Thecus N4560 4-Bay NAS Review

Thecus Intelligent NAS & Power Consumption

Up to this point, when I’ve come to use and test a Thecus brand of system, everything has been handled through a web-based user interface. Even the first time setup stages are taken care of through this portal and for some entry-level users, the thought of having to enter an IP address into a web browser to connect to the system, especially if their network is on a different IP pool to the default IP address of the NAS. To combat this barrier of potential fear for the first time user, Thecus have introduced the Intelligent NAS desktop software which acts as a middle man connection portal, searching for and displaying local systems and their status all in one place. Once setup however, access to the web based user interface is made possible once the initial setup has been done, giving the more experienced users such as myself the freedom to configure the NAS as required.

Power Consumption

When we look at the power usage, thanks to the use of WD’s own low power Red drives for consumer NAS the idle and load power draw figures are comfortably below the 30W level. The system automatically spins down the drives after a given amount of time (which can be adjusted) and at this point the system uses little over 10W and consequently the system has a pretty low operating cost over an extended period.