Thecus N5550 5-Bay Home NAS Review

Introduction

Thecus 5-bay NAS units have always been an odd fit in the Thecus product family. The 4-bay N4800, the NAS we call the best consumer / SOHO NAS on the market today, offers more features, one less drive bay, but a higher price than the N5550.

Moving up the scale, Thecus has the N7510, a 7-bay unit that costs considerably more than the N5550. To help blur the product family, Thecus has three five bay units on its website and all three look nearly identical.

The N5550 uses an Intel Atom processor, but just as important, ships with 2GB of DDR3 RAM. Thecus also ships the N4800 with 2GB, twice as much DRAM as most products in its price category. The N5550 is also a price leader in the 5-bay market, but costs a little more than the N5200xxx and N5500, both from Thecus as well.

The extra expense isn't just a generation upgrade without additional features. The N5550 brings USB 3.0, HDMI output, twice the amount of DRAM and audio in/out capabilities.

Before we get too far into the specs, let's have a look at the spec list so I don't leave anything out.