Introduction
Thecus N5500 is a 5-bay NAS device that seems to have all the attributes of the successful N5200 PRO and many more features that may inevitably make the N5500 the best 5-bay on the market. At a time when folks were not even familiar with what a NAS was, Thecus bravely announced a state of art 5-bay NAS in the form of the N5200 the immediate impact was to leave its competition in the dust. Since then Thecus has gone from strength to strength whilst its competitors merely continued to peddle old technology in deferring form factors and talked up great success with only two products in their portfolio. Thecus on their part continued unabated to launch a plethora of NAS products for every conceivable customer be it a single home user to the large enterprise utilizing NAS devices in a SAN farm. Impressive stuff and the N5500 is no exception as it comes from the same solid and excellent pedigree.
Figure 1: N5500 Dimensions
Comparatively to N5200 the unit seems to have had a facelift, not sure whether it needed one, the addition of the door it seems is the only noticeable feature change! The chassis exterior is from the same sturdy and high quality material as that of the N5200 and apart from this there is very little much to describe from an exterior perspective. At the heart of The N5500 beats an Intel® Celeron™ M 1.86GHz processor supported by a generous 1GB DDRII memory, with Dual 128MB redundant DOM modules, a feature that preempts what is to follow.
The inclusion of a Dual DOM that provides double protection in cases of failure is a smart and strategic addition. Aside from the normal LCD panel that provides adequate monitoring of the system status, the unit has the addition of a host of useful connectivity options starting with six (6) USB 2.0 Ports spread at the front and back allowing sharing of printers, and other peripherals. We also tested a number of USB attached hard disk drives and these had no problems, including reading NTFS formatted drives. Beware do not try and write to them as this is not possible. What we appreciated is a first for any branded NAS and that is the inclusion of a USB Target port allowing direct connection via USB for using the N5500 as a DAS (Direct Attached Storage), this would allow transfer of data from a USB based drive to the N5500 as a first time and then continue in its mode as a NAS via Ethernet connectivity. This would help resolve the dilemma that everyone has of how to easily bulk transfer their library of data onto the device from new.
Installation is painless and swift, install the wizard that locates the NAS and login using the provided username and password. You are immediately presented with the main web management panel now sporting a totally new interface. After numerous user requests, Thecus have finally relented to a new AJAX look interface which is smooth and very pleasing to use. Suffice to say we were not too averse with old interface as it provided a straight forward no nonsense get on with it feel. However, the new interface is excellent and is now a total improvement when compared with the Netgear ReadyNAS product range, whose interface has not changed since 2007.
You may start by creating a RAID level for the hard drives installed, merely select which RAID level is required, you have an excellent choice from RAID 1, to RAID 5, 5+ spare, 6, and 10, and if your preference is no RAID at all then select JBOD. The device supports multiple arrays as well as multiple volumes, this is important as not all NAS devices support multiple volumes.
NOTE: Before you hit the RAID options check the drives are all OK and do not have a WARNING next to it, if the latter then you may have a faulty drive and need to replace it. If all is well continue to select your RAID and file system required, be careful as to which file system to select EXT3 has a limitation of 8TB per volume, XFS will extend beyond 8TB, and ZFS is the only one to support snapshots. At this stage you can also decide whether you wish to allocate space for USB and/or iSCSI, if so allocate the appropriate capacity allocation. In our test the 2.5TB RAID 5 volume took just under 6 hrs to complete. iSCSI targets are easy enough to create as you decide on the amount of space, provide a name which is appended to the IQN and enable it, with the latest firmware Thecus have also added support for thin provisioning, as well as being stackable and allows control to multiple N5500 units from a master system. A useful feature if multiple units are required, single volume provisioning is not supported at the moment.
Client support is generous with Unix, Linux, Windows, and MAC all on the list, Thecus also provides upgrade modules for installing extra features, currently only the download station is available to retrieve remote files via HTTP, FTP, Bit Torrent or eMule.
Thecus Nsync feature will allow data on one appliance to be copied to another appliance over a network based on a schedule, this feature can also be used to facilitate remote replication, to enable this it is best to replicate locally the first time and then place the remote client at its location and do incremental backups. Backup software will suffice, but it is far from being adequate, so it is best to look at third party software vendors to provide the backup software solution. However, before you do, checkout the Farstone's Drive Clone Pro bundled with the unit. It’s an all-in-one backup and recovery utility, which leverages snapshots, with incremental backups, disk imaging and a host of other good backup features. This will be sufficient for any user, be it for home or business.
FarStone Drive Clone PRO 5.0 by clicking here
The ease of use for Thecus appliances have improved tremendously with the new AJAX front end, and the performance of all Thecus appliances have been above average. The N5500 has a few unique features and will over a period time become a leader in its class. Thecus as an organization continues to impress. From 2005, they have been committed to provide a solution for all categories, from home to enterprise, and they have delivered. They have solutions based on a 1-bay, 2-bay 3-bay, 4-bay, 5-bay, 7-bay and the current 8-bay products. We think it’s very impressive, they do not believe in one fit for all, as do other NAS vendors. Thecus are not a manufacturer of all electronic consumer products, they specialize in storage, and this gives them the edge over any other pretentious NAS vendor. We have also had the opportunity to scan their future road map and to say we were impressed would be an understatement.
Performance
Test Environment
THECUS N5500 2TB with 4 x 500GB Enterprise drives
RAID LEVEL TESTED: RAID 5 (one drive parity)
Network
NETGEAR FSM726 10/100Mbps + 1000Mbps ProSafe Managed Switch
Test Method
We use a Real-World testing utility as well as a realistic Drag & Drop procedure as depicted in everyday normal operations.
Our tests are carried out with a combination of reads and writes, we do not separate the two, both are combined to produce an overall result that depicts the actual performance of the device tested.
This category is one of the most demanding from a file size perspective as the smallest size file is 2GB and the largest being 12GB.
A combination of demanding Video, Audio and Images files are combined to make this the most challenging category of them all.
The Office category is mainly for business users who may compare the typically used business applications, consisting of a spreadsheets, databases,word, PowerPoint, Visio, and email management. We have also combined Photoshop based images that are used to cut and paste within a document to make up a 30 page mailer as well as Visio templates used for presentation within a PowerPoint file that exceeds a 15GB file size.
Our Third category is a combination of files from the previous two categories to initiate copying, backing up, deleting all content and then restoring from a backup made within the RAID array.
| Thecus N5500 Read/Write Comparative Performance | |
| Video/Audio/Images | 90.33 |
| Office Productivity | 76.03 |
| Copy, Backup and Restore | 80.43 |
Figure 1: MB/s Read/Write Performance Test Results
| Thecus N5500 | |
| MB/s Overall | 82.26 |
Figure 2: Overall Read/Write Test Performance
Overall Conclusion
The Thecus N5500 is deceitful. From the outside it seems just like another NAS device, square shape with 5 hot swap bays, and with the normal connectivity options. It is anything but ordinary. Under the covers there is a speed demon waiting to be unleashed, turn it on and watch it blaze away. The N5500 has astounding speed. It’s a mean machine that will not only work as a NAS but also doubles up as a DAS. It’s feature packed and with a new front end GUI really rounds up the N5500 as a complete NAS to have. If you are a new NAS buyer or merely adding to your portfolio of units, the N5500 will not disappoint.
