Thecus N4100 IP Storage Appliance

[Steve]

If you're looking for a new means of storing and protecting the vast amount of data you have somehow managed to acquire, then ask yourself whether an IP storage solution would be feasible for you. If you really need a 100% uptime, network attached storage device with access control and hotswap array rebuilds, and you don't mind the 7 hour RAID 5 build (which is only likely to be an issue once,) then the N4100 is worth considering. Just bear in mind that 900GB of protected network attached storage in a sexy black box will set you back a grand.

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD0xMzcy

[Nick F]

wow that's a really cool toy but just a bit too expensive to warrantgetting one for the house

[Steve]

wow that's a really cool toy but just a bit too expensive to warrantgetting one for the house

Indeed, and I do state as much in the review - this is a business solution, or something for a VERY enthusiastic enthusiast

[Rys]

Do you know if it supports recent 500GB SATA hard disks?

[Steve]

The largest size it is stated as supporting is 400GB, although the firmware can be upgraded, so I'd expect if a 500GB isn't supported right now, it can be in the future.

[MrDaBomb]

I've been looking at higher-end solutions similar to this (from the $5000 Promise VTrak 15200 to an EMC CX300) and have to say I'm not too impressed with the throughput you recorded on the N4100. 10MB/s is what I get on 100mb, why even have the gig ports? Seems like you'll get a LOT better performance for your $$ by building a cheap linux box. Something with at least a 1GHz CPU thats only used for software RAID5 and gigabit ethernet would get a lot better speeds.

I like to look at the $$/gig. getting 3.5TB of space on the Promise VTrak is only $2/GB. The price for the N4100 in the US is $624.80 from Pricegrabber. Plus $600 in HD, and you're at $1200, or $1/GB (300GBx4, raw storage space).

But even buying *new* components off of newegg and you're going to get a $300 box, which if you're using the same drives, leaves you at $.75/GB.

Sure, building your own wouldn't have the LEDs or slick web interface, and would need some linux knowledge... but the for that price difference you could get another 600GB of storage space!

IMO, not a good solutions

[directhex]

i've had nightmarish experiences with EMC kit recently, so don't expect any praise for your suggested alternative -_-

[heiden98]

I just bought a N4100, it is as you described. My main reason is data safety without too much hassle. I am using my setup semi-professionally, I feel most comfortable with Linux, but I use a Windows XP notebook if I have to, and my wife also has a XP notebook. Together with some vmware virtual machines I have about 6 machines. A NAS is very useful in such an environment.

Until now I had my archives on a low power Mandrake 9.1 box with 4 unraided disks, so the Thecus is certainly an improvement. With several computers you have stuff everywhere, sometimes even the same backup trees spread around on more than one machine. Yes, that is also safe, but it is like a squirrel hiding nuts - a month later you don't know where it went ...

The FW is 1.0.14.

What I found:

* the N4100 seems to use Linux inside (smb4k shows it runs samba 3.9.14a), this BTW explains the fact that it doesn't allow you to create an account named 'root'.
Would be interesting if there is any hacking going on somewhere, NFS would definitely be appreciated...

* if I add a folder with the 'public' option (seems to be a new option equivalent to 'rw' for all - it is not described in the downladable pdf that I got only a week earlier) and later use the webdisk frontend to create subfolders, the top folder is rw from another machine (XP), but the subfolders are not. Bummer! Workaround: create subfolders from the external XP machine.

* On the first day I tried to copy a lot of files, having mounted my linux archive folder (samba 2.2.8a) and the Thecus folder on my workstation (samba 3.0.13).
Afterwards only the directories were visible, no files . I could not however copy the same files to the same locations again using my XP, so apparently they must have existed but were invisible. This is probably samba related, especially since the Thecus also uses samba. After deleting the trees and using the XP to copy, it worked smoothly. Now you know what I need the XP for

I sent a support request about the last two problems to Thecus 2 days ago, but so far not even an acknowledgement. Chinese New year is over, so no good excuse (I live in the PR China myself - so I know )
I am a little sceptical about their promise of "fast and friendly service" should something more serious happen.

-gh

[cemper]

you guys can be happy with 10MB (megaByte) per sec on N4100

the "next generation, overhauled" N4100+ does 2-3 mb (megaBit) per sec only !
now that's a pain ... no a defect actually