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Thecus TopTower N6850 6-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.

One key feature that we will point out from the extensive list below for this particular system, and one that we have not seen or used to date is the support for for RAID 50. For those who are not full familiar with how the RAID systems work when mixed together, RAID 50 is basically two 3 drive RAID 5 arrays that are then striped together to give the benefit of a RAID 5 parity array but with effectively with a speed boost. With this in mind we should expect to see this array type showing some good results in our NASPT set suite when it gets put to the test.

Specs

1.Hardware Platform

Item	Spec
Processor	Intel® Pentium® G620 2.6Ghz
System Memory	2GB DDR3
LAN Interface (PCI-e)	RJ-45×2: Intel 82574L 10/100/1000 BASE-TX Auto MDI/MDI-X WOL supported PCI Express 8 lane slot x2
USB Interface	USB 2.0 host port x4 (Type A, one has power always on function) (front x2, back x2) USB 3.0 host port x4 (front x2, back x2)
OLED	Displays system status and information (Multilingual)
HDMI Output	HDMI port (back x1)
Audio	MIC input, Line input, Audio output
Disk Interface	6 x SATA for internal
Power Supply	Single power supply (80plus)
System Clock	Battery-backed up system clock
Power Management	Auto power on after shutdown due to power loss
Buzzer	Adjustable frequency alarm
Touch Panel	Power button OLED button (ENT, ESC, UP, DOWN)
Environment	Temperature: 0°C to 40°C Humidity: 0 ~ 80 % R.H. (Non-condensing)
Chassis	Tower base
Dimensions (HxWxD)	320.4 x 215 x 282.6 (mm)
Compatibility	10GbE PCI-e card USB/slim CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive UPS

2. Software Functions

RAID
RAID Modes	RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and JBOD
Auto-rebuild	Supported
Hot-swap	Supported
Dedicated Hot Spare	Supported
Global Hot Spare	Supported
Online RAID Migration	Supported
Online RAID Expansion	Supported
RAID Volume Encryption	AES256bit
Disk
Power Management	Available spin-down while idle setting
Bad Block Scanning	Supported
SMART Info	Supported
SMART Test	Supported
Disk Roaming	Supports volume-based roaming to other Thecus NAS
Network
Configuration	Fixed IP address, dynamic IP address
IP Sharing Mode	Can be enabled/disabled
Transport Protocols	TCP/IP/AppleTalk
File Protocols	SMB/CIFS, HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, NFS v4, AFP
Link Aggregation	Load balance, Failover, 802.3ad, Balance-XOR, Balance-TLB, Balance-ALB
TCP/IP	IPV6 & IPV4
Data Access
Client OS Support	Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 UNIX/Linux Mac OS X
FTP	Built-in FTP server with bandwidth control
Secure FTP	Built-in secure FTP server with bandwidth control
TFTP	Users can download and upload files with TFTP programs
Download Manager	BT download (via Transmission Module) NZB download (via NZB Module)
Printer Server (IPP)	Supports USB printers Supports a wide range of IPP printers Client can manage print tasks (list/delete) via web user interface
Data Backup
Client Incremental Data Backup	Acronis True image (OEM version)
Client System Disaster Recovery	Acronis True image (OEM version)
Client Side Backup Software	Thecus Backup Utility (Windows/Mac OS X)
Rsync Backup	Rsync replicates data between two systems (via Rsync module)
DVD Backup	Supported
Mac OS X Time Machine	Supported
Block Level Access
iSCSI Target/Initiator	Supports Microsoft/Mac OS X/Linux initiators and Thecus NAS targets
iSCSI Thin Provisioning	Supported
MPIO	Supported
MCS	Supported
Clustering	Supported
SCSI3 persistent group reservation	Supported
Power Management
Scheduled Power On/Off	Supported
Volume Management
Multiple RAID	Supported
Multiple File System Selectable	EXT3/EXT4/XFS
Multimedia Support
iTunes Server	Supports AAC, MP3 w/ID3 tag and WAV
Piczza!™ Web Server (via module)	Supports GIF, JPG (JPEG), BMP, PNG Support EXIF display Support slide show
Media Server	Support uPnP AV streaming protocol (via Twonkymedia module)
User Authentication
Local User	Supports built-in user accounts
Local Group	Supports built-in user groups
Windows ADS/LDAP	Supported
On-line User list	Supported
Access Guard	Supports Black & White list/IP Filter
File System
Type	Journaling File System
Language Support	Unicode Support
Authorization (ACL)	“Read”, “write”, or “deny” privileges to individual users or groups in folders and sub-folders
User Quota	Supported
User Quota Sync	Supported
Administration
User Interface	Web-based user interface supports English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish and Portuguese
Utility Program	MS Windows Setup Wizard Supports Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 Mac OS X Setup Wizard
Email Notifications	Sends system messages via email to the system administrator
SNMP Trap	System information trap out
SSH	Supported
Mobile Applications (iOS/Android)
Thecus Dashboard	Mobile monitoring and administration (via module)
ThecusShare™	Uploading, downloading, and streaming multimedia
Thecus-Disk	Manage files and folders on Thecus NAS, playback audio and video media, and view photos and documents
Others
Recycle Bin	Supported
Web Disk	Supported (via module)
Web Server	Supported (via module)
ISO Mount	Supported
IP Cam Surveillance	Supports up to 10 IP cameras (via module)
Auto Module Installation	Thecus’s module server automatically provides the latest modules and updates through the user interface
Cloud Backup	Dropbox, ElephantDrive, Amazon S3, Acronis (via module)
Local Display	X-Window via HDMI output
Antivirus	McAfee (via module)