The last bunch of tests... probably.
To complete what has to be one of the most comprehensive tours of a testing lab I’ve ever been on, we took a quick look in the signals lab, where they test the input output signals of products to make sure there’s no problems with getting a device to talk to your PC or receiving inputs from external sources. This is probably one of the most important aspects in testing a new device as it needs to be robust enough to deal with a range of signals and also delicate enough not to output signals with a strength that’d blow the rest of your kit.And of course you have to worry about how ‘clean’ the signal is. Most devices amplify their output signal to some extent, but the problem with amplifying an output to achieve a more error-free signal is that unless you’re careful you can over-boost, causing errors, or amplify unwanted ‘noise’ in a signal that can then create errors. So the trick is to filter out what you don’t want, then amplify that signal enough to meet set standards… which is what these guys are doing here.
Click for larger imageAnd then finally, on our tour of the labs, is the one area where most products end up at the end of a successful run of tests, here in the Pre-Production Quality Verification labs. Bank upon bank of devices are tested simultaneously for normal everyday use, basically a final physical check that a device does everything it’s supposed to do without falling over, blowing up or just generally being a nasty bit of kit.
Click for larger imageBut if you think that’s the end of the testing for a device, you’d be wrong. Once a device has passed all these tests and goes into production, it’ll still see the inside of the labs and go through the whole process over and again as QNAP randomly pick samples to ensure that what’s rolling of the production line is up to the quality of the samples previously tested.
So next time your new bit of kit rolls up in a battered box from a careless courier, you can think of everything that’s happened to it so far to try and make sure that even after a kicking, the thing still works. Right, I’m off to hose down my laptop…
