Thecus N4100+
Founded in 2004, the Taiwanese company Thecus has become a specialist in SOHO storage solutions. The N4100+ essentially represented a software evolution of the older N4100 (released in 2005). It remains the only 4 bay NAS from this manufacturer in their catalogue; however, it is obvious that the current star is the 5 bay N5200BR Pro. If this N4100+ is still on sale for an increasingly attractive price (less than 500 € taxes included), in terms of performances it doesn’t have much in common with the flagship N5200BR Pro. In fact, the machine is only equipped by an Intel Xscale processor at 600 MHz (reference number IOP 80219) and aided by 128 MB of RAM. This combination has nothing exceptional and performances today aren’t overly impressive.
Despite all of this, there is a complete control panel and the system is up to par (at least on paper) with what other models offer that have since been released. It even has a few exclusive functions such as the presence of a double Gigabit network interface enabling the relay of the machine to two distinct networks. On the other hand, contrary to the N5200B Pro, the N4100+ does not allow using them as an aggregation of links (802.3ad). We also like the possibility of plugging in a USB Wi-Fi key (compatibility list in the manual) to transform the N4100+ into an 802.11g access point. Obviously, even if the transfer rates will be much less, it can always serve as a backup.
Installation and startup
Elegant and discreet, the N4100+ has very nice finishing touches. The installation system of the hard drives functions perfectly to such a point that Thecus reused it in the N5200BR Pro. The trays upon which the drives are fixed with the help of the four screws provided fit no problem and fit nicely after closing the front door latch. There is also the option of locking each drive in to avoid any accidental withdrawal. Obviously, the system supports Hotswap which enables changing a defective drive without interruption of service.
The cramped size of the casing does not facilitate the cooling of drives and despite the presence of a 92 mm fan, it has the highest temperature in use of this survey. The power source situated in the bottom of the casing also has a 40 mm fan. For this reason, if the sound level is below that measured on the N5200 Pro (3 fans), the N4100+ isn’t much more silent.
In use
The system’s configuration interface isn’t really an exemplary model. There is no online help and its organization is a bit odd at times. These are defects we also find on the N5200BR Pro and which we have to get used to. Fortunately, this isn’t too difficult.
Once this is done, we find a multitude of rather rich functions with notably a startup planner (by day of the week) and the possibility to choose the size of the Raid bandwidth (64 KB by default which was used in this test).
Specificity of Thecus, there is a module manager which allows installing applications developed
by the user community. These are fewer in number than for the N5200 series but nonetheless worth some attention. There are alternative multimedia servers (Firefly, Geekbox), P2P clients (MLDonkey), SSH access, improvement of FTP, etc. Note that Thecus offers three « official » extensions on its own: those allowing installing the printer server, DLNA multimedia server, as well as downloading services (Bittorent, HTTP and FTP). While the last enables specifying time periods for download, you cannot personalize the ports used. In addition, Thecus has a module which allows you to activate compatibility with NFS protocol but this cannot be installed. Perhaps it’s an error.
And by the way, you may recall that we encountered a few stability problems when we were measuring performances. The machine systematically crashed with the activation of jumbo frames, while it was impossible to transfer large files (1 GB) on USB storage. Luckily, these problems did not affect «standard» use of the machine: Raid 5, Ethernet packets of 1500 bytes, and the transfer of data on internal drives.
Performance/price ratio
In the end, the main problem of the N4100+ is that now there is now a rival sized Synology CS-407. Commercialized in the same price range, the latter offers as many (or more) functions, better ergonomics, and especially significantly higher performances.
We liked :
– the two Gigabit ports ;
– the module manager;
– the price.
We didn’t like :
– performances !
– sometimes unstable ;
– the configuration interface could be improved;
– temperature of drives;
– no setting of quotas.
