Thecus N7510 NAS Server Tower - 2xRJ45 Ports, 6xUSB Ports, Intel Processor, 2GB Memory, DDR3, Supports RAID, SATA, 1xHDMI Port, 1xVGA Port

Comment:
I paid this for 599$ on special. When you think about it most decent 4-bays NAS are 400$ and up, so for "only" 200$ more you get a 7-bays.First the NAS is very, very sleek looking. It the kind of NAS you want to show off, not hide in the closet! However the LEDs and the OLED screen are VERY bright and there is no way to turn them off through firmware unlike another brand of NAS that I've been using.HDD installation is very straigforward, you can install 3.5 or 2.5 drives at will. However it's not toolless, you need to secure each drive with 4 screws, not too bad still. You can lock each tray and they give you 4 keys for them so you are sure not to lose them all.Drives set-up for the RAID is very easy, however constructing big arrays take a very long time, close to 24 hours for 2x4TB RAID1 for example.Thecus OS is quite good looking, is available in French as well, and has a slew of features to configure everything. I haven't used all of them yet, but one the the most important is Data Guard which basically configure the built-in rsync module to backup folders or raid volumes to either another internal folder, or even another Thecus NAS should you have one. It can be real-time, or a one-time copy. Only drawback is Thecus OS6 is out now and they haven't planned an update  yet for the N7510, it might come in the near future.You have an esata port, 6 usb ports for Printer, APC, USB storage, KB + mouse for an external display through HDMI...Thecus forum support is very good, you have answers usually within 24 hours for any questions. You can also download many Thecus modules such as XBMC to use the NAS as an HTPC (keep in mind the onboard graphics is ATOM based, so no 1080P HD play is possible), or even third-party modules such as better FTP servers, tools, etc...Finally, the most important aspect is SPEED... this thing maxes out the gigabit bandwith! I can transfer files to and from my NAS at around 130 MB/s, but I'm not using any kind of fancy raid levels, I have 3 RAID1 arrays and 1 JOBD drive. I have not yet configured link aggregation (2 ethernet ports) but I might get faster speeds if I have multiple clients connected.Basically, this NAS is quite (over?) powerful for a home user, it is meant for SOHO and it shows from it's robust look and many features, however I was tired of having my NAS fail after ~2 years because I was too cheap to buy a good one to start with. This is my 6th NAS and hopefully I won't need to replace it anytime soon!