Thecus N5200B High Performance NAS Server

Pros: Easy to setup. Decent interface. Good price and stable product.

Cons: Doesn't achieve advertised speeds. Network speeds were at 550mbs when other devices I've tested have been able to achieve full gigabit. Took longer than other devices to build the initial raid.

Pros: This unit is pretty versatile, and with the fact that it comes with space for five drives is really nice. When it works, it's great.

Cons: I ordered my first unit some 2 months ago. When I received it, the hard drive activity lights did not work at all on two of the drives. Newegg replaced this unit with a second unit. Now, the second one will not boot anymore after a firmware upgrade through the web interface, nor will it accept usb flash booting as instructed by tech. support from Thecus. Newegg will not RMA this unit currently because I don't have the box. I'm awaiting to here from Thecus about a possible resolution.

Other Thoughts: I can't RMA this second broken unit because I don't have a 1ftx1ftx1ft box that the NAS came in. Disappointing due to the fact I spend so much money with them. Nearly $10k this year alone and it comes down to a retail box.

Pros: Use this for redundant storage of my companie's computer images. Drive setup was simple. Used Raid10 with a extra drive. Hot swapping works well. The web interface is straight forward and does not take too much to configure. Autoshutdown is a nice feature so it's not running 24 / 7. Rather quiet, even with 5 drives running. Like the fact that I could pick the drives I wanted to use.

Cons: Does not sync well with A/D. Had a problem with the time sync. Even when I did manage to get it connected, it would not stay connected. I just login through the local users on the box and it works fine. A little confusing with the dua nic setup for internal and external connection. Understand why it's set up that way, but I never was able to get the NAT to work correctly.

Pros: Great sales job...and nice when it works.

Cons: Set-up...tech support...and now, after 8 months its dead! Suspect power supply.

Other Thoughts: Avoid Thecus!

Pros: easy (albeit slow) setup, decent administration controls.

Cons: I only put 500GB hard drives in. when it's full, the only thing big enough to copy the files onto will be a new raid enclosure with bigger drives.

Other Thoughts: I needed a 2TB RAID array, and didn't want to build up a computer myself. This did the trick. I can't speak to speeds, as it is a backup machine for code, databases, music and movies, but it's worked like a champ. I set it up, copied a bunch of files, yanked out a hard drive, formatted it and put it back in. RAID worked like a champ.

Pros: Installation was quick and painless.

Cons: System doesn't support multiple RAID arrays.

Other Thoughts: I was looking for a device that supported multiple RAID arrays and this didn't cut it.

Pros: RAID 5. 1 of 2 units have remained dependable running version 2 of firmware, Compact size, fairly quiet in office environment.

Cons: No data tranfer via SSH protocol. Flaky with version 1 firmware, requiring frequent forced reboots. While trying to updating to latest firmware, one unit was fine, the other became dead to the world (network port unconfigured, but front panel configuration buttons inoperative). No contact from technical support yet (1 week).

Other Thoughts: Instructions for initial configuration procedure assume it's on a 129.198. network. Configuration software won't work on LInux (what's up with all the Linux devices like this that require Windows for their configuration and management?).

Pros: Price. 5 Disks, many RAID modes, relatively simple setup. Physically easy to install drives. Great file transfer speeds and faster than most similar products. Raid 5 works well, even expanded the array without a problem. Support by email is good. Firmware updates to 2.0 have made the device a lot better and it is quite stable, has run for 100+ days. Based on linux so software is modable if you want. There is a mod community out there.

Also no disk hiccups/raid faults.

I've been using this as a media storage unit and it easily streams mp3, avi, and other files well over gigabit and wifi as well as whole dvd isos.

Cons: Early firmware pre 2.0 was not really ready. Documentation and clarity of interface still needs work. Interface can be confusing at times. Web interface can be a bit flaky.

Other Thoughts: I killed one trying to update the firmware, they took the RMA, sent me back a repaired unit, put my drives back in the right order and the RAID came back up with no data loss. I call that pretty sweet. I've owned it for a little less than a year.

Pros: (Note: To get the absolute most of out this device, you must be willing to tinker, but it's pretty stellar even if you don't.)
* Top of it's class performance. (Read the numerous reviews for yourself) * iSCSI Target so you can mount a drive locally instead of over the network, which is much faster! * Active directory integration (or NTLM) * Dynamic RAID expansion * 3rd party modules * Easily accessible via SSH (with 3rd party modules) * Frequent firmware updates

Cons: * Constructing a RAID takes shared volumes off-line. (My biggest complaint, but it's a factor of using software-based RAID)
* iSCSI is currently using IET 0.4.12. Once they go 0.4.15 or higher, this will be an excellent, inexpensive device for VMWare ESX clustering (non-production) It works pretty well now, but key features are implemented in 0.4.15 that will really help.
* drive trays feel a tad flimsy, but I rarely use them.
* I would prefer more options to tune the settings of certain features and protocols, but the device is on par with most competitors in this area.

Other Thoughts: In the week I've had my N5200BR Pro (same but with a 4 port switch) I have, figuratively speaking, pounded on it and tested its limits. I run a RAID1 with a pair of 1TB Western Digital Caviar GP drives (a bit slower, but cooler, quieter, and use 1/2 the idle power) and pair of old 80 GB SATAs for an iSCSI volume. I've looked at ways to tweak the performance of SMB sharing, iSCSI, etc. The device offers an enormous amount of flexibility for those who want it and great performance for those who don't care about the details. It's not perfect, but it's the best thing going in its price range.

Pros: QUIET! Anyone saying that this unit is noisy either:

A) Has faulty fans in their unit

or

B) Has loud hard drives

or

C) Have no concept of what noisy actually is.

This unit is quiet and is virtually in audible with a moderately quiet PC.

Cons: I had to set the IP address to dynanmic as I couldn't get into the web browser to control the unit until I did so, but this probably just has to do with my router settings, so it is not really a con.

Other Thoughts: Mine was an open box so I saved about $150 and it came with all accessories. It was basically brand new. One of my three WD 500GB SATA drives was giving bad sectors during the creation of a RAID five. The unit detected this and informed me so it could be replaced.