Introduction

Last year we reviewed the Thecus N4200 just days after its release. The N4200 is still to this day the only consumer NAS that offers dual status display screens, but more importantly, the only consumer NAS to include a battery backup system. When Thecus first marketed their N4200 a lot of emphasis was placed on the new dual display feature, but we felt that the battery backup feature was the real standout feature.

In an enterprise environment power is regulated to a degree unseen in our homes. Businesses regularly spend a portion of their budget on keeping clean, consistent power flowing to their servers. In our home power fluctuates and in many places across the country you can expect at least one power outage a year. Here in the Midwest where I'm at you can expect several brief outages in winter as ice builds on power lines and trees, and again in the spring when severe storms disrupt the flow. One of the easiest ways to take out a hard drive is to remove power abruptly without a proper shut down sequence.

The Thecus N4200 PRO is based on the award winning N4200 design, but has a faster internal processor, now an Atom D525, and gets industry leading DDR3 memory. Thecus' new firmware, now up to revision 5, is also included and has been updated significantly since we started reviewing Thecus products.

Let's take a detailed look at the Thecus N4200 PRO.