Thecus W4000 4-Bay WSS 2012 R2 NAS Review

Introduction Most NAS devices we look at are based on some Linux or BSD distribution, but once in a while something different comes along. I'm excited to take a look at the new Thecus W4000 four-bay NAS server today, powered with Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials (WSS). Thecus are the first to bring WSS 2012 R2 to NAS users as you might remember from our press coverage back in October. The use of a WSS system offers a host of benefits to SMB users, including data protection, integrated cloud services and secure remote access. The integration of an NAS into Microsoft’s cloud-based applications and services, including Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure, has never been as easy before as with these new devices. The WSS NAS offerings look like they will provide users with an affordable and flexible solution with enough performance for SOHO and SMB environments. The Thecus W4000 is based on a dual-core Intel Atom running at 2.13Ghz and it has 2GB of DDR3 RAM. The memory sadly isn't as easy to upgrade as in some of Thecus other devices, but it is possible due to the use of standard sized SO-DIMMs. There is plenty of connectivity options on the W4000 with two USB 3.0 ports on the front and two USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA, dual Gigabit Ethernet, a line-out, a D-Sub VGA, and a HDMI port on the back; if that shouldn't be enough, the W4000 also has a PCIe x1 slot for add-on cards. The features don't stop there, as it also comes with an embedded SSD as boot drive and offers data deduplication for performance optimization, built-in automated client backup, Bitlocker drive encryption, and native NTFS support as well as online scan and repair. Thecus have created a great looking devices with the W4000, no doubt. It looks like a NAS should, simple, yet it features a lot of minor curves and design options that break the monotonous a bit. Adding the USB 3.0 ports on the front is a smart move as it's likely those that will be used most as ports for temporary connections while more permanent devices are connected via the rear connections. The tower features horizontal mounted drive bays, which I believe to be better for the hard drives over time. At the top, we see the space for the OLED display and its four control buttons and on the side it has the iconized LEDs for connectivity and activity. Thecus also added an unmentioned feature to the motherboard, an mSATA slot. It is located at the top of the motherboard and easily accessible without the need to take everything apart. The use of a standard SSD further allows you to upgrade or change drive depending on your personal needs. System Specifications, Features & Power Consumption System Specification Software Specifications User Interface The User interface on the W4000 will look very familiar to you, at least for most parts. The use of a Windows-based operating system can not only ease the installation and configuration for a lot of people, it also opens up for a long row of extra functionality. You can run pretty much any Windows software you'd like on this device. Power Consumption Setup - Initialization & Storage Initialise The Thecus W4000 NAS is a little different to initialize then you might be used to from the Unix and Linux-based devices. You'll have to connect your input devices and a monitor the NAS itself and install it pretty much the same way you would with any normal Windows installation. The files are already copied to the drive and all you have to do is the final part of the setup, create admin username and password as well as setting language and country codes. It will reboot and you can log in - just like with any other Windows installation. It really couldn't be simpler. Once logged in, it will detect your network settings and start the initialization. just sit back and relax for a while before you'll need to provide a couple more information. Update settings is a vital part of any server unit - but whether it should be enabled or not really depends on the usage scenario. My rule of thumb is, enable automatic updates whenever possible. After a quick reboot, the server will finalize the setup. Storage setup At this point, you should break out of the configuration guide for a little while, and have a look at the storage pool settings. There is a good chance that the automatic drive setup isn't the one you would prefer, and you might be like me that you just like to do it step by step to make sure it's done right. There is no need to close any open wizards, but minimize them instead. We'll return to them once the storage is configured. The interface looks a little different than the one you're used to from Windows 7 or 8 and is called Server Manager instead of Computer Management, but it essentially works in the same way. It looks like there are a lot of steps here to set up the drive system this way, but it's only due to the user-friendliness that comes along with this setup. The whole procedure is a step-by-step guide where minimal interaction is needed. Start by selecting the File and Storage Services and create a new Storage Pool with the hard drives of your choice. The second step is to create a new Virtual Disk on our drive pool. All you really have to do here is give it a name and select the RAID mode. The last step is the Volume creation and it will start automatically upon completion of the virtual disk wizard. Select capacity, format and assign the drive letter of your choice, just like on your regular Windows PC. That is everything you have to do to create your RAID setup and drive volume; you have it configured just to your usage needs and preferences. Setup - Basic configuration & Add-Ons Basic configuration Returning to the Windows Server Essentials Dashboard, we can now use the easy Get Started panel to setup our basics such as users and shares, but also Anywhere Access, Health reports, Client Restore points and connected computers. You don't need to enter a lot of information to create a user, actually all you need is a name and a password. The same goes for Shares, enter a name and press next to create it. When moving on to the next step, it will ask you how to set the user rights - why we created the users first. Add Ons The use of Windows gives you an enormous availability of add-ons, because basically every Windows application is compatible. Some popular and free applications perfect for NAS usage would be FileZilla FTP server, uTorrent downloader, Teamspeak, Ventrilo and the VideoLAN VLC media player. They all feature remote-based configuration and automatic functions wanted for a headless unit, and VLC also turns the device into a direct media station. It has both line-out and HDMI, so connectivity isn't an issue. Windows Storage Server also comes with the windows based services such as IIS web server, domain function, backup and replication, cloud features and oh so much more. Testing Method Test system: Supermicro C7Z87-OCE Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3 Excelleram EP3001A 2GB PC3-10666 Corsair H100i BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 850W Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD Disks in Product: Western Digital RED 6TB 3.5-inch Angelbird SSD2go Pocket 512GB We would like to thank our sponsors for supplying us with the components needed for the test system as well as drives. Software used: The performance of the system we use to test with isn't a major factor when testing a device of this sort. The performance of the NAS box comes down to the network it is running on, the protocol used to connect, and its own internal hardware. With a device of this sort having so many different applications, Intel's NASPT software covers all the bases and also gives us a set of results that we will be able to utilise and therefore give a benchmark against other similar systems in the future. Intel NASPT (Network Attached Storage Performance Toolkit) performs its test by transferring varying sizes and quantities of data to and from the device based on twelve different scenarios. As part of the testing, the NAS is connected through a Netgear GS724TPS managed Gigabit switch and then to our test bench to give the best real world setup test that we can and the NAS itself will be packed with Western Digital's latest RED NAS drives. Intel's NASPT software does require us to drop the memory down to 2GB, as using any more would lead to data caching and therefore skew the results. I will be testing the NAS box performance under each of the RAID options that it has available as well as single drive. The USB 3.0 speeds will be measured with our trusted Angelbird SSD2go Pocket drive. HD Video Playback HD Video playback is a reading test, where a single 2 Gb file is read in 256 kB blocks sequentially from the drive. This simulates where a 720p HD video is being watched across the network to a media player on the other end. 2x HD Video Playback 2x HD Video Playback works with exactly the same data set as the first HD Video test, however this time the same content is streamed twice from the NAS box simulating two simultaneous streams being made to external media players. 4x HD Video Playback In the same way that the 2x Video Playback streams to the equivalent of 2 external media players at the same time, the test here doubles that again up to a simulated 4 media players. HD Video Record The HD Video Record test is as the name suggests a write test to the NAS box. A single 2 GB file is written to the device in 256 kB blocks sequentially to the disk. HD Playback & Record The HD playback and record test now put the drive under the same single record and playback tests as before, but now at the same time. This will factor in the quick changes needed to switch between reading and writing two large blocks of data across the network to the device. Content Creation For content creation, Intel have simulated access to via video creation applications. This is made up of 98 files with 12 MB reads and 14 MB writes in varying sizes of blocks. The activity is predominantly non-sequential with the majority of access time made up of writing to the drives. There are quiet periods of read/write activity interrupted by busy periods to present a difficult workload on the drives. Office Productivity The office productivity simulation is very similar to the content creation, with a total of 607 files written to and read from the drive. A total of 1.4 GB of data is written to and read from the drive with a close balance between each made - the majority of write access is made up of 1 kB writes. File Copy To NAS This test quite simply put copies a single large file from the test system to the NAS box to show how well the system can sustain a single write speed. The 1.4 GB file is copied to the drive and written in 64 kB blocks. File Copy From NAS File copy from the NAS works in exactly the same way as the copy test, however it works in the opposite direction. The single 1.4 GB file is read off the NAS in 64 kB blocks. Directory Copy To NAS In the directory copy to NAS test, a directory tree representing that of a typical commercially available office suite is copied to the NAS to trace the bulk copy of a complex directory. A total of 2833 files making up 247 MB are moved, but the file sizes vary considerably with an average size of 41.4 kB. Due to the varying sizes of the files, only around 50% of the writes are sequential. Directory Copy From NAS In the same way that the file copy from NAS traces the same file back across to the test system, the directory copy from NAS does exactly the same but to the entire directory that it copied across previously. Photo Album Last of all is a test based around a photo album. When a photo album is viewed on-screen, only the images, that you see, are loaded from the drive and so when you scroll through the album, the new images have to be fetched and read. The album here contains 169 photos with varying file sizes based on the size, quality and detail in the image. Reading the files in a photo album puts an unusual read load on the drive as the metadata is read, a thumbnail constructed and finally the image viewed. Final Thoughts Pricing Considering the hardware, features, and the included windows license, I would dare to call the Thecus W4000 cheap. At the time of writing the W4000 can be had at Amazon UK for £369.22, at NewEgg in North America for $449.99, while German readers can find it starting at €430 through Geizhals. It is rare to see Windows Server based devices available so "cheap". Overview The Thecus W4000 is a great NAS device in a classic wrapping. The tower style NAS with horizontal drive bays looks the way a NAS is supposed to look. But instead of just having a round LED light, the W4000 has lit up icons on the front panel, something that makes it a lot quicker to see what's going on at a quick glance; it also gives the device more premium appeal. The W4000 feels like a premium device all the way through, with a superb finish from top to bottom, inside and out. Inside it is powered by an Intel Atom D2701 2.13GHz dual-core CPU and has 2GB DDR3 RAM. The RAM is upgradeable, but it requires taking the device apart. An awesome thing in the W4000 is the 60GB SSD drive for the Operating System, making sure you got the fastest loading times. Connectivity is also covered very well on the W4000 with two USB 2.0, two USB 3.0, eSATA, HDMI, D-Sub VGA, Line-Out and dual Gigabit Ethernet. I wasn't expecting that much in the form of performance from the Thecus W4000, mostly due to the CPU, RAM, and choice of operating system. Windows Server isn't the lightest OS around, but I was pleasantly surprised and the W4000 performed great. Sure it might not reach as great benchmark figures as some of Linux based devices, but it offers plenty of features to make up for it. Windows Storage Server Essentials offers all the basic functions you'll want in your SOHO or SMB NAS, and a lot of extras. On top of that, it allows for a very easy integration into Microsoft based cloud services such as Office 365 and Azure. Pros: Familiar Windows Environment Probably widest availability of apps possible Good speeds Great connectivity Price Cons: Windows can be a resource hog "The Thecus W4000 brings the advantages of Windows Server to SOHO and SMB users. Great performance, easy maintenance, and convenience of Microsoft Cloud features make this an excellent choice." Thanks to Thecus for providing us with this review sample.