4 Bay Nas Amd Pro. Raid

by Thecus

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001JR3MIA
• Item model number: N4100PRO
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #77 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > External Data Storage > Network Attached Storage
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

Thecus Technology Corp. N4100PRO Network Storage Server N4100PRO Network Attached Storage

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So far so good, June 19, 2009

By 

B. Clark "G35" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 4 Bay Nas Amd Pro. Raid (Personal Computers)

**9/24/09** UPDATE
I have had the server running for quite some time now and have seen the perks and downsides. I currently now have 4 1Tb drives in it in a Raid 5 setup. I am running the last firmware version before the jump to 3.xx.xx. So far I have had good luck with the email notification system. It works really well but is very weak in the fact you can't control what you get emails about. Sure I want to know if the server has rebooted or if the UPS is on battery power but what about downloads finishing?

the add ons for this are few and in between. Usually you have to use a module from the 5200 system and hope it works. I have had success with the web server, ssh, sshuser, and twonky modules. Though I locked myself out of ssh pretty quickly. (not familiar with unix commands)

As for the built in features. The itunes server works as expected. If you use that same server to host your files for your computer itunes program you will notice the very slow transfer speeds. i.e. the server has an itunes server that will show up on any computer running itunes as a shared source. Any music in that folder will be accessible to play through the users itunes running in their computer. I say the transfer speed is slow if you are using that itunes server folder as your computer's itunes music folder as well. A lot of the slow down is due to the insufficient memory. This unit comes with 256MB of ram but should come with 1GB. You can upgrade it yourself but it will void the warranty. here is a compatible memory module ([...]) I haven't tried it but from the forums it helps transfer speeds and overall performance by about 20-50%.

This unit comes with both a upnp and media server to stream to digital media receivers like the xbox 360 or ps3. Problem is, the media server likes to quit unexpectedly. I got it working for a bit but now it won't initialize for any length of time. I ended up turning that off as well as the itunes server, and the upnp stuff. This made the server run a bit better overall and kept me from being as annoyed. After installing the twonky server all of those problems are behind me. This module (same one from the 5200 server) works great and streams video and music perfectly to my ps3, xbox360, and LG blu-ray player.

The overall user interface for the 2.xx.xx firmware is pretty bad. It is both ugly and tedious to work with. Accessing this from the internet isn't very hard once you set up the WAN settings and open the port on your router. I used the [...] port so I keep things secure. there isn't a way to update the certificate on the server without ssh so you have to settle with the browser saying it is an unsafe site. Using the webdisk feature is pretty nice other than the fact you can only download one file at a time. Also if you try and download a large file the server stops responding to http requests. So that is fun... The new firmware is supposed to address some of these issues including the crappy web interface so I'll chime in when I decided to upgrade it.

All that said it has done a great job at keeping the data and raid in good shape, which is really the main point. I use mainly the AFP since I run mostly Macs and it works great. Also the samba shares work great too. Adding users and setting ACL on folders is easy. The one thing about that though is user passwords seem to have problems when you use special characters like $ and (, * etc. Not sure what that is about.

You must have any usb drive you plan on plugging in formatted to FAT or NTFS if you want it to be read and only FAT if you want it to be written to. that was annoying.

I am using a 10 plug APC UPS with the server and it works fine with it. As soon as power drops I get an email and the server is set to shut off once the battery level gets too low. This is great if you don't want to lose your raid and thus ALL YOUR DATA! I actually went through a power outage before I got the UPS and the server went down. When it powered back up however it immediately rebuilt the raid. All was well. That was a great feature and I was very happy to see it in action.

Another gripe is the files. When you create a share there is no way on the server to copy files from one share to another. You have to mount both and copy them through a computer which seems time consuming and pointless.

also this does not work natively with mac osx time machine. their are work arounds but are not straight forward and are not guaranteed to be stable.

All in all after everything I have seen and worked with I would re-rate this a 3.5 stars. I kinda jumped the gun on the 5 stars. I am looking into the mediasmart ex495 as of now.

I have had this running with 3 1Tb WD Green drives for a couple of days. The WDEADS... something drives. (I'll update that later)

They are in a raid 5 setup that took about 8 hours to build. The initial setup was really simple. I set it up using my Mac and used the provided program on the setup cd to set my admin password etc.

After that it was very easy to setup all my settings via the web interface @ the servers IP address. Most of the stuff is pretty self explanatory but some is a bit confusing (this is my first real NAS). I was able to setup and start building the raid in a matter of seconds after I looked through the provided settings.

I did forget to upgrade my firmware at first so I just did that recently to get added support for Bonjour and Gmail settings. Great enough it didn't erase any of my previous settings. There is about every file sharing protocol I can think of SMB, FTP, AFP, etc. and you can set up email notifications to email you as soon as something happens, i.e. server reset, failed disc, etc. You have options for all the types of raid setups and they are easy to maintain. There are modules for the machine that let it run a web server for hosting websites and databases using php, sql, sql-lite. I am an app developer for Apple so this will come in handy for sql-lite databases and using push services.

The hard drive installs were very easy and slid right into place. The first hard drive (the top) made somewhat of a loud pop when it was set in place so I pulled it out to check and all was well. the other drives went in so effortlessly I was worried they were not making the sata connection. The machine tells you on each drive if it has power, it is accessing, or it has a problem. The two Gigabit ports on the back come in really handy for using as a web server and basically anything. It has 3 total usb ports, the one on the front would be best for making copies of usb drives (which can be done totally through the front lcd interface) and the back two would be great for using a wifi dongle (use only the ones they suggest I imagine, mine is hardwired), or other usb hard drives for added storage.

the lcd is pretty bright so I wouldn't want it somewhere it would be distracting, and the beep sounds it makes are pretty loud (which is a good thing when the server is in another room). This can be disabled if you'd like. You can add lots of users with individual permissions to individual folders which is great if your friends want to access your NAS but you don't want them seeing your finance documents. It runs uPnp protocol to stream to stuff like xboxes, it also uses the dnla protocol to stream to other devices. It runs an iTunes server as well so you can see it as a shared library in itunes. I am unsure about syncing yet, I haven't tried to set up an iTunes library on it yet and sync my iPhone/AppleTV but I will update when I do. I think there will be a problem with the ATV because of the 4 digit passcode. I doubt the machine does that. There is also a power management setting that you can turn on/off the system at various times of the day, for each day of the week.

This is a lot of info but it was all stuff I was searching for when I was about to buy. So far I really love the machine and I will update if that happens to change.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My first NAS drive..., March 11, 2010

By 

John Mek (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 4 Bay Nas Amd Pro. Raid (Personal Computers)

This is a great nas device. This review is not very technical and targeted towards people that don't know much about NAS drives.

To set up you will need to install your hard drives into the unit (sold separately). Make sure you buy a hard drive from the approved list that can be found on the manufacturer's website. The hard drive installation is pretty straightforward. Just place the hard drive in one of the four available slots and slide it in to lock.

The next step is pretty confusing though. You will need to decide on your RAID configuration. This involves several different factors, mainly dealing with the quantity of drives you install and the level of performance slash protection you desire.

You will want to do some RAID research before your drive arrives so that you will know what to do.

I went with a RAID 5 configuration, based upon a recommendation from a buddy who also has the n4100pro. I have 4 1TB drives installed in my unit. (The rest of the review assumes you have the same amount of space) The RAID 5 configuration uses only one of those 4TBs of space as a 'backup' drive if you will. This cuts down the storage from 4TBs to only 3 TBs. If any one of my drives fails in the future, all I have to do is replace it with a new drive and all my data will still be intact! If any two drives fail, well...I'd lose all my data- but what are the chances of 2 catastrophic drive failures at the same time?

If you want more security you have opt for a RAID 4 which would turn 2 TB's of the 4 into the 'backup drive'. This would allow for up to 2 drives to fail and you would be able to get your data back. But you would only have 2 TB's of storage space. The drawback is that this configuration is slower- my main use is as a media server, so speed was my main concern!

The next step will take some time. You will have to wait for the n4100pro to assemble your raid. This took about 20 hours to complete. After that step is done, you're golden.

I have set up iTunes shares where other computers on my network can access the n4100pro and play all of music stored on it.
I also use it to stream HD quality video to my TV's via a Mac Mini running Plex (XBMC for macs).
I have a mediagate MG-35 that also works wonderfully streaming Video_TS folders from ripped DVDs.
I have also set it up so that I can access my data from any internet connection.
It can also download torrents when all of the computers in your house are turned off, if that's your thing.

At any rate- great little unit. Gives me much peace of mind. Highly recommend it to those who are technically inclined. Not recommended for people with little or no computer experience. If you like to tinker- get this!

Enjoy!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok NAS, Media Server not so much, November 7, 2009

By 

R. Wong (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 4 Bay Nas Amd Pro. Raid (Personal Computers)

I have been using this unit for 2 months now; as a NAS, it works just fine.
Power management works. Web-based management works.

Performance is good. Streaming movies from it to PS3 suffers no lack whatsoever.
Copying movies from my HD Camcorder using iMovie to it, I cannot tell it is slower than if the destination was the local HDD.
Copying existing files on USB external HDD to it from your computer is truly a waste of time, use the USB copy module (extra) instead.

I do have an issue with the media server. After adding a new movies file (mp4), the file does not show up until either the PS3 rebooted or the NAS reboots.
This is to say the least very annoying. But wait, if I access the same "invisible" file using Media Link from PS3 to my MAC (with mounts the NAS share), I can see the file and play it.
This is definitely a media server issue.

Email tech support, no response whatsoever.

So if you get this unit, your only support resource is online forum.