Thecus Releases “Zero-Crash” N4200 NAS

Thecus has long been a provider of quality NAS boxes, some of which we’ve taken a look at in the past, but as far as full-featured offerings go, it’s hard to compete with the N4200. It includes what Thecus calls its “6D” technology, which is based on the fact that the NAS box features a total of 6 “dual” features, from a dual-core CPU to dual displays to even dual power.

The most interesting thing I find about the N4200 is the amount of security it has. It seemingly just won’t be able to go down without something tremendous happening. The dual DOM feature takes care of things if the actual OS and file handler goes down. It’s unexpected to ever happen, but if it did, like the dual BIOS feature that’s common on many motherboards, it will simply restore the clean backup and not lock you out of your files.

Of course, worrying about software going bad is just one thing. What if the power goes out? That’s where the dual power feature comes in. The N4200 has a built-in battery that will keep the device running for a short time after the power goes out. It’s not designed to be used for normal use when this happens, but exists in order to make sure that no data will get corrupted. If you are copying data to the NAS and the power goes out, it will be able to finalize whatever data it was working on.

Another interesting feature is the dual RAID. Because the N4200 supports six hard drives, you may want to configure more than one RAID depending on your situation. If data on one drive is much more important than on the others, you could simply use RAID 1 on two drives, and RAID 0 for the others (there are more RAID choices available). It’s nice to have the ability, it goes without saying.

Lastly, the N4200 also includes both an LCD and OLED display and support for both types of hard drive form factors on the market, 2.5″ and 3.5″. As for the pricing? Thecus hasn’t said, but you can expect that when it goes on sale, it won’t be cheap. This is a feature-rich six-bay offering, after all.

The N4200 was designed to enable users to access their data both quickly and easily. It begins with the new Intel Atom dual-core processor D510, which runs at 1.66GHz and, in combination with 1GB of DDR2 memory, delivers both blistering data transfer speeds and increased system response. Users can easy manage their unit with the N4200’s dual displays. The LCD offers a wealth of system information, including hard disk and network status, while the big and bright 2.8″ OLED display allows users to modify a number of settings directly on the device including WAN, LAN, Link Aggregation, languages and more, making the N4200 the friendliest Thecus NAS ever.