Hey all,

I recently purchased a Thecus N5200B (the N5200BR has a built in 4 port gigE router) and thought I'd share my initial thoughts as there may be interest here...

Product page: http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=1&pid=8

Summary: 5 drive (hot swap, SATA) NAS device that supports gigE (2 ports), RAID 0,1,5,6,10, CIFS/NFS/FTP/HTTP(S)/AFP, and eSATA for additional capacity.

I've been playing with the unit for about two weeks now and I can say that I am fairly happy with it. The firmware is still a little rough around the edges but it has ALOT of potential.

My configuration:
Firmware 1.00.03
5x Western Digital 400GB SATA 1.5Gb 16MB buffer - RAID5 configuration

The unit itself is pretty slick looking. Its well put together except for the drive trays which seem somewhat flimsy (though I don't plan on doing much with them once the system is up and running). I also locked all the trays to keep curious hands from pulling drives 'just to see what happens'.

The blue power LCD and LED are quite bright, so it might not fly so well sitting up in front of a home theater. As for noise, it is more quiet than the old 2-drive Linux PC it replaced and I don't have any issues with it running 24/7 in my 'home office' type environment. Again, you probably wouldn't want it smack dab in the middle of your home theater.

Setup was pretty straight forward via the setup wizard for the initial network config and the web interface for the rest of it. The documentation could be more robust for the people would aren't very computer/network savvy. Once it was all set up, the 1.6TB RAID set took about 3-4 hours to build.

The only main issue I had was with snapshots. When I had snapshots enabled, large files from my Windows box would regularly lock the N5200 up (transfers from my linux box were fine). Once I disabled and deleted the one (100% full) snapshot I had, the problem went away. I'm still not sure if it was a snapshot thing in general or a 'full snapshot' issue, but I'll wait for the next firmware release to try again.

A smaller issue is using the web interface with Mozilla. There are a few annoyances there, but IE will get you by just fine. I was also hoping that power management would be fully implemented.

I've had no problems streaming music and video to my PC or my AudioTron and I can consistantly get 12-13MB/sec writes over a cheap gigE switch with no jumbo frames enabled. I haven't tried to accurately measure reads yet. The writes seem slower than I've seen benchmarked elsewhere, but are still at tolerable levels (any thoughts out there?).

I just wish the support and user communities were as good as those for Infrant (ReadyNAS). I purchased the unit from eAegis.com and they have been top notch so far in the sales and support areas. I was on the fence between this unit the the ReadyNAS NV. I decided to risk on the N5200 due to the comparible feature set, faster CPU, five drive support, and faster performance as noted by Tom's NAS charts.

Pros:

Good performance.
Supports five SATA drives (most competitors support 4)
Supports RAID 6 and 10 in addition to the typical RAID 0, 1, and 5
Supports CIFS, NFS, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, AFS


Cons:

Firmware still has some open issues and yet-to-be-implemented features such as snapshots and real power management.
User community is very small compared to the competition (Infrant wins by far, here)
Customer Support needs to ramp up for the US market.
Lacks SFTP
Lacks SSH/shell/scripting/slimserver support (the N2100 has more of this)



I am happy to answer any questions people may have. :)


Additional Info:

Thecus User Group: http://thecususergroup.proboards106.com/index.cgi

Tom's Networking NAS charts: http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/10/03/nas_chart_thecus_n5200_hp_media_vault/

HEXUS Review: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6181

anyone try with xbmc yet

Thanks for the review. I am currently debating 5200 vs ReadyNAS.

My main concern is early reports of data corruption with the 5200 - have you seen or heard about that - was it only the really early firmware? Like you I am tempted by the newer features and faster performance of the 5200 though ...

Thanks for the review. I am currently debating 5200 vs ReadyNAS.

My main concern is early reports of data corruption with the 5200 - have you seen or heard about that - was it only the really early firmware? Like you I am tempted by the newer features and faster performance of the 5200 though ...

On the Thecus User Groups, there was one person I saw who was seeing data corruption. That thread is ongoing and I think he was asked to send in his box for support (bad hardware?).

I personally have not seen any corruption and the only real instability was the snapshot issues I was having. The current beta firmware disables snapshots for now, though add UPS auto shutdown support.

ReadyNAS NV (and NV+) is definitely a more mature and 'granny-proof' product and their support and user community is top notch from what I've seen... but if you can tolerate a few rough edges for now, I think the performance and extra disk warrant a serious look at the Thecus N5200.

How about max file size supported? Seems like nobody wants to store his 16 GB hdtv movies in his NAS. :confused:

According to the most recent firmware release notes the answer is... 'it depends':

"Single file size upper limitation: 2TB"

"Writing a file larger than 2 GB is not allowed by MAC OS-9."

"File size has to be less than 1GB to be uploaded to the N5200 from web browsers. FTP software has no such limitation."

That said, my largest files are around 1.5GB so I've not tested the 2TB limit.

According to the most recent firmware release notes the answer is... 'it depends':

"Single file size upper limitation: 2TB"

"Writing a file larger than 2 GB is not allowed by MAC OS-9."

"File size has to be less than 1GB to be uploaded to the N5200 from web browsers. FTP software has no such limitation."

That said, my largest files are around 1.5GB so I've not tested the 2TB limit.
Thanks for your answer. 2 TB seems good enough, the biggest files I use to encode hdtv caps are 200/300 GB in size.

Tom's Networking just posted a review:

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/11/07/thecus_n5200_nas_review/

Any updates or new opinions on this thing....

I already have a terastation for the GF. and a Infrant that is maxed out and just bought a N5200 and 4 500G drives.... hopefully the firmware is getting better. It appears they are at least updating it regularly.... If it sucks I can always send it back and buy a terastation Pro or NV+....

Sean

I saw your question but haven't seen response yet. It is actually one of the things I was hoping to find in this thread. I'm considering setting up media distribution in my home using MCE as the base system, xbox360s (one in each room) for extenders and a Thecus5200 or ReadyNAS as my storage device. As most probably know, mapped drives to the MCE PC are not visible to the extender device. In talking to Infrant they say they have tested and support such a configuration. I have not spoken with Thecus as yet.

Does anyone have any experience with this configuration and the Thecus?

Thanks
David


anyone try with xbmc yet

I saw your question but haven't seen response yet. It is actually one of the things I was hoping to find in this thread. I'm considering setting up media distribution in my home using MCE as the base system, xbox360s (one in each room) for extenders and a Thecus5200 or ReadyNAS as my storage device. As most probably know, mapped drives to the MCE PC are not visible to the extender device. In talking to Infrant they say they have tested and support such a configuration. I have not spoken with Thecus as yet.

Does anyone have any experience with this configuration and the Thecus?

Thanks
David


I got mine up and running and boy is it fast... 3-4X faster than my X6... I don't have enough computers to actually saturate this thing at the moment...

I know nothing about MCE extenders etc...

I can tell you the firmware is buggy and lacking tons of features...

UPS works fine with infrant does not work with thecus
email notification does not work
snapshots don't work
power management doesn't work
limited amounts of status info....
build quality is poor compared to infrant

it does look cool....


I bought it cause I wanted something fast for DATA file storage for my PC not just as a media server. the infrant is far superior in every aspect except for performance... If you just want something to work buy an NV. If you want the ultimate in performance and spend the next year cursing at support etc buy a thecus...

Sean

Thanks for the response. My first inclination has been to buy the ReadyNAS / NAS+. I was impressed by the pre-sales support I've received from them and the online user community. I'm buying this to host all of my home media (music, photos, video) and allow it to be shared using media server(s) either via xbox360 as a MCE extender or other media devices such as the MvixUSA or Mediagate products, etc. Not sure having MCE gives me any great benefit other than point to point (extender).

So, ultimate performance is not key. Ease of management, reasonable performance, decent software, hot swap and various raid features, etc., are more important.


I got mine up and running and boy is it fast... 3-4X faster than my X6... I don't have enough computers to actually saturate this thing at the moment...

I know nothing about MCE extenders etc...

I can tell you the firmware is buggy and lacking tons of features...

UPS works fine with infrant does not work with thecus
email notification does not work
snapshots don't work
power management doesn't work
limited amounts of status info....
build quality is poor compared to infrant

it does look cool....


I bought it cause I wanted something fast for DATA file storage for my PC not just as a media server. the infrant is far superior in every aspect except for performance... If you just want something to work buy an NV. If you want the ultimate in performance and spend the next year cursing at support etc buy a thecus...

Sean

I think I'll grab one of these and five 750gb drives for my 380 disc DVD collection & 7 room home theater network. I'll report back on how it is.

I've received and setup my Thecus N5200. As predicted, i really like the unit. I didn't go with 750gig drives though. I know 1TB trives will be here soon, and I hear rumors about 1.6TB drives following. But for me, buying 1.6tb or 1tb drives...or even 750gb drives...it's hard to justify the costs.

For instance, the cheapest 750gb SATAII drive you can buy today (January 4th, 2007) is $330 bucks + shipping. However, you can buy a 500gb SATAII drive today for $129 free shipping. That's 150% of the price for only 50% capacity increase. That means if I buy five 750gb drives i'm looking at $1,650 vs. buying five 500gb drives for only $650. That's a $1000 difference. I just can't justify that. Psssssh, for a grand can get a 2GB Terrastation! So if their doing this with 750GB drives, what on earth are they going to price the 1TB drives at?? This means I will have to wait 1.5 years for things to make economical sense for a simple estimated 450 disc DVD collection. That's 18 months of getting out my warm bed to simply change the DVD disc, flipping through 4 dvd album books to find a movie, and hoping the DVD is clean and not scratched........NOT HAPPENING. *smile* 500gb drives and two thecus boxes make more sense today and for the foreseable next 18 months.

As for the Thecus N5200 itself, I didn't get the version with the built in router because I just didn't need it. Previous reports of poor firmware are not apparent in my unit. Apparently the firmware has matured since then.

PROS:
1. Very fast - Using my gigabit network with jumbo packets enabled and SMB/CIFS (samba), I downloaded a 1080p WMVHD file from microsoft HD gallery and streamed it to 3 HTPC's simultaneously. Using standard DVD bitrates, I beleive I can serve probably 5-7 rooms at the same time. I backed up some of my personal DVD's to the unit and the bottleneck is the read speed of the DVD-ROM. I was ripping from two locations simultaneously with no problems.

Noise - It's relatively quiet

Temperature - It's very cool and seemingly keeps the drives very cool

Functionality - I love the LCD display and buttons that allow you to enter the system and do a few changes without the need of a computer. I accidentally locked myself out of the unit because i made some bad choices during the network setup, and to fix it the 1st time, I simply reset to factory using the front display. The second time i screwed up, I simply changed the IP address using the front display to get back in.


CONS:
- It doesn;'t come with a paper owners manual. So i had to visit their website and download the PDF version.

- The web interface works flawless and allowed me to setup a JBOD, RAID0, RAID 1 and RAID 5 with no problems. I tried them all just to see how it goes. I ended up with a RAID 5. However, the actual "DESIGN" of the web interface could be spiced up to be a wee bit more user friendly.


OTHER THOUGHTS:
Got into a lengthy discussion at AVSFORUM about tis unit vs. the infrant ReadyNas. I went with this unit because of the reported speed and 5 drive setup. A 4-disk RAID5 seems silly to me. 5-disk makes much more sense, considering we are a symetrical species. The complaints were that the firmware was immature and it lacked many options. Newegg sent me a unit with the latest firmware so I did not have to do any downloades4upgrades.

My conclusion during my 2 days of ownership is the newest firmware must have fixed everything because the unit is running pretty solid to me.

for those that don't know...
1. the diffrence between this model and the "r" model is the "r" model has a built in 4-port router.
2. There are no cables to fumble with. The drive bays have the SATA connections built onto the motherboard and aligned perfectly for the drives to slide right in and on.
3. Once you pick a RAID and setup your folder(s), it/they will become instantly available in Network Neighborhood.

Update:
the WMVHD file from the microsoft website was of a low bitrate. I just streamed a recording of the TV show BOSTON LEGAL which was recorded in HD over-the-air @ 19.7mbps. The same show streamed to multiple locations simultaneously via gigabit ethernet with no stuttering or issues.

I hope that helps,

An update from me...

I'm liking this box even more now... every firmware upgrade has been an improvement. The latest (1.00.05) has media server support (mediabolic), though I haven't experimented with it yet.

The usergroups are slowly picking up steam and we are starting to see some interesting hacks/mods (ssh, rsync, etc).

I didn't realize there was yet another firmwware released just 2 days ago......

[New Features/Changes]

1. Added media server support
2. Reserve “iTunes” and “album” as system folders’ name and then admin could not create these folders from [Storage / folder] page.
Note1: In case you have already created “iTunes” or “album” folder, please do not use it or contact Thecus technical support team to remove it.

Those updates do not pertain to me, and there are no bug fixes (and i haven't experienced any bugs or problems with my N5200 either), so I'll just keep 1.00.04 for now.

For the last few days, I've been using two HTPC's simultaneously to "backup" my 380 disc DVD collection using the MyMovies.name program. Every 20 minutes, I get up and go change the discs. All has been working perfectly.

Has anyone attempted to make a volume larger than 2TBs? Some of the other NAS are restricted to 2TB due to the kernel that's being used.

I'm thinking of purchasing this unit and installing five 750G drives, but would hate to not be able to get 3TB in raid 5. I've sent numberous emails to Thecus with no responses, but this is typical of their support (so I've read).

I really like the sound of the Thecus but the only thing that hasn't been said is if it has X-RAID support (like the ReadyNAS)

I really like the idea of starting with 1 hard drive and just throwing in another when i need the space (have the money).

Does the Thecus N5200 support adding extra hard drives "on the fly" or would you have to rebuild the raid every time?

YES,
The thecus can add disks as you go....
3 disk RAID5 ----> add 1 more disk ---> wait a few hours ----> now you'll have a 4 disk RAID5

AND

It can change the raid type without losing the volume or making a new volume if you want too....
RAID1 --> RAID5 for example.

YES,
The thecus can add disks as you go....
3 disk RAID5 ----> add 1 more disk ---> wait a few hours ----> now you'll have a 4 disk RAID5


However, the Thecus treats a single disk as JBOD, and there is no migration from JBOD to raid. I bought the Thecus with a single disk, planning to add a second disk later, but according to all the documentation, that is not possible. So I'm buying a second disk. I still think it's better than the Infrant because of the dramatic difference in speed, and the extra drive bay. But the firmware is clearly not to the level of the Infrant firmware. Yet. They seem to be on a 4 week firmware upgrade cycle, with significant improvements in every release.

-Stephen

Firmware seems fine to me. They've had 3 new releases just in 2007 alone. *smile*

I never tested it from a single disk migration.

I just migratd from four 500gb drives to add a 5th 500gb drive. Migration was Raid5-->Raid5.

Sucka took over 24hours for the complete process! needless to say, I was damn afraid the whole time that I don't lose power at my house for any given reason. LOL.

After the migration was finished a day later, all 1.4-terrabytes of my movies were there saying hello to me. Perfect success and the RAID5 was healthy. Only difference, I had an additional 500GB of space to add more movies!

*smile*

I just migratd from four 500gb drives to add a 5th 500gb drive. Migration was Raid5-->Raid5.

Sucka took over 24hours for the complete process! needless to say, I was damn afraid the whole time that I don't lose power at my house for any given reason. LOL.
*smile*
Could you provide the procedure you used to do the migration?

I am planning the identical migration of a RAID 5 array from 4 to 5 500mb disks. I only have about 650MB on it at the moment.

Do you install the drive with the unit on or off? When you hit the migration button, what to you select as the drives for the migration?

Any help you could provide would be most appreciated! Thank You!

I purchased an N5200B in 03/07 and filled it w/ 5 750 GB Seagate drives. Had occasional problems with it locking up. Tech support's answer was always to upgrade the firmware.

In 08/07, during one of my lock-up incidents, tech support told me to press the reset button. I did. Unit reboots and all settings are gone. Not reset to factory defaults but simply gone. So, I go in and re-enter all of the settings (host anme, IP, etc) and then discover that it no longer knows that those 5 drives contain 3TB worth of data as a RAID-5.

After sending multiple copies of the configuration file to Thecus Tech Support over a two week period, they tell me to send it back (to California) for warranty repair. They also tell me to be sure to send the drives back so that the RAID can be restored. They issue a warranty RMA and provide a shipping address for Clairtek, Inc., which is apparently the US arm of Thecus.

Two weeks after they receive the N5200B and my 5 drives, I get an email wanting a money order for $550 to complete the warranty repair.

Needless to say, they aren't getting $550 for a warranty repair. Besides, I don't have $550 to throw out the window.

Several emails back and forth - they aren't budging. Neither was I.

Well, now, 6 weeks after they received the unit for warranty repair, they don't answer their phone. They don't return my voice mail messages. Emails to three individuals at the California location go unanswered. My written correspondence, sent via Certified Mail, gets returned - as "unclaimed."

So, now, I'm out $2000 for the N5200B and the drives, as well as 3TB of irreplacable data.

The one reason I bought an NAS and set it up as a RAID-5 was to protect this data. And now, thanks to Thecus, it's gone and I've been screwed.

-- Jeff

I really like the sound of the Thecus but the only thing that hasn't been said is if it has X-RAID support (like the ReadyNAS)

I really like the idea of starting with 1 hard drive and just throwing in another when i need the space (have the money).

Does the Thecus N5200 support adding extra hard drives "on the fly" or would you have to rebuild the raid every time?

X-Raid is NOT supported by Thecus. X-Raid is a tachnology patented and
invented by Infrant and means "more" than just auto build a system. While
Thecus can initially be set to have raid and expand as you go, it will not build
a RAID5 out of a JBOD disk or strip like the X-Raid would do...

Quality wise the infrant will be in the lead but for features (wake on lan,
modules integration etc) Thecus is the better choice for the geek. The
interface lacks finesse though on Thecus making the experience a downgrade
as far as administration goes and not forget, it's more expensive to (pro
version at least)

At the time I reviewed it the thing bugging me most was low Raid5 performance, noise, avergae interface, options for tuning (advanced like Journaling, Disk cahce etc_ and it's price even being a Celeron 1500MHz. I 'kind of concluded the extra juice under the hood and extra money it costs did not reveal enough advantage towards the consumers but beside that, the unit performed ok, was stable as far as we could see and had some great options not found in many others, including infrant.

Intro Review Thecus: http://www.mpcclub.com/banner_log.php?id=5045
Intro review Infrant ReadyNAS NV+: http://www.mpcclub.com/banner_log.php?id=5011
(MPC reviews are an introduction, not a 100% correct / complete manual. Changes in firmware after review are not reflected)

Both offer a good introduction to what you buy if you consider it....
In the end, comparing both can be done and infrant would be the winner in
Quality and interface but thecus leads in performance and options in general
as the community, once decently picked up can mean so much more......

Enjoy
Hi-Jack

The writes seem slower than I've seen benchmarked elsewhere, but are still at tolerable levels (any thoughts out there?).
Funny you should mention that. I have 12 NAS boxes from a couple of manufacturers and I've noticed that writes are always slower than what I've seen benchmarked elsewhere. Maybe it's my LAN hardware or something else, I dunno, but no amount of tweaking, jumbo frames or whatever helps.

The one reason I bought an NAS and set it up as a RAID-5 was to protect this data. And now, thanks to Thecus, it's gone and I've been screwed.
Oh dear god. Jeff, that's quite a horror story, sent chills down my spine. I feel you pain! Do you have any sort of a consumer advocate association or equivalent in the USA? We've got one in Finland and it's quite effective in exactly the sort of cases you described.

Did you get any explanation as to why you should pay them $550 for repairs under warranty?

To be honest, I was just about to pull the trigger on a Thecus N5200B but your story gave me pause. I'll have to re-think this.

JGCREWS,

oh man, I feel for you. That really is a horror story.

Thank you for letting the rest of us know.

I will never have anything to do with Thecus, unless they resolve your case as well.

Thecus told me that the configuration data for the RAID was deleted when the reset button was pressed - which they told me to do the last time the machine had locked up.

I was told to send the drives back withn the N5200B so that they could restore the RAID, which made sense to me because it was the instructions from their tech support guy that told me to use the reset button (which shouldn't have resulted in the mess that it did, but I believe there were issues with the firmware [1.00.12.3] that was on the N5200B).

The $550 was apparently to re-assemble the RAID data. Now, however, even if I had $550, I can't get them to answer the phone or return any calls.

Everyone I have talked to, with regard to my rights as a consumer, indicated that I should file suit. However, I really don't have the funds or resources to take those steps. I am absolutely amazed at what has happened. I had read good things about Thecus products and initially felt safe in making my $2,000 investment.

Anybody out there have any suggestions? Phone calls to Taiwan and my only speaking English haven't worked out too well...

The $550 was apparently to re-assemble the RAID data.

$550 to restore 3TB of data? That's chump change - you should have paid it upon initial request. I paid $1800 to restore 1% of what you had off a laptop drive.

Glad to see $550 is chump change to you. I'm disabled and must survive solely on my disability income, which really doesn't even cover living expenses and medication. $550 would be 3 months worth of food but you seem to be missing my point completely.

For the 25 years that I've been involved with PCs, I've had only 1 hard drive die - a Quantum 5 GB drive many years ago.

When I decide to save money (over quite a long period of time, I might add) to invest in hardware to protect my data, I expect the hardware to do just that. I don't expect the hardware's firmware to erase configuration data for the RAID simply by pressing the reset button. I don't expect to be told by the manufacturer to return the drives with the N5200B so that they can re-assembled my RAID and then hold it hostage and ask for an additional $550 - with no guarantee that it will work.

If this had been a single hard drive that failed, and I neglected to take steps to back-up the data on the drive, then by all means, blame me. But investing $2,000 in hardware to protect my data and do it in a supposed fail-safe manner, only to result in total data loss after having the device for just 6 months - that's not acceptable.


I almost didn't bother even posting my experience with my N5200 to the forum because I knew someone like you would come along with some sarcastic remark about my experience. But I did post in the hopes that I might actually receive some support, encouragement or suggestions to help me resolve my problem.

Since you are apparently rolling in money, why don't you send a $550 money order to Thecus and resolve my issue - your post certainly didn't provide me with any help.

-- Jeff

Anybody out there have any suggestions? Phone calls to Taiwan and my only speaking English haven't worked out too well...
In your case I would be in contact with Thecus HQ by e-mail and make a severe complaing about Clairtek's actions. Or was it Thecus, not Clairtek, who told you to press reset? Well, regardless, I would go over the company who asked you for the $550 to their superiors and complain like hell.

Something else you might consider: write a post about your experience and send it to IT magazines and websites. Some publicity might help you case.

Personally I wouldn't send anything to thecus because of their lack of response to email or phone calls. However I feel that the Thecus is still a good platform. I bought an N5200 a while ago and after storing up to 2TB of data I decided to try the USB backup thing. That basically killed my array and I lost all my data. I was one of the very early adopters so the firmware was rather old. Upgrading firmware didn't save my data. Since I know a thing or two about linux I decided to dive in. The Thecus's uses Logical Volume partions on top of the raid partition it creates. When I dove into recovering my 2 TB I realized that the Logical volume got messed up but fortunetly the header information gets backed up in diff locations. I found the corrupt partion that caused all my problems (USB device), I cleared that, reconstructed my logical volume, and mounted the partition. wow had all my data back! yippie! I then proceeded to move all my data to another Thecus N5200 , wiped this one clean, re-installed a new firmware, and I am good to go. I believe the N5200 Pro has a newer firmware and less bugs but I'm happy with my other N5200 regulars.

I'm happy with the N5200 and I think its very reliable. I also noticed that these things are going cheap on ebay (some guy selling them on ebay for cheap right now)..

Glad to see $550 is chump change to you. I'm disabled and must survive solely on my disability income, which really doesn't even cover living expenses and medication. $550 would be 3 months worth of food but you seem to be missing my point completely.

For the 25 years that I've been involved with PCs, I've had only 1 hard drive die - a Quantum 5 GB drive many years ago.

When I decide to save money (over quite a long period of time, I might add) to invest in hardware to protect my data, I expect the hardware to do just that. I don't expect the hardware's firmware to erase configuration data for the RAID simply by pressing the reset button. I don't expect to be told by the manufacturer to return the drives with the N5200B so that they can re-assembled my RAID and then hold it hostage and ask for an additional $550 - with no guarantee that it will work.

If this had been a single hard drive that failed, and I neglected to take steps to back-up the data on the drive, then by all means, blame me. But investing $2,000 in hardware to protect my data and do it in a supposed fail-safe manner, only to result in total data loss after having the device for just 6 months - that's not acceptable.


I almost didn't bother even posting my experience with my N5200 to the forum because I knew someone like you would come along with some sarcastic remark about my experience. But I did post in the hopes that I might actually receive some support, encouragement or suggestions to help me resolve my problem.

Since you are apparently rolling in money, why don't you send a $550 money order to Thecus and resolve my issue - your post certainly didn't provide me with any help.

-- Jeff

Jgcrews,

I happen to have some good contacts at Thecus and surely we can arrange
this case to unlock somehow (customer defense site). If things went down
like you said, get in touch with me and send me your RMA case number. I'll
run it by some people and see if we can shake a few tries and arrange the
unit to return. The warranty is valid so no costs can be charged and that's
what I would defend.

off course, you will understand we check both sides of the story first.
Important is who advised you to reset, any proof (chatlog, mail?) otherwise
it comes down to word against word. I would rule a company can show it's
teeth and resolve this case anyhow.... so very likely, with the help of some
key people on the scene, we can resolve this for the best...

If the mistake is not with you, I don't agree you have to pay for it.

Enjoy
Hi-Jack

Clairtek, Inc., a California corporation, seems to be the US arm of Thecus, as best I can determine. They are solely responsible for US sales & warranty claims.

They gave me RMA # EB340705. My N5200 & 5 HDDs arrived in Milpitas, California at their location on August 28, 2007. To date, I have had email & telephone contact with the following individuals at that location: Kevin Shen, Thomas Hsu, Jay Lu & Patrick Au.

I had several emails back and forth with Thecus support during the month prior to this catastrophe. My inital problems were the unit would unexpectedly lock up & I was having unexplained disk activity when I wasn't accessing the RAID. There response was to update to FW 1.00.12.3, which wasn't even on their website. They sent a second email that said this was a beta FW upgrade but it would resolve my issue.

Even after installing the newer FW, I still had lock-up issues. During a phone call to Thecus support, they told me to press the reset button and power cycle the unit. Upon doing that, I discovered that all configuration data (host name, IP address, etc) was gone. I re-entered that information and then realized that it was unaware that there was a 3.75 TB RAID array on the 5 HDDs. What's the point of putting a reset button on the front of the N5200 if the end result is going to be destruction of your data? I personally believe that the 1.00.12.3 FW had something to do with it in that the unit's response to the rest button being pressed erased all user data, as opposed to only resetting the Host Name & IP address.

Several more emails back and forth, together with various copies of the configuartion file resulted in them telling me that my "DOM (Disk On Module)" was defective and that the unit needed to be returned. I expressed concern about my data and they advised to return the N5200B along with my HDDs so that they could resolve my RAID issue.

I did all of that.

On 09/07, I received an email stating that the N5200 and the 5 HDDs needed to be sent to Taiwan to restore the RAID. They advised me to send a Money Order for $550 USD to Clairtek at the California address. The email said:

" Pre-recover process USD. 150
Data Recovery charge USD. 300
Shipping fee USD. 100
------------------------------
Total USD. 550

We are not sure if the data could be 100% recovered. In that case, we won't charge USD 300 but the customer still has to pay (150 + 100 = 250)."

Over the last 21 days, I have left 17 messages asking for a return phone call - none received.

Today, on a whim, I called again and someone actually answered the phone - it was Jay Lu. He said they were waiting for the $550. I once again made my stand that all was well until they told me to press the reset button. Jay Lu no claims that the reason my N5200 locked up was because of a HDD failure. Of course, there was no indication that there was a problem with one of the drives and at no point did anyone in Tech Support indicate that was a problem. Even if that were the case, the whole point of a RAID-5 is to prevent a drive failure from becoming a source for data loss.

I spent 45 minutes on the phone with him today - I did most of the talking, at quite an elevated volume I might add.

He says that he will ask Taiwan again what can be done to resolve the problem.

Although I don't have the financial resources to accomplish it, I fell that legal action against Clairtek might be my only option. I just have a hard time understanding why they would want to spend money for a legal proceeding when it would certainly amount to more than the $550 Clairtek/Thecus could spend to resolve this. I'm not a huge mega corporation - I'm just one poor sole who thought he was making a wise investment in purchasing a Thecus product and in doing so have gotten the shaft.

I've dealt with a lot of companies over the years that have less-than-desirable customer service but Thecus seems to take the cake this time around.

If you know of anyone that may be able to help get this resolved and restore my RAID, as they originally indicated they would do, please pass the information along to them.

-- Jeff

Glad to see $550 is chump change to you. I'm disabled and must survive solely on my disability income, which really doesn't even cover living expenses and medication.

For the 25 years that I've been involved with PCs, I've had only 1 hard drive die - a Quantum 5 GB drive many years ago.

I almost didn't bother even posting my experience with my N5200 to the forum because I knew someone like you would come along with some sarcastic remark about my experience.

Problem with forums is you can't gauge anything by a simple response. My comment wasn't sarcastic - You didn't say you were on a fixed budget, you said you "didn't want to throw $550 out the window" - that could mean a number of things: a) you don't have it (which you are now saying) b) you don't feel you should because of warranty; c) you don't want to perhaps because you don't think you'll get your data back. So lighten up.

As for the 1 hard drive failing in 25 years - that's the case with most of us until it happens again.

Lastly, as for 'chump change' my comment was in reference to what data recovery services charge. Not because it's a feable amount of money. But when you are (in a general case) told $550 for 3TB worth of data to be restored vs. $1800 for 60GB worth of data, it is cheap. And that's what my comment was in reference to. Sorry you took it out of context, but I read your initial post as 'It's under warranty, therefore I shouldn't have to pay any money for recovery'. As long as someone has your data, and if it's irreplaceable or you're that dependent on it, pay the money, then argue to get it back AFTER you get your data.

I hope you get your data back. Regardless, sell your Thecus and get an ReadyNAS.

JGCrews,

We will pick this up with thecus today by mail.
Send me your email address and details so thecus can get in touch with you (use PM box)

Enjoy
hi-Jack

Case seems beter now thx to thecus for accepting the proposal of only
having the user pay for the shipping costs and not the Raid5 reparation.

Understanding the issue:
I talked about this user, from the conf.bin we have, one of the
user's hard disk has gone off-line one week before this "reset" issue
happened. Last time when the user called, I explained to him that the
system gave him warnings, but he did not take any action about the issue
at that time. He admitted that he had saw the warning but did not take
action about the warning, and claimed the manual did not say anything
about replacing the hard drive after seeing that warning (which IS
actually listed in the manual in Storage menu->Disk Information
Screen->S.M.A.R.T screen).

User is unhappy about the data recovery fee, so I mailed to him telling
him that although it is listed in the warranty card that data loss is
not covered by Thecus warranty, we are willing to send the unit back to
Taipei and trying to get the data as a special case, he only needs to
pay for the shipping.

Case solved... So partial the story sounds different but the outcome is
positive, especially since DATA LOSS is not covered usually. In the end
the shipping costs will be charged but no recovery fee which sounds like
a good solution to meet the customner half way in restoring the Thecus
NAS to an operational one without data loss (if possible).

Just thought the efforts of thecus to reach out should be posted equally along with the complaints...

Enjoy
hi-hack

You lost me, if it is a RAID 5 array, why did he (potentially) lose data when one drive went bad? Even if one drive is off-line, why can't he get to his data?

Not that he should be trying to get back his data without a new drive in there, but that's a seperate issue.

That's not the key point. A drive had failed and for over a week no proper actions had been taken (user unaware of the issue) which lead to the Thecus becoming unstable and lockup. eventually a reset caused the data to be lost...

The problem is that we don't know what happenned at the user's place and can't make hard he only resetted it which he probably did. I talked to jg and explained him how these errors can be trapped (as he, and i agree, does not think reading the logs every day is convenient)

Given the circumstances he has no logs backed up to verify what is wrong to challenge Thecus feedback, since it is true the disk failed for over a week read from the logs etc... and we feel the user should not be held responsible for a reset causing data loss (i resretted my thecus 10 times now without raid loss to make sure it's not an issue) we considered the repair should be under warranty and the user should only cover transport costs.

That would cause the case to be a repair under normal conditions for which we agree,
Thecus has done it's part to meet the user half way and accepts the fact that "yes"
the user has not detected the issue but it's not the cause that led to raid loss and
even though data loss is "never" covered under warranty (read the small warranty
letters), they accepted to make the extra effort to try and restore it free.

In a reset and reboot, if any additional drive doesn't load up correctly, your raid is lost. It is possible that somehow an issue came forth in addition to the reset / reboot or whatever, which we can not see without the logs. If the disk that failed was the sapre disk, another one would have taken over so we would be talking about a reset possibly during a rebuild session or whatever that lead to this... who can tell? We done the best we can for the user to get things rolling for him at the lowest possible cost and hopfully he will able to enjoy his data and the Thecus again...

Not all is covered in this case but the outcome is acceptable.


Enjoy
Hi-Jack

That was very nice of you, Hi-Jack.

HiJack, very good of you to step in and help.
I've had a ReadyNAS NV+ for about 6 months. I've never gotten the performance out of it as expected. I have a lot of TCP retransmits and unrecoverable errors. Since I've upgraded to Vista, the performance has gotten worse. I have not yet installed the Vista add-on. I also have an open RMA to send the unit back because of the network issues.

Mainly due to the Vista performance problems, I have started to look at the Thecus 5200. My ReadyNAS has 3x500GB drives in it (RAID 5), and less than 40GB free now. Before I add another drive, I was thinking it makes sense to look around. The lost data scares the crap out of me. I do backup critical data to a USB drive and take it off-site now and then, but not all of my data. I depend on the RAID5 to provide that level of comfort.

I really like the performance of the Thecus. I understand that the GUI isn't as pretty as ReadyNAS, but that's not a showstopper. As long as they are continuing to produce firmware upgrades, that's a good thing. Infrant is taking way too long with v4. Also, from what I hear, after the Netgear takeover, things haven't been that smooth for customers.

Anyway, thanks for all the posts. Hopefully I can make a decision soon.

Despite JGCREW's terrible experience with Thecus, I took the plunge and purchased a N5200. I prefer to test things for myself, and if things don't work out, one can always sell the offending product :)

Anyhoo. First impressions: OH DEAR LORD, WHY?!

OK, let me explain. The unit arrived a week earlier than expected, so I didn't have the HDDs I was considering on using at hand. Instead, I put in one 160GB Western Digital I had lying around the place and powered the box up.

First it spent some 10 minutes with "Self Testing..." on the display. Then some minutes more booting. I tried connecting to it with the provided Thecus Setup Wizard. It couldn't find the box, despite the fact that the PC and the box were in the same subnet. Firewalls, virus scanners etc. were all disabled so they didn't stop the Wizard from finding the box.

Browser connected to the box just fine. I spent a minute or two browsing the menus, before deciding to change the name of the Workgroup to match my WG. Did that, clicked Apply and waited for the GUI to become available again. And waited. And waited some more.

After 10 minutes I had had enough. Since the box was unresponsive, I had to power it down by keeping the power button down for some seconds. When I powered it up again, something inside the box had died. It never gets past the first step of the boot-up process. Display reads "Self Testing..." and nothing else happens. I left it running for 10 hours, and the next morning that same message was still there.

After a day of testing and trying out a couple of things suggested by Thecus Support, I'm fairly certain the Disk-On-Module is corrupted and there's no way I can get the box up again without a new DOM.

I suggested to Thecus they send me a new DOM in the post and I'll send the corrupted one in return. No reply to that yet. It would certainly make more sense to send a tiny memory card than to ship the entire box at great expense.

I think I'll sell the box once a new DOM arrives. The thing is, I can't trust the N5200 with my data. If something as simple as changing the name of the Workgroup corrupts DOM and kills the box...

I have a question about this device since I am kinda new to this stuff. I currently have a HTPC with 3 500gig HDs on it. I am encoding all my DVDs to Divx to store on these drives. I would HATE to see a HD to die and lose all my work. So these are the questions that I have...

If I buy this device and place 5 500gig HDs to run in RAID 5. Do the hard drives need to be empty first? My first 3 500 gig drives are pretty much already full. I would love to place those 3 drives and the 2 empty drives inside and have it make the Raid 5 and save my data.

Will this device also work with a network media player like this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817113001

If I buy this device and place 5 500gig HDs to run in RAID 5. Do the hard drives need to be empty first? My first 3 500 gig drives are pretty much already full. I would love to place those 3 drives and the 2 empty drives inside and have it make the Raid 5 and save my data.
You will lose whatever data is on those drives, as Thecus will format them when it creates a RAID 5 array.

Will this device also work with a network media player like this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817113001
Didn't find much info on what transport protocols that player supports, but if it streams in LAN using CIFS/Samba or NFS, then yes, you can use it to view content placed on Thecus (with some restrictions regarding video&audio codecs and bitrates). You can also install a UPnP-AV server (software) module in Thecus, if that player supports UPnP-AV protocol.

I received a new DOM for my Thecus yesterday. It didn't help at all; my Thecus is still dead as a doorknob. I have to send it back to the retailer who resides in Germany, which means paying $50 in shipping costs. Oh joy.

this makes me cringe at the thought of a thecus.

Are there any positive avsers that enjoy this nas box.

I just checked and my Thecus has been running for 89 days since I put it on a UPS. I have never had a problem with it. I have five HD501LJ HDD's and am running firmware 1.00.09.

I just checked and my Thecus has been running for 89 days since I put it on a UPS. I have never had a problem with it. I have five HD501LJ HDD's and am running firmware 1.00.09.

Wait till you have to pull the power plug on it or reset it, when it stops responding...

Here's hoping you won't ever have to do that :)

I've got a BR5200 Pro and I'm happy with it. As a bonus the wife said it was quiet and looked good enough so I could keep it in the house.

I had three finalists (the last two are pretty much the same)

1) Iomega 250D
2) Thecus BR5200 Pro
3) Supermicro CSE-933T-R760B with UNRAID
4) Supermicro CSE-933T-R760B with RAID

The Infrant unit is a great newbie device, but I'm much more of a tweeker and raw IO means more to me. None of the small "cute" units have a hope in feeding a gigabit pipe, but the Thecus had the best features and a decent processor. No issues to date, have moved allot of data on and off it from a dual drive tape library.

I would buy it again.

That's not the key point. A drive had failed and for over a week no proper actions had been taken (user unaware of the issue) which lead to the Thecus becoming unstable and lockup. eventually a reset caused the data to be lost...

Thats freakin comical... No user action needs to be taken. The drive should run on three drives for months. I have tested this scenario on a spare infrant box for 2 months. reading and writing data to it daily and guess what. it works perfectly...

Bottom Line: Thecus is a bad product. The software is poor in features. poor in quality. The tech support out of California is non existant. They dont return phone calls. They dont return email. If you can get them on the line Kevin (support guy) is almost intelligable...

The plus side: yes its fast. easily 2x my Infrant or Terastation. But who cares for media streaming ReadyNas works. Its has more features. Its more reliable. great support...

I am really sad to this continually happen. Buy something else. I certainly wish I did....

For those considering purchase read this thread.... go read their forum... then visit infrants forum....

Sean

Here is a Infrant horror story

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AH1UKZ25PXPUN?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

The point is not to flame on one product vs another, the point is with google you will find lots of people losing data on all brands. Reading the forums is a good idea, what happened to pteittinen is just plain bad, bad, bad. Had I read that at the start of the year it may have swayed me off Thecus (and rightly so). However, I didn't, I got a unit, and it's been quite good. Sean's comments are tad bit en flamed as Thecus hands down has a better feature set than Infrant, and pretty much every review I looked at covers that (plus the rough edges on the firmware).

"My unit locked up a bunch of times and I had to call tech support and upgrade firmware and .....", and at what point does a person not think, "I need to back this critical and irreplaceable data up"? The story is the same every time, and it's just as silly every time. If you are looking for guaranteed storage for irreplaceable data your not shopping for the right things, and nor will you find it from any of the vendors mentioned in this thread.

Thecus N5200 RouStor
Firmware 2.00.01
5x750GB Seagate 7200.10


I have a degraded drive 5. Hotswap failed to rebuild the raid, so understand I have to use the web gui to manually re-build it.

Cannot find how to do this

Hope somebody can help me.

Thecus N5200 RouStor
Firmware 2.00.01
5x750GB Seagate 7200.10


I have a degraded drive 5. Hotswap failed to rebuild the raid, so understand I have to use the web gui to manually re-build it.

Cannot find how to do this

Hope somebody can help me.

you need to manually re-add the replacement drive as a spare and then I beleive do an expand raid...

Sean

Here is a Infrant horror story

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AH1UKZ25PXPUN?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

The point is not to flame on one product vs another, the point is with google you will find lots of people losing data on all brands. Reading the forums is a good idea, what happened to pteittinen is just plain bad, bad, bad. Had I read that at the start of the year it may have swayed me off Thecus (and rightly so). However, I didn't, I got a unit, and it's been quite good. Sean's comments are tad bit en flamed as Thecus hands down has a better feature set than Infrant, and pretty much every review I looked at covers that (plus the rough edges on the firmware).

"My unit locked up a bunch of times and I had to call tech support and upgrade firmware and .....", and at what point does a person not think, "I need to back this critical and irreplaceable data up"? The story is the same every time, and it's just as silly every time. If you are looking for guaranteed storage for irreplaceable data your not shopping for the right things, and nor will you find it from any of the vendors mentioned in this thread.

Curious do you own either? EDIT: I see you own a thecus

I own both...

the feature sets are not even close.

infrant has way more features. and way more features that actually work.

the thecus offers:

speed
USB Connectivity (kind of works but not well)
and 5 drives...

Everything else the infrant does and does better...

There is no network recycle bin, snapshots on thecus to name a couple of big useful features...

Their really is no comparison. I have bought lots of computer HW over the last 20 years and I promise you the thecus is the worst POS I can remeber ever buying...

yes I am sure some folks have problems with infrant but overall the experiences are very positive. Certainly not the case for thecus...

Try calling there tech support if you want to get a feel on the support aspect...

I don't usally dislike products this much but this product is just not what its advertised to be. The infrant on the other hand exceeded my expectations and works flawlessly...

Sean

you need to manually re-add the replacement drive as a spare and then I beleive do an expand raid...

Sean
Thank you Sean, that seems to have sorted it, its now started rebuilding.

Regards Chris Sherwood

Curious do you own either? EDIT: I see you own a thecus
Sean

Exactly, congrats on the Infrant.

For those considering purchase read this thread.... go read their forum... then visit infrants forum....

Sean

I've done everything you've suggested, and whilst I was close to purchasing an Infrant NV+, I opted for the Thecus N5200 BR PRO.

I opted for it because of the extra power, speed/performance, the fact it has an extra drive, it looks better, It gives me a 4 port gig E Switch, and I don't care about a snazzy web front end.

I've populated the unit with 2x500gb sata ii drives, and this product is running rock solid. I've also installed the slim server module on here which all went without a glitch and is running perfectly. There's also an SSH module to install which gives me root access to the Linux OS.

All in all, i'm a happy customer - I think you're disgruntled as is evident from your previous posts - you almost seem as though you've got a vendetta, so that's something I think all readers of this thread need to bear in mind when taking your comments on board.

Regards

good to know. I feel its a good unit too regardless of the hatred ive read about in this particular thread. it sucks to loose data but nothing is 100% safe.

Just remember, having a fault-tolerant solution like the Thecus or Infrant does not mean you have backup. If you have two such devices or have your files otherwise in two places, then you have backup. I have an Unraid but keep my most critical files (personal finance, digital photos, etc.) in TWO additional places. I use Mozy (offline) and I spread files around various desktops in the house. Files where I have a physical backup (CDs and DVDs) are left solely on the Unraid.

RAID lowers risk, but does not eliminate it.

Yeah, yeah - I know, "RAID is not backup" has been brought up 6.02 x 10^23 times, but the truth deserves to be repeated.

This thread confirms my desire to only do RAID 1. Does anybody have a preference for a good 2-bay enclosure that does RAID 1 (mirroring)? Right now I'm considering the QNAP TS209.

Just remember, having a fault-tolerant solution like the Thecus or Infrant does not mean you have backup. If you have two such devices or have your files otherwise in two places, then you have backup. I have an Unraid but keep my most critical files (personal finance, digital photos, etc.) in TWO additional places. I use Mozy (offline) and I spread files around various desktops in the house. Files where I have a physical backup (CDs and DVDs) are left solely on the Unraid.

RAID lowers risk, but does not eliminate it.

Yeah, yeah - I know, "RAID is not backup" has been brought up 6.02 x 10^23 times, but the truth deserves to be repeated.

Correct. Roughly twice a year I make a full copy of my ReadyNAS X6 to tape (used to be DLT but last year I finally switched to LTO2).
There's nothing else that survives better sans some EMP or nuclear effect - but in fact since Ultriums have much larger capacity I'm thinking about sending a full set (few tapes, ~$25 each) overseas, just to make sure I have my true off-site or rather off-continent backup... :cool:

This thread confirms my desire to only do RAID 1. Does anybody have a preference for a good 2-bay enclosure that does RAID 1 (mirroring)? Right now I'm considering the QNAP TS209.

Mirrored doesn't give you *any* edge over RAID5 unless you only care about mathematical statistics - I have seen controller/XOR chip went south and whole voume was gone...
Unless you are familiar with deep level RAID reconstruction from a destroyed volume PLUS you have the tools and the time to do it you really have to have another copy somewhere; it's just much easier. Trust me, we several of these data reconstructions and it's a PITA, let alone the number of days it took (few TB volumes).

So would it be a better option to have two single drive enclosures, and then keep them mirrored via rsync? I can get a Linksys NSLU2 and two external drives for relatively cheap.