Thecus W4000 4-Bay WSS 2012 R2 NAS Review

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.