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Thecus launches N7700 - the no compromise enterprise-class NAS

by Parm Mann on 8 October 2008, 10:18

Tags: N7700, Thecus (4978.TWO)

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Taiwan-based storage specialist Thecus has today upped the ante in the network-attached storage (NAS) market with the launch of its seven-bay N7700.

The new addition to the Thecus range provides a whopping seven SATA hard-drive bays, allowing for up to 7TB of storage - that's enough to archive over 800 dual-layer DVDs. Just in case you do happen to run out of room, there's an eSATA port allowing for the installation of one more external drive - though, sadly, the eighth drive can't be combined with the internal RAID array.

On the hardware front, you'll find Intel's 1.86GHz Celeron processor and 1GB of DDR memory. There's the usual selection of RAID modes, including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, and JBOD, and Thecus has thrown in RAID expansion and RAID level migration so you'll be able to add drives to an existing RAID without powering down.

There's also support for iSCSI initiators - allowing for enterprise users to access the N7700 as a direct-attached storage device via the Internet or a LAN. If you're willing to shell out big bucks, you'll find that the device is stackable, too - allowing for up to six N7700 boxes to be hooked up to one another and managed via the primary box.

There's no word on pricing, but with Thecus' popular five-bay N5200 retailing at over £500, you can expect this one to be priced at a greater premium.

Official product page: Thecus.com

Official press release: Thecus Unleashes N7700 7-Bay NAS Server

HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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Posted by Funkstar - Wed 08 Oct 2008 10:45
Even if the N7700 comes in around the £770 mark, making it the same cost per drive as the N5200, it's still better value than the Synology DS508.

The article reads like the eSATA port can be combined to be part of the RAID array, is this right? It can't on the N5200 series (mores the pitty).

I also asked Thecus about validating the new Seagate 1.5TB drives for the N5200, sugesting they get in touch with Scan, so hopefully these will be added to the approved drive list soon. That takes the N7700 up to 10.5TB of storage*



*well, no it doesn't, it's more like 9.5TB once you take the kilobyte/kibibyte conversion and some formatting into account.

EDIT: oh and I meant to say, that is a very nice looking unit! far better than the shiney plastic of the N5200s and N4100s
Posted by rjpearce - Wed 08 Oct 2008 12:44
Would love to see a benchmark comparison between this and the QNAP TS-509 Pro (http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=104 only 5 drives but should be interesting!
Posted by Parm - Thu 09 Oct 2008 09:00
Funk, I've checked with Thecus for you and I'm afraid the eSATA port can't be combined as part of the RAID array. Here's what Thecus had to say:
The eSATA port is for capacity expansion, its funciton is as a USB external storage device.

So N7700 won't support combine the drive on the eSATA port to be one of the RAID member.
Posted by Funkstar - Thu 09 Oct 2008 09:30
I'm not surprised. Personally I think it's a real shame, but then they wouldn't want to hurt sales of the N8800 when it is released.

Might be an idea to amend the article slightly to make that clear, something like:
Just in case you do happen to run out of room, there's an eSATA port allowing for the installation of one more external drive, bringing the grand total up to eight, although this cannot be used as part of an array