Thecus N7510 Review

Unlike the N2560 we looked at last month, the N7510 ships with Thecus NAS OS5; the same version of NAS OS that can be found on all other variants within the Vision Series.  I haven’t received word yet on whether or not Thecus NAS OS6 will make its way beyond the SOHO/Home NAS lineup.

The Thecus Firmware is logical. Things are where you would expect them to be. Finding things can take a bit of time if you are used to other NAS firmware, but the search function works well and will lead you in the right direction.  Thecus NAS OS5 isn’t as pleasing to the eye as that of Asustor, Synology, and QNAP, but it will do the job.  The UI is plastered with a pastel blue background and a mundane dated side panel.

The individual menu elements, when clicked, bring frames into view that sometimes do not scale with the size of the window.  These smaller than window size frames make for a constant scrolling in either direction to get all the information.

The firmware is broken down into 9 basic sections which each include various items to administer the NAS.

• System Information: General, Status, System Log, Online Registration, Syslog Management, System Monitor, Hardware Information
• System Management: Date and Time, Notifications, Firmware Upgrade, Scheduled On/Off, Administrator Password, Config Mgmt, Factory Default, Reboot & SHutdown, File System Check, Wake-0n-Lan, SNMP, UI Login Functions.
• System Network: Networking, DHCP/RAID, Linking Aggregation.
• Storage: Disk Information, RAID Management, NAS Stacking, ISO Image Mountin, Share Folders, iSCSI
• User & Group Authentication: ADS Support, Local User Configuration, Local Group COnfiguration, Batch Input, User Quota, User Group Backup, LDAP Support
• Network Services: Samba/CIFS, AFP, NFS, FTP, TFTP, Webservice, UPnP Service, Bonjour, SSH, DDNS, UPnP Port Management
• Application Server: iTunes Server, Module Installation, Auto Module Installation
• Backup: DOM Backup, Rsync Target Server, ACL Backup/Restore, Data Burn, Data Guard, Amazon S3
• External Devices: Printers, Uninterrupted Power Source

If you are looking to give the ThecusOS 5.0 a testdrive: ThecusOS Demo

• Username: thecus
• Password: thecus

Thecus NAS OS5 provides you, the user, with some easy to find and read statistics about your NAS. The new page provides you with 4 customizable graphs that range from CPU usage and Memory Usage to Bandwidth. Unfortunately, there still is not a graphical representation of disk space, like other manufacturers.  This requires you to read the article instead of just looking at the pictures.

The N7510 supports multiple RAID volumes on a single system.  For example, this allows you run a RAID 0 volume for speed and a RAID 6 volume for redundancy based on your needs.  RAID expansion and RAID migration in the N7510 is no different from it is for other models in the Thecus linup. You have the ability to migrate from various RAID levels, but not from a single disk to RAID:

• RAID1 -> RAID5/6
• RAID5 -> RAID6

The Users and Group Authentication menu option contains all the things you need to create users on your NAS. It allows you to create users individually for ACL (access control lists) or groups for a more generic permissions structure. You can even configure the NAS for ADS (Active Directory Server)/NT support. For home users or small office users, you can batch import users by means of a CSV file.

Submit files containing user names, passwords,
and group names separated by commas without any spaces,
each line represents one user.
(ex. Student1,password1,student_group)

Creating shares with the NAS is straight forward. All you have to do is click the “Add” button, name your share, provide a description, and choose whether it is public, and if you want to enforce a Quota or not. You can set the permissions for each folder by user or by group after the share has been created by entering ACL and dragging either the user or the group to Deny, Read Only, or Writable.

Additionally, Thecus NAS OS5 Sports:

• McAfee Antivirus – Thecus’ innovative hardware helps prevent failures. But sometimes you have to protect the NAS against itself. Adding an antivirus to the already comprehensive software bundle will provide the necessary software protection by scanning the files on your NAS and defending it against possible threats. McAfee is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company and shares Thecus’ spirit of dedication and quality. By establishing a strong partnership with them, Thecus will allow users the benefit of McAfee’s powerful software on their NAS entirely for free.
• Data Burn – NAS data can now be burned directly to CD, DVD, and Blu-ray discs with Data Burn, this hassle-free module makes burning data to a disk effortless. In addition, burning ISO image file is also supported. Whether you’re managing audio, media or essential files; Data Burn copies information fast while significantly reducing waiting time. The process of burning file to disk is now easy and smooth with Data Burn module.
• Cloud Backup – The private and public clouds meet with Thecus’ new DropBox, Amazon S3 and ElephantDrive cloud backup functionality! Guard your data with RAID at home and an additional level of protection in the Cloud. Just drag and drop files into the folder on your NAS and access them on any computer or mobile device with DropBox, Amazon S3 or ElephantDrive. Still waiting for Thecus to catch up to QNAP and provide a Google Drive module.

Thecus also supports the installation of additional modules so that you can bring new features to your NAS. The available list of applications is small but growing. There are plenty of 3rd party modules available as well.

• Aria2
• Dropbox
• McAfee
• Piczza
• Transmission
• Twonkymedia
• WebDisk
• XBMC