Unfortunately support for this unit is close to non-existant. It's a shame because it did show some promise. I was evaluating a system for possible rollout to a number of sites, without technical support that answers email queries I can't see that happening.
In short, a fair product, terrible support, try something else.
Just thought I'd post my thoughts.
The company I work for bought two of these units for use as a main file server and a backup server.
Firstly the bad points:
AFP support is almost not existant. After a day or two the AFP service simply turns itself off. The Apple machines in our studio cannot connect using AFP because even when the service is running the unit seems to alter permissions as and when it feels like it so folders appear to be empty when browsing from an Apple machine, although they're not empty.
VPN. We bought the second N5200 for use in our second office to act as a backup. The deal was we connect using Nsync over our permanent VPN. Turns out the N5200 cannot connect over the VPN. Thecus for some reason are unable to tell me why. The units will connect over the VPN using Legacy FTP protocols however the automated backup doesn't work properly. It transfers the information, destroys the folder tree organisation, so the files are spread all over the place and never actually finishes the backup. Status simply stops at "ACL Setting". Again Thecus don't know why.
SSH. I personally find having to set permissions at disk level ridiculous. Surely folder level permission alteration should be permissable. Unfortunately Thecus will not allow SSH connection to the unit. They won't tell me why!
RAID. After two days of installation the first N5200 RAID array degraded. There was nothing wrong with the drives at all, and for some reason it didn't even attempt to use the hot spare drive. I got in touch with Thecus to check support for the drives, which wasn't the problem. They couldn't tell me why either of these things had occured. Since then it has occured twice, fortunately not recently.
The good points.
In theory it's a good idea.
It's small and quiet.
We have now been in touch with our supplier who have agreed that we can return the N5200s to be replaced with components so that we can build our own file servers. Something we should have done from the begining.
Overall I can't recommend the Thecus N5200 as it is just far too unreliable.
Dave
It all makes perfect sense, expressed in Dollars and Cents, Pounds, Shillings and Pence.
Well guys i think I have the answers to all your questions. The thecus is using linux (busybox), uses a compressed loop filesystem along with redboot for bios, and a ramdisk for the main OS file system. I've created a firmware that will allow you to login to the ARRAY via ssh using the login toor and a password of 123456.
I had to get into the raid to save my volume due to a corruption in the logical volume of the snapshot volume. I also had a raid 5 corruption on disk 4 that I needed to manual rebuild. No way you could have saved my raid array via the GUI. If you guys need any help let me know. But heres the firmware patch. Remember, this works with ver 1.00.05 of Thecus's official latest firmware.
Oh an with ssh access you can simply setup a cron job to rsync your data from one array to another. This will work over vpn since rsync over ssh is done via tcp.
Hmm doesn't look like I can attach the file.
andyman.org/n5200/enable-ssh-1.00.05.bin.gz
Sorry guys this site won't let me post URL since I'm a newbie with less then 5 post... so just cut and past the URL with the file listed in your browser. should work. Or if someone else feels like adding a postreply with a clickable link to the above URL that would be great.
Last edited by dave87; 16-01-2007 at 07:26 PM.
I have to admit thecus support isn't all there. I called their techsupport line 3 times and left 3 messages (not to mention the hundreds of calls I made without messages but no one picked up). You won't get help from these guys. If thats important to you then the N5200 isn't for you. However if your a hacker, knows linux pretty well , and can learn how to work with Linux software RAID and LVM your set. I love my N5200. I've got 3 of them. With root access I can no do anything I want with it. Also I think the thecus is CPU bound. Sometimes my transfer slows and I see the CPU pegged. What I love about the thecus is that the cpu is socketed celeron. Guess what? Celerons are cheap! One day we'll have to have an overlclocking or cpu replacement article here to get more performance out of these baby.
for everyone else, you really need to upgrade the array to the latest firmware. ver before 1.00.03 has some serious issues.
hi i have purchased this device after a lot of work but there had been a number of delays in it's ordering since then and receipt of it there has been a number of negative posts on this forum for the device. i have repeatedly tried to contact tech but this is complicated as i am in Australia.
Device shipped as 1.00.04 firmware but support CD was " un-readable " got config utility and set about building the unit. with 4 x Seagate 320GB 7200.10's which as far as i am aware the same as the 750GB in the review but with fewer platters. the problem is that only the first bay can ever be used all drives 'work' but only acknowledge in the top slot can someone please give me some info on this, i.e the reviewer if possible as to if they encounter similar issues and solutions to them. there has just been a .05 firmware but i am not game to install it yet as it is not reversible
this unit is to be used for a community center and as such there are extremely limited financial resources to respond to the problem that currently exists. at the moment of writing it has been 3 unanswered emails from tech both through the web page and direct reply to pre sale talks, which i must say where actually quite good.
thanks in advance
As i mentioned in a previous post, the n5200 wouldn't see my seagate drives either. turns out they were not compatible for this reason "N5200 doesn’t support hard disk drives that won’t spin up before “start unit” command receives; such as Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 series."Originally Posted by odp
It's possible that your 7200.10 drives behave similarly to the 7200.9 drives. I'm using maxtor drives with my unit and they show up properly.
If the drives aren't the problem, then that top slot only thing sounds like it might be a problem with the SATA backplane. if that's the case you'll need to return the unit.
If you don't need performance out of your fileserver, then go with a windows software raid or something, they work pretty good but are very slow (eg. < 10MB/sec transfer in my experience)
andyman: could you post a checksum of that file. I'd hate to flash my unit with a corrupted file.
Ok to remove confusion I unziped the file. so please use andyman.org/n5200/enable-ssh-1.00.05.bin
the md5sum for this file is
3c169b659b805f3f06d212f5fbbe3f87 enable-ssh-1.00.05.bin
Same environment, took quite a bit of work to get it to authenticate and then it lost the configuration on reboot.
At this point it's working with AD and you can configure ACL's directly using AD accounts but it's still buggy. Access from XP/2003 is iffy at best. It works, it doesn't work. Sometimes the share and subfolders are accessible, sometimes they're not. Nothing changes in the configuration, you're working in a share then **** no access.
I don't think this unit was ready for production. I have been evaluating it as an alternative (low-cost) solution for our customers and I have to say it's completely out of the question. This is a beta product - at best. It's buggy all over, support is nonexistent, the error messages are a joke. Perhaps if I could read chinese they would make sense but the english messages are pathetic.
This unit is so promising, it just falls so short where it counts. We'll be trying out the Infrant ReadyNAS next week and see how that goes. I have not decided what to do with this one yet.
If you thought support was bad now.. try contacting Thecus during chinese new year
Hi,
I wonder if Windows Home Server can be installed on the N5200.
connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer
Hi Abusimbal.
Seeing as there's no VGA/RS232 I/O on the 5200, I doubt it.
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Good point, but maybe Thecus comes with a WHS product
So in theory you can upg the cpu to a faster based one ? intresting.... what about the ram side, can you pod out the 256mb stick and slap a 512mb stick in ?
I currently looking round for a decent nas box and while 500 quid is steep when you consider you have to buy the hdds i am needing a product like this for my data needs.....
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