Network Attached Storage used to be a thing sought after by real propeller heads; the type of people who regularly read industry journals and whitepapers targeted at corporate Network Admins, and lust over enterprise-level computer hardware in an almost un-natural fashion. However in the past few years, NAS devices have started finding more mainstream uses. With the advent of the home media server, and people collecting hundreds of gigabytes of irreplaceable data, a NAS box with some form of redundancy starts to really make sense. That’s where a company like Thecus comes in.
The N3200PRO 3-bay NAS enclosure is an upgraded version of the original N3200 and a couple steps down from the N5200B Pro that we reviewed last year. It still retains many of the features that made its predecessor so popular, but ups the ante with faster hardware, better power usage and targeted to home users. That faster hardware comes in the form of an AMD Geode processor, which still drives the same 3 SATA drive bays. This provides for 3TB or more of total storage, giving you a pretty bucket to pour all your data into.
Features and Specifications
The N3200PRO isn’t just a data repository though. That would be rather boring and corporate, and no one wants that in their home. Instead Thecus has added a large number of services to the software used in the N3200PRO. The same favourites found in the N3200 are still there, and include an iTunes server, Media server, Web cam control, and Photo Web server. There’s also a download manager the supports FTP, HTTP, and BitTorrent, as well as printer support. For full features and specifications check out the product home page.
As for pricing and availability, the N3200PRO has finally started to surface at a few North American retailers. Thecus notes that the MSRP for the unit is $379.99 USD. That being said, I’ve found a couple North American retailers selling the N3200PRO, and they average a price of $350 USD. Hard drives are of course not included in that price. Some may be wondering if the N3200PRO is worth it, as there are cheaper NAS boxes out there. We’ll have to see if the extra coin is worth it.
It Includes Accessories
Before we get to the meat and potatoes of the Thecus N3200PRO, we should take a quick look at what else comes in the box. There is of course the included paperwork, and a quick setup CD. Also stuffed into the package is a quick setup guide to walk you through connecting everything.
Thecus only provides the most basic of cabling for the N3200PRO. Even with the myriad of ports, they only provide a single CAT5e cable. They also provide a power adaptor, though that is a given. Once everything is connected and hooked up, you are then directed to run the setup CD and consult the PDF-based user’s manual. We’ll get to showcasing that part of setup in few moments, but first lets take a look the svelte NAS box itself, and the actual setup needed.
The Thecus N3200PRO Front To Back
Once everything is unboxed, it becomes quite apparent the N3200PRO is a fairly simple affair, if only in appearance. The front of the unit has ventilation for all three hard drives, mounted on a removable cover. The lower portion of the device contains a display, status LEDs, and external controls. There’s also a front mounted USB port, should you want to hook up a USB memory stick or hard drive to the N3200PRO and further expand its storage. You can also use this port for quick transfers to the N3200PRO from your USB media of choice.
The controls are there should you need to make any adjustments or changes to the settings, and cannot access the web based management tool. As for the display, it’s a multiline VFD with a blue backlight. The LEDs on the strip below it show status for WAN, LAN, and HDD1, HDD2, and HDD3. One thing to note in the power switch, which is backlit in blue. The reason we want to take note of this is because it’s a rather bright light; something that will factor into the setup of the N3200PRO later on.
Turning around to the rear of the N3200PRO, we see how things are kept cool and connected. The most noticeable of the rear features is of course the cooling fan. The fan is temperature controlled and of a fairly large size, meaning the device should remain fairly quiet in all but the most rigorous of operations. Also the type of hard drive used will affect this, as the hotter the hard drives run, the harder the fan will have to work.
The ports on the rear of the N3200PRO support a few more functions above the simple serving of files to the network. That task is taken care of by the WAN port, which is configured to hook up to your internal network or to an external connection. The LAN port, on the other hand, supports WAN port IP address sharing for LAN and Wireless LAN clients. This means that you can hook up computers to this device, have it dole out IP addresses, and share files.
As for the USB ports, they have the same storage device support as the front, but can also support USB devices live WiFi dongles and web cams. The latter allows you to access the N3200PRO wirelessly, while the former is used in concert with the Web Cam service to act as a video surveillance system. Then we have the power port, and an expansion bay not pictured here that is to be used for future components.
A Peak Inside the Thecus N3200PRO
Opening up the N3200PRO is a fairly simple affair, or at least it is for the maintenance and removal of the hard drives. To access the hard drive bay, you simply slip the front cover up and pull it off. It’s simply a solid piece of plastic with some metal grills, mounted with some clips on the side. Luckily the mount is pretty tight, so there shouldn’t be any actual rattling from the cover. Actually the only downside to this setup is security. If someone was so inclined they could quite easily yank out a drive or access the controls without being impeded.
With the cover removed, you can get a good look of the SATA backplane for this device. Like any other NAS box, the SATA ports on the N3200PRO are hard mounted in the standard position. This means that if you want something crazy like insert three WD VelociRaptor hard drives into this enclosure, you would be unable to. Still I doubt many will want to do that, as a NAS enclosure like this one is all about cavernous storage. You wouldn’t see very many benefits from a superfast hard drive.
Installin’ Some Drives
The hard drives we used for testing and setup of the Thecus N3200PRO were Western Digital 1.0TB Caviar Green models; three of them to be exact. I wanted to max out on the amount of storage this enclosure said it could handle, so we put out a call to a couple hard drive manufacturers for samples. Western Digital stepped up to the plate and provided us with what one would think should be the perfect companion to a NAS enclosure that’s always on: A hard drive whose primary focus is power conservation and “green” operation.
Installing the three WD Caviar Green drives in the N3200PRO was very easy, and didn’t require any tools to perform. The rails simply clip onto the hard drives by way of the standard screw holes. The drives then slide into their respective bay and are secured using a permanently mounted thumbscrew. Once this is done, everything gets plugged in, turned on, and run through the initial setup.
Setting Up Our Thecus N3200PRO
Once the hardware for the Thecus N3200PRO is installed and connected, it’s time to configure the software. This involves running the Thecus setup wizard on one of the computers on your network, or at least that’s what the instructions tell you to do. You can jump straight to the web interface to configure everything if you so desire. However this is a NAS box targeted at the home user, and it’s best to have solid documentation and an easy to configure device. Thecus does succeed in this…mostly. The setup wizard gets you through basic setup, network configuration, and some minor additional options. Then it directs you to the web interface.
This is where things get a little daunting. The web interface give you access to every option right at your fingertips, and even some experienced users can get overwhelmed. In my other life I work in corporate IT for a huge company, and am used to configuring such devices, but I still had to consult the manual to fill in the blanks. Thecus does get credit for making sure everything is covered in the PDF-based user’s manual, but the format takes a little getting used to. In the first few pages you get quick blurbs about every feature, and then in the second half it goes into better detail.
I did manage to get everything setup with the manual, plus using Google to find some supplementary information on the iTunes server. RAID configuration was easy, with the major complaint being that the creation of the 3TB RAID5 array took a whopping 11 hours to complete. This is due to the use of a low power AMD Geode processor. Most enterprise servers use enterprise level processors (think Intel Xeon) and hardware RAID cards so they can create arrays rather quickly. The AMD Geode isn’t an enterprise level CPU; it’s meant to be quiet and sparing with energy usage. I’d be curious to see how a version of this NAS using an Intel Atom processor would faire.
If it isn’t apparent from the picture, I actually have the N3200PRO residing in my home theatre instead of my computer room. This was done as an acknowledgment to what it is I’m intending on using this NAS for; A media server for my HTPC and the rest on my network. This is where my gripe comes in about the power light being way too bright. I would recommend that you set this NAS someplace away from your main viewing area, lest you be overwhelmed by the blue light of the power button. But enough about my poor aesthetic choices; lets see how the N3200PRO actually performs.
Testing and Results
Testing the Thecus N3200PRO was actually a fairly simple affair. I hooked the unit up to my home network via a Linksys SD2005 5-port Gigabit Switch, and did some transfer tests using my home theatre PC and my standard test rig. The first thing we tested, since this was to reside in my living room, was thermals and acoustics.
The N3200PRO faired pretty well in these two areas. The temperature of the device only read 35°C at idle on the display, and 40°C under full load. This apparently wasn’t enough to trigger the fan into any noticeably higher speed, as the N3200PRO only gave an auditory reading of 41 dBA under both idle and load conditions.
Transfer Times
For testing file transfers, we decided to focus on time and speed separately, though one does affect the other. To test the N3200PRO, we transferred one large 1.45GB file and then followed that up with 1.45GB of small files (MP3 files averaging 4MB in size). The method of transfer (and measurement) was FileZilla FTP client, with the FTP service setup on the Thecus. For someone who knows how RAID levels work, the results were what I would expect. My RAID level of choice was RAID5, both for it’s speed and data redundancy.
However due to the way the redundancy is maintained, through parity data written across all drives, write performance tends to take a hit. The single file didn’t waiver too much between downloading and uploading, since parity information only had to be calculated and written for one file. However the multiple small files suffered on download from having to access, transfer, and confirm multiple files. They also suffered on the upload due to the large amount of parity data that had to be calculated and written.
Transfer Speeds
As I noted, the speeds and times of transfers are directly reliant on each other. With the N3200PRO, the single large file of course transferred very quickly both ways, while the smaller files languished due to the RAID array configuration. It should be known that I’m not complaining about the transfer speeds. This is to be expected with a RAID5 array. You can also choose other RAID levels and configurations. Actually these speeds should be fine for most situations.
I found video playback quite snappy with the device, and even with 1080p based content I didn’t experience any lag due to transfer speed. And when you look at the 5-bay Thecus N5200 we reviewed, you’ll note that this little 3-bay unit manages to best it in speed.
Power Consumpti0n
Power consumption is where the Thecus N3200PRO shows a little more brilliance. This NAS uses very little power under idle conditions, and still sips the juice when playing back video or audio. It was only when the NAS was under full load (RAID creation, mutlple large transfers, etc) that I managed to hit a max power usage of 48W. Basically when using this NAS as a simple home server, it shouldn’t jack up your power bills to any significant degree.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
The Thecus N3200PRO is the NAS box that is supposed to bring RAID5 to the home. It has a large number of features the home user would want, including a large selection of media services, and home-oriented media servers. Thecus has tried to make setup as easy and as painless as possible, and have, for the most part, succeeded. They’ve made both the hardware and software understandable by most, with some reading required. Once it’s up and running it quietly works away at whatever task is sent it’s way. That may also be the one thing holding back the Thecus N3200PRO; the sheer amount of features available.
Try as they might, Thecus still needs to polish the manual and setup program to make this easier to setup for the common user. There is definitely some level of knowledge expected if you are setting up the N3200PRO. There’s also the lack of security around the drives and controls. This means you’ll want to keep the N3200PRO away from the grabbing hands of those who like to press buttons. Also you need to be aware of the lighting on the front, and how it relates to where you are putting the unit. It can be quite distracting in a dark home theatre room.
In the end the N3200PRO is a good little unit, with a whole host of features that make it endlessly customizable. The RAID 5 support ensures that your data won’t be lost, and the large drive support ensures that you have a lot of space to store that data. Thecus still managed to achieve their goal of bringing RAID 5 home. Unfortunately that home is one occupied by enthusiasts only. Like the N5200 before it we’ll give them the nod for high performance with the N3200PRO, but the setup and documentation still needs some tweaking from Thecus.
Pros
- Excellent performance
- Lots of features
- Completely Toolless setup and configuration
- Bright display full statistics
- Enthusiasts looking for a home server should love it
Cons
- Amount of features overwhelming
- Setup and documentation needs tweaking
- No security on front of device
Overall Rating: 8.0/10.0
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