Firmware V5
Hailed as "one of the biggest firmware releases in Thecus history", Firmware V5 is the latest release of the company's Linux-based operating system and claims to offer "many new functions, both visible and behind-the-scenes".
The importance of the updated software is such that Thecus decided to "skip right over v4", but the improvements aren't quite as dramatic as we're led to believe.
Login to the N2200XXX admin panel and you're presented with an interface that looks almost identical to its year-old V3 predecessor. This clearly isn't as big or as bold a step forward as we've seen from other NAS manufacturers, but Thecus's latest software does introduce a couple of noteworthy upgrades.
First and foremost, the V5 Firmware offers support for the EXT4 file system and 3TB hard disks - giving the two-bay N2200XXX a heightened maximum capacity of up to 6TB.
Secondly, Thecus has implemented a waft of behind-the-scenes tweaks designed to improve overall system performance by as much as 50 per cent. That's a lofty claim, but our in-house benchmarks - which we'll get to shortly - confirm that this unit is mighty quick.
The storage and performance improvements are welcome, but Firmware V5 doesn't offer a great deal of innovation beyond that.
There's now a universal help menu on hand to assist NAS newcomers, along with a new version of Thecus's Piczza photo server, and ThecusShare, an iOS/Android app designed to help users easily stream multimedia content from the NAS to supported mobile devices.
Welcome enhancements, but Thecus's software continues to lack a final coat of polish - we're regularly identifying typos in the admin pages, and the interface doesn't feel as refined as those on offer from the likes of Qnap or Synology. What you have instead is a utilitarian software package that's brimming with features such as scheduled power on/off, wake-on-LAN, batch group creation, iSCSI thin provisioning, support for Windows Active Directory Server, built-in media and FTP servers, integrated backup solutions, network-attached printing and much, much more.
The extent of the feature list is such that it's best explored in person. Head over to http://n5500demo.gotdns.com/index.php for a live demo of Firmware V5 running on an N5500 using thecus/thecus as the username and password, or hit the next page if you're eager to see the performance numbers.
