Thecus N4200 4-Bay NAS Server (Page 5)

The Thecus N4200

Here we get our first look at the Thecus N4200. With the power off you can't really see the displays all that well, but you can see the front door, power button, USB ports and buttons for controlling the NAS without a client machine.

With the front door open we can see the drive sleds that lock individually. Each drive sled can now accept either a 3.5 or 2.5 inch form factor drive.

During startup the dual screens come to life and show the systems status. With the new OLED screen you can read what is going on from across the room since the image quality has so much detail.

Looking at the side of the N4200 we see that it uses a steel exterior; no plastic here.

Nearly all of the connections are made in the back of the unit. The N4200 has an external power supply which keeps the drive temperatures down without the need to run the fan at high speeds. Quad USB ports are also located in the back for printers and additional battery back up units. In the upper middle is the area where the BBM gets installed and at the top Thecus included a PCIe slot for future add-on components.

Dual gigabit Ethernet is also standard and if you run a Link Aggregated switch in your office you can take advantage of running a 2 gigabit link to your network backbone. Rounding out the view from the back is dual eSATA ports.

Thecus includes several paper notices and a quick start guide as well as a full manual on a disk and another disc with backup software that is free. Also provided is a couple of sets of keys for locking the drives and screws for mounting drives in the N4200.

The N4200 does use an external power supply and we see that here with the power cord and battery that will keep you out of trouble.