Page 5 - Final Thoughts and Conclusion
The Thecus N4100PRO is truly an excellent network attached storage system. Once it's up and running, it's a faithful servant that whatever your purpose may be, the N4100PRO is willing to deliver, with speed and stability, every single time.
For one thing, the Thecus N4100PRO incorporates a very practical physical design; not to mention slightly smaller than the QNAP TS-409 as seen in the photo on the previous page. It uses a little more plastic than I would like; but hey -- these devices aren't for looks anyways. When you are looking at it, the user will definitely appreciate the blue-blacklit two line LCD display. It shows the entire boot process without the user guessing; and once it's done loading, the Thecus N4100PRO will emit a short "beep" like your microwave to indicate that the food... er... data, is ready haha. When it's done loading, the screen displays an array of interesting information.
The only gripe I had was trying to get the device running -- but as mentioned earlier, once it's running, it's amazing. My advice to you is that you might need to change the WAN address to something not associated with your LAN (Eg. if your network is 192.168.2.x, make it 192.168.1.x or something like that) and plug the network cable into your LAN port. Once it's done, everything works flawlessly and web configuration is decently simple and practical.
As far as the web configuration screen goes, to be honest I found it a bit bland and boring. But on the positive side, at least it's easy to navigate and access the functions to configure. Some screens may be a bit confusing as with all products; but in general most of the time it's very simple and easy to use. I have had no problem finding the feature I want to configure within one minute haha. The Thecus N4100PRO also offers an excellent array of features like the QNAP TS-409 such as print server, one touch USB backup, iTunes server, HTTP/FTP/BT download client, and more. I don't use more than half of them to be honest, but it's nice to know it's there when you need it!
Hardware wise, Thecus made no attempt to restrict the user from accessing the internal components of the N4100PRO by voiding the warranty. In fact, they even permitted easy access by using three thumbscrews -- definitely appreciated! The motherboard's side mounting position also allows very easy access by the end user; just so that the hardware such as RAM is very easy to upgrade. The AMD Geode processor offers sufficient processing power, but I felt that it could use a bit more than the onboard 256MB. Fortunately that can be easily fixed.
Thanks to the abundant hardware power, the Thecus N4100PRO is also a very fast NAS. With maximum transfer speed of up to approximately 25MB/s over our central Gigabit network, I am thoroughly impressed by the file performance of this network attached storage system. But all this power doesn't come in a package that sounds like it -- the 92mm ADDA fan is not only very quiet, but is also thermal controlled and kicks in only when the temperature rises above 25 degrees Celsius. Even at that, it's very quiet (I could dare say, barely noticeable) when it's activated. Very good stuff.
The Thecus N4100PRO is also very stable and I have personally experienced no stability issues over weeks of testing.
Like I said with the QNAP TS-409 I reviewed a few months back, the Thecus N4100PRO is an excellent NAS that offers incredible performance, stability, consistent data delivery, and ease of use. The exterior design is acceptable combined with small physical dimensions, but certain build aspects definitely have room for improvement. Thankfully the RAM is modular and can be upgraded, but what if we had a little more than 256MB that came out of the box? Generally speaking, in everyday usage, the Thecus N4100PRO is flawless and delivers the performance and features I crave. The Thecus N4100PRO is an outstanding NAS thanks to its incredible file performance and features -- if the setup process is more streamlined, and has a better web configuration interface, along with improved build aspects, we got a winner. At first, I thought it was "just another NAS" -- but I couldn't have been more wrong. To be honest, even without the drawbacks as mentioned, the Thecus N4100PRO is still a very competent NAS -- or should I say, it's still a winner in my books!
Special thanks to Joanne over at Thecus for making this review possible.
APH Review Focus Summary:
8/10 means Definitely a very good product with drawbacks that aren't likely going to matter to the end user.
7/10 means Great product with many advantages and certain insignificant drawbacks; but should be considered before purchasing.
-- Final APH Numeric Rating is 7.3/10
Please note that the APH Numeric Rating system is based off our proprietary guidelines in the Review Focus, and should not be compared to other sites.
Nothing's perfect, and so is the Thecus N4100PRO. But I can tell you that this product is a jack of all trades. But unlike others, it's a master in one very important area -- file performance. The Thecus N4100PRO is an outstanding network attached storage device.
Page Index
1. Introduction and Specifications
2. A Closer Look
3. Configuration and User Interface
4. Performance Benchmarks
5. Final Thoughts and Conclusion
