Thecus N5550 5-Bay NAS Review

When a NAS starts to get above the 4 bay capacity, their presence in the home or office starts to get quite noticable, so its nice to see that the front cover has been kept rather conservative and clean with a ‘rippled’ effect to add some style. In the grooves we find a number of slots that allow for air to be drawn in and through the NAS for cooling and to the left, a slim window through which the activity LEDs shine through. at the bottom we have the LCD and four buttons for the quick access menu.

Opening up the door, access can be made to the drive bays, power and reset buttons and the USB3.0 port. On the inside of the door, there is a metal mesh to act as a dust filter from the drives. The five drives stack horizontally above each other, sliding out when required.

Taking a closer look at the lower half of the front panel, the blue backlit LCD continuously cycles through system status information including drive status and capacity, fan status and the network IP and LAG status. Underneath the screen, the four buttons are used to cycle through the on system menu and to the left is a large blue lit power button and a small reset button below for setting the system back to its default configuration.

To the left of the drive bays, we find five status LEDs, the top for system status (ie building raid) two LAN activity, USB copy activity, and finally a system warning light. Underneath the status lights we find a USB3.0 port for quick access to file transfers and backups.

When closed, the front panel buttons protrude through the door enabling them to be used with the door shut. The window above also allows for the LCD to be viewed without opening the door.

Moving round to the back of the NAS, an 80mm fan draws air through the bays to keep the drives and the rest of the system cool whilst running. starting from the top, we find three 3.5mm audio jacks for line in, line out & microphone, eSATA, four USB2.0, HDMI, and VGA. The N5550 as you may now gather differs from other NAS enclosures in that it has the capability to directly output media content to a connected TV or other video device such as a projector without the need for a 3rd party system.

For those that have read our previous review on the N4200 Pro, you will notice that the drive trays are virtually identical in appearance and function, and bar the inclusion of the locks they are. When fitted into their bays, two LEDs from the rear NAS, shine through two clear plastic tubes to provide drive status and activity. These tubes can be seen to the right of each tray, on above the other.

Another thing that strikes as being different with this system is the ability to easily remove the entire case to access the internals. Three thumb screws undo from the rear of the chassis and then the top cover slides forward and then lifts off.

Removing the cover gives ample opportunity to take a look at the system that powers the NAS. Based on an Intel Atom CPU and 2GB of 1333MHz DDR3, the entire board requires very little power to operate and also by using the Atom CPU, no active cooling is required on the chip due to its very low thermal output.

Another key difference on this board is the system firmware is stored on a SATA DOM device rather than on a flash IC directly on the board. This option allows for a faster operating envirenment and also easy replacement in the event the flash IC fails.