Taiwanese NAS manufacturer Thecus is introducing a new 4-bay NAS solution dubbed the N4200 bringing with it some interesting firsts for the company.
We assume the N4200 supplants the N4100, Thecus' original 4-bay NAS and the first Thecus product we took sample of nearly 5 years ago. So what has five years of progress brought us?
The new 4-bay device is powered by Intel's Atom D510, a dual-core 1.66GHz part, which Thecus says is capable of "blistering transfer speeds and increased system response". Assuming the rest of the system architecture provides no greater bottleneck, it might be on to something.
It's hard to differentiate a NAS product with software features because the majority of NAS boxes are Linux-based and so come with features that are largely the same (although executed to varying degrees of success). On the hardware front, though, Thecus makes the N4200 stand out with its 2.8" OLED display.
The list of more useful features includes support for up to 8TB of storage (limited by disk capacities right now, we presume), dual DOM (disk on module - where the OS is) to allow system recovery in the event of the primary DOM failing, and a battery backup module to preserve RAM data in the event of power loss.
The usual RAID modes are supported - 1,2,5,6,10 and JBOD, along with USB backup and gigabit Ethernet with link aggregation. There's no price as of yet and Thecus hasn't released any performance figures, but we'll let you know as soon as Thecus tells us!
