Thecus N3200 Pro: undervalued NAS?

[mygiantcircle]

Hi guys!

First, I want to thank everyone who contributes to this forum. It has been a valuable site for me to read and learn more about networking. This is the web at its best.

Right now I am considering my options for a NAS. I like my NAS to performs the following tasks:

Backup my XP desktop computer
Backup my Vista and MAC book notebook computer
Stream MP3's (and some movies) to my HTPC.
Some Torrent usage (rare)
Potential need for FTP/remote web access (only when I am on the road and forgot a file).

I understand the rave for Synology and QNAP products, and it is deserving. However, I noted that Thecus NAS such as the N3200 seems to outperform the competitor, and the price seems reasonable. My impression is that it also fits my needs well.

What am I missing? Your thoughts is greatly appreciated.

dewey

ps: I am also considering the Buffalo XHL, but I am thinking the expandability of Thecus may deserve the price premium over the XHL.

 

[claykin]

What Thecus needs is a user community and to better respond with firmware issues on a consistent basis. Last thing you want to do is trust your data to a box that has issues and no one there to help. Yes, the Thecus boxes work, but not everything works properly.

If you want a relatively unbiased answer from a vendor who sells Netgear, Qnap and Thecus call www.eaegis.com. They have a tech guy on staff who is quite knowledgeable. Eaegis is biased against Synology. I know they used to sell Synology, but no more. I think they may have had a disagreement with the company.. A guess on my part.

My vote:

1) Netgear Readynas
2) Qnap
3) Synology

 

[mygiantcircle]

the issue I have is this: the only readynas I would need is the duo, and the chart only shows data from the old test method, so it's hard for me to gauge its performance against Thecus, QNAP, and Buffalo's XHL.

If anyone knows how Duo performs I can use some insight.

Are there any firmware issues with Thecus as far as you know? I agree a good base of user would be nice, but honestly, I am one of those consumer that would try to research and get the best bang-for-the-buck items, then would just use them without too much tinkering.

 

[mygiantcircle]

also, is there a NAS device that uses the same file format as the PC (NTFS?). I think it would be nice to be able to pull out the HD and let the PC read it direct...

Thanks again for the input.

 

[thiggins]

If anyone knows how Duo performs I can use some insight.

You would not see a huge difference between the old and new test results for the Duo, since it was nowhere near bumping into the limits of the old test bed. Basically, its performance falls in the low 20 MB/s range.

You won't find any NASes that use NTFS internally since they all run some flavor of Linux. If being able to read a NAS drive on another machine is a requirement, then you don't want the ReadyNAS Duo. It uses a modified form of EXT3 that can't be read on most Linux systems.

 

[claykin]

You would not see a huge difference between the old and new test results for the Duo, since it was nowhere near bumping into the limits of the old test bed. Basically, its performance falls in the low 20 MB/s range.

You won't find any NASes that use NTFS internally since they all run some flavor of Linux. If being able to read a NAS drive on another machine is a requirement, then you don't want the ReadyNAS Duo. It uses a modified form of EXT3 that can't be read on most Linux systems.

Readynas Duo internal HDDs use EXT3 16KB block size. Its NOT modified EXT3 in any way, it just uses a large block size. Netgear claims they chose to move to large blocks due to performance issues with smaller blocks and the CPU used in the Duo. Its not entirely impossible to read a Duo disk on a PC, you just need a Sun Sparc or an Itanium machine. Conventional PC hardware dos not support 16KB blocks.

There is a group working on a conversion utility that would permit EXT3 with larger than 4KB blocks to be read on a conventional PC. Its still work in progress...

Note: When backing up a Duo share to an external USB device, the external device can be NTFS, FAT32 or EXT3. All 3 formats can be read on any PC, though EXT3 will provide the fastest speeds for backup of shares.