Thecus N5200 NAS - initial thoughts

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 ...

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

Thanks for your answer. 2 TB seems good enough, the biggest files I use to encode hdtv caps are 200/300 GB in size.

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

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 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,

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.

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*

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

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

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.

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...

$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.