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The Thecus N4200 arrived and since NAS servers take a very long time to test, I dove right in taking my pictures of the box, kind of glancing over things and moving along. When it was time to open things up is when it hit me like a steam roller. The new OLED display is just gorgeous, a real improvement over the old display. At that point I turned the unit around and the real shock came; there is a battery slot and more importantly, a battery!
Storage
Happy, happy new year! It seems that 2008 has gone by so fast, when I was entering the information of this article earlier today, I simply typed "2008" without much attention. Note to self: It's 2009. Now that everything seems to have gotten back to normal -- back to work, or back to school, or maybe even both -- it's time for me to get started on writing reviews again haha. In this evaluation article, we will take a look at Thecus' N4100PRO network attached storage system.
With just a few months away from the introduction of the first 5TB hard disk drives and with 4TB models already flooding the market it makes sense that lately most of the people i know turn towards single and dual bay NAS servers/devices for home and office use. However it is understandable that not everyone can afford one of the new 4TB models and so for people who have some old HDD models lying around the obvious choice would be a cost-effective 4 bay NAS server with which they can use those drives either in JBOD or RAID modes. Thecus may not be the most famous brand name in the market (at least from what people tell me) but they've been manufacturing high quality products for almost a decade now with competitive prices which is what makes them quite appealing to end users. Today we have one such product with us and more specifically the N4100EVO 4 bay NAS server.
We have recently reviewed a lot of NAS devices, and now it's Thecus's turn. Their new N4100EVO is a relatively affordable and very comprehensive NAS for its £240 price tag. Despite its relatively low price, this is a model that is pretty fully-featured. The compact little box has a door on the front, behind which the four hard drive trays are located. The trays are equipped with individual locks. On the front you will find an on/off switch, a USB connection and a display. The latter is a very practical feature to have, since it lets you see what the IP address is for example without having to use a computer. The performance and the noise production however are disappointing.
The more data that the average home or power user collects, the greater the need is for some type of mass storage device to protect it all. The Thecus N32000XXX network attached storage server is very good at addressing this situation. With compatibility for Mac, Linux, and Windows, it makes sharing data and printers extremely easy. With its flexible configuration options and included backup software, it also makes a simple task out of backing up your valuable data.
Storage
Thecus took a great NAS and made it even better with the N3200 Pro. It's difficult to tell it apart from the original N3200 just by looking at it, because underneath the hood is where all the upgrades have taken place. During testing, RAID 5 build time was impressive and transferring files with the Pro model is faster when compared to its predecessor.
In the NAS market, Thecus is one of the biggest names out there alongside QNAP and Synology and as we have seen in the past, the performance and features that they have to offer for the price are very well suited making them ideal for SOHO, SMB and enterprise users alike. Focusing today on the SOHO market, typical home users generally are in line to buy two and four bay systems for storing movies, music and photos on to share across their network to TVs, computers and wireless devices such as tablets.
Over the last year or so we have been seeing a slow migration by many vendors to produce products that are white in appearance to target the home user as they offer a cleaner and more conservative look to them that makes then more suited for a home environment rather than a black system that can look a little out of place or realistically - less stylish.
The N2560 that I'm having a look at today is one of the the first white systems that Thecus have produced, the first being its little brother - the N2520 - and following its showing at CeBIT back in march, the storage giant has been making last minute tweaks and adjustments to optimise its performance and functionality, in the process bringing the N2560 the the line-up as well as the N2520. Over the previewed N2520, the N2560 offers up double the RAM with 2GB of DDR3 and a slightly faster Atom SoC, clocked to 1.6GHz over the N2520's 1.2GHz chip.
Compared to Thecus' over 2-bay solutions, the N2560 offers up a tool-free installation with drives that simply slide into the chassis and get closed in behind a simple front door making the unit far more user friendly for the novice buyers out there. Supporting up to 4TB drives and offering the same host of functionality as any other Thecus system, this Atom based system is internally just like any other NAS that Thecus has to offer.
Roughly a week ago some friends visited our testing grounds (lab as some people like to call it) to see how we do things and from all the things they saw in here what really piqued their interest was the QNAP TS-469U-RP rackmount NAS Server which has taken a permanent role as our download server, DVB-T server and surveillance station. Of course the moment our friends learned of the price tag that specific mode has (or had since it's not widely available anymore) they were slightly disappointed since they too are looking to purchase NAS servers mainly for use as download servers and media players. Personally i also think that a NAS server used for media playback (thus placed close to your TV set) also has to be small in size and not just cost-effective something which obviously most NAS servers we've tested/used over the years are not. Thecus is trying to change that by introducing the latest N2560 2-Bay NAS Server which we've been testing for roughly a week now.
The focus of today's review is a brand new NAS from Thecus. The N2560 uses the latest media ready ATOM processor from Intel as well as running Thecus newest operating system, version 6. With HDMI/audio out and the relevant media apps bundled can perform well enough to be our storage and media centre?
Thecus offers the N2560 as an all-in-one media and storage solution. Let's take a look as we put it through our testing phase to see how it performs.
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