working on your NAS enclosure and need some additional drives? We've rounded up some excellent NAS-class drives, including Seagate IronWolf and Western Digital Red. We'd recommend having at least two drives installed on an enclosure with more than a single drive bay, which allows for the creation of a RAID array for enhanced data redundancy.
If you're looking for the best value NAS from QNAP, look no further than the TS-451D2. It has four drive bays, an Intel processor, and everything you need to set up your very first home NAS.
