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Thecus N4200 Pro 4-Bay NAS Review

In general a NAS box is just an external hard drive caddy that is attached to your network rather than by USB or even Firewire. Because of this we can find a whole host of other features and utilities bundled into them giving them the leading edge over the other options available on the market.

Hardware Platform

Item	Spec
Processor	Intel® Atom™ Processor D525
System Memory	1 GB DDR-3 SDRAM
LAN Interface	RJ-45×2 : 10/100/1000 BASE-TX Auto MDI/MDI-X
LCD indicator	HDD Power, Activity (Yellow) / Fail (Red) LAN_WAN Activity (Green) USB_COPY_Busy (Blue) USB_COPY_ Fail (Red)
OLED Module	2.8” OLED display 4 buttons (ENTER, ESC, UP, DOWN) Multi-lingual supported
Power Supply	External power adapter 19V input (support 2TB and above HDDx4 )
Disk Interface	SATA x4 for internal, 2x eSATA for external
Expansion Slot	PCI-e x1
USB Interface	USB 2.0 host port x6(Front x2, Back x4) (A Type)
Thermal/Fan control	Thermal sensor on system and processor System fan speed controlled according to temperature
Real-time clock	Battery backup system clock
Buttons	Power button Reset to factory default button
Chassis	Metal chassis
Lithium-ion Battery	Built-in battery backup module (Mini-UPS)
Environment	Temperature : 5°C to 40°C Humidity : 0 ~ 80 % R.H. (Non-condensing)

Software Functions

RAID
RAID Modes	RAID 0, 1, 5, 6,10, JBOD
Auto-Rebuild	Supported
Hot-Swap	Supported
Hot Spare	Supported
Online RAID Migration	Supported
Online RAID Expansion	Supported
SMART Info	Supported
SMART Test	Supported
RAID Volume Encryption	AES 256bit
Disk
Power Management	Configurable automatic drive spin down
Roaming	Supports roaming to other N4200PRO NAS
Bad Block Scan	Supported
Volume Management
Multiple RAID	Supported
Selectable File Systems	Ext3/ XFS/ZFS
Network
Configuration	Fixed IP address, dynamic IP address
IP sharing mode	Can be enabled/disabled
Link Aggregation	802.3ad, load balance, failover, Balance-XOR, Balance-TLB, Balance-ALB
Transport Protocols	TCP/IP, AppleTalk
File Protocols	SMB/CIFS, HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, NFS v3, AFP
Data Access
Client OS support	Windows 2000/7/XP/2003/Vista UNIX/Linux Mac OS 9 / X
WebDisk	Web-based file access
FTP	Built-in FTP server with bandwidth control
Secure FTP	Built-in Secure FTP server with bandwidth control
Download Manager (module)	HTTP / FTP / BT / eMule / NZB
Printer Server (IPP)	Supports USB printers Supports IPP various printers Client can manage print tasks (list/delete) via web user interface
TFTP Server	Users can download and upload files with TFTP programs.
Data Backup
USB copy via OLED operation	Copy USB mass storage device contents to specified locations on NAS
NAS data backup to external USB disk (module)	Incremental with schedule supported
Client schedule incremental	Acronis True Image (OEM version)
Client system Disaster Recovery	Acronis True Image (OEM version)
Battery Backup Module (Mini-UPS)	Contingency Battery Power Supply
NAS Remote Replication	Via Thecus proprietary Nsync
NAS Remote Replication (module)	Via Rsync to replicate data between two systems.
Snapshot	Supported
Mac Time Machine	Supported
Bi-directional USB Copy (Module)	Supported
Block Level Access
iSCSI Target	Supports Microsoft/Mac/Linux Initiator
iSCSI initiator	For stackable with N4200/ N4200Eco/N4200PRO/ N5200PRO/1U4600/N5500/N7700 series/N8800 series
iSCSI Thin Provisioning	Virtual size adjustable up to 16TB
Multimedia Support
iTunes Server	Supported file types: AAC, MP3 w/ ID3 tag, WAV
Photo Web Server	Supported file types: GIF, JPG (JPEG), BMP, PNG Supports EXIF display Supports slide show
Media server	Supports uPnP AV streaming protocol
User Authentication
Local User	Supports built-in user accounts
Local Group	Supports built-in user groups
Windows NT/ADS	Supported
File System
Type	Journaling file system
Capacity	Multi-terabyte
Language Support	Unicode Support
Authorization	Read, Write or Deny options on individual users or groups
Authorization (ACL)	Read, Write or Deny options on individual users or groups for shared and sub-folders
Administration
Multi-Lingual Web-based Administration	Web-based server management interface supports English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish and Portuguese.
Utility Program	MS Windows / Mac OS X Setup Wizard, Supports multilingual Supports Windows 2000/7/XP/2003/Vista, Mac OS X backup utility
Email notification	Sends system messages via email to system administrator
SNMP Management	Supported
Power management
Scheduled On/Off	Supported
Wake-On-LAN (WOL)	Supported
Auto Power On After Power Failure	Supported
Others
Recycle bin	Supported
Dual DOM	Supported
Web Server + MySQL (module)	Supported
ISO Mount	Supported
Web Disk	Supported with remote access
Auto Module Installation	If Thecus IP storage is capable of connecting to the Internet, then it will automatically link to Thecus’s official website and list available modules.
IP CAM Surveillance Server (module)	Supports up to 5 IP CAM
Supported Web Browsers	Internet Explorer 7 or higher Firefox 3 or higher