Thecus N2560: Intel's EvanSport NAS Platform Review
by Ganesh T S on November 25, 2013 3:30 PM ESTMiscellaneous Factors and Final Words
Power Consumption
The Thecus N2560 is a 2-bay NAS, and most users are going to use it in a RAID-1 configuration. Hence, we performed all our expansion / rebuild testing as well as power consumption evaluation with the unit configured in RAID-1. The disks used for benchmarking (Western Digital WD4000FYYZ) were also used in this section. The table below presents the average power consumption of the unit as well as time taken for various RAID-related activities. It must be noted that the Thecus firmware doesn't allow for single disk to RAID-1 dual disk migration. So, we don't have numbers for RAID-0 to RAID-1 expansion in the table below.
| Thecus N2560 RAID Expansion and Rebuild / Power Consumption | ||
| Activity | Duration | Avg. Power Consumption |
| Idle (No Disks / Powered On) | 11.04 W | |
| 4TB Single Disk Initialization | 21.53 W | |
| 4TB RAID-1 Idle (2 Disks) | 31.06 W | |
| 4TB RAID-1 Rebuild (Replace 1 of 2 Disks) | 12h 11m 56s | 33.85 W |
Comparing this with the ioSafe N2 / Synology DS213, we find that the rebuild is slower on the Thecus N2560. It could indicate that the process is CPU-bound (since the DS213 SoC is clocked higher compared to the CE5335), or the software on the Thecus N2560 is not optimized yet.
Mobile Apps
The T-OnTheGo Android app was also tested out. While we did face some hiccups starting out, referring to the user manual made everything clear (particularly the format in which the dynamic DNS name had to be entered in the app). The app is one of the best parts of the package. It has an in-built media player, and is able to access both the local file system as well as the content on the NAS. Exchange of files between the two was also made possible. While I was feeling a little bit let-down by the Thecus firmware and its capabilities, the mobile app restored my faith a little. I would say that the mobile app is already very usable and feature complete, and Thecus should concentrate on bringing core firmware features out to bring the unit on par with offerings from competitors.
Concluding Remarks
Coming to the business end of the review, we must evaluate the pros and cons by keeping the price of the unit in mind. While the Thecus N2520 retails for around $200, I couldn't find an official price listing for the N2560. Since the only difference is the additional 1GB of RAM, I would imagine it would bump up the price by around $50 or so. The DS213 used to retail for $300 on Newegg (it has since been replaced by the DS214). On the price front (as well as power consumption and performance), I would venture to say that the Thecus N2560 works out OK. However, it is in terms of features and firmware stability that Thecus falls short. Given that single disk to dual disk RAID-1 migration is not possible, and RAID-1 rebuild failed on me multiple times, I wouldn't trust essential data to this NAS. As a backup target, it would probably work out. Thecus really needs to pull up its socks and get the firmware features up to date to match what they claim on their specifications page. This include working XBMC (with full hardware decoding of multiple formats / containers and HD audio passthrough), hardware transcoding for media serving using Plex or a custom app built in-house and encryption support.
From Intel's perspective, the EvanSport platform is an interesting attempt to cater to this market segment. However, they need to work closely with their customers to ensure that such half-baked products are not put out. Many of the SoC's hardware blocks not being used in the firmware. It is not clear where the blame lies - Intel's SDK or laxity on Thecus's part. For a follow-up SoC in this product family, we would obviously like to see an updated Atom core based on the Silvermont microarchitecture (with AES-NI support). It would also be nice to see the number of SATA ports increased to 4 (while retaining or increasing the number of available PCIe lanes).
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emacjohnson - Sunday, December 29, 2013 - link
before I looked at the paycheck of $8548, I accept that my friend was like realey bringing home money part time on their apple labtop.. there best friend has been doing this for only about twenty one months and recently cleard the mortgage on there place and bourt a great new Alfa Romeo. look at this site,,,,,,,,,OzzieGT - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
Cloud backup...I use cloud backup, I don't need 6 drives. That's just insanity.Gigaplex - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
Data caps. I can't back up 5+TB of data via the internet, and even if I could, it would take well over a month.Morawka - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
the idea behind a good cloud backup system is file revisioning. You upload the bulk of your data one time, and only the files that have been changed or added, are uploaded each day.ace240 - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
Err, money?A 2-bay NAS with 2 drives is almost exactly half the cost of a 4-bay NAS with 4 drives. If money is no object, get as much storage as you like. I love my 2-bay NAS -- spending $1000 was out of my budget to move to get 4 bays w/ 4 drives.
swizeus - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
Actually there is footprint thing though. For everyone who wants a lower profile NAS it will go with the 2 bays. Just want a centralize storage, not too much data going on anywaySetiroN - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
This.Home NAS devices are a joke and it's ridiculous to spend money on them.
To someone with any actual storage needs, anything less than RAID 6 is a joke and devices with 6+ slots actually cost more than 3x 2-slot, which doesn't make any sense.
Unless you want to spend a silly amount of money, you're much better off with something self built, although it does require a little expertise.
hero4hire - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
Zfs then?Namisecond - Friday, December 20, 2013 - link
It actually makes a lot of sense to me. You mention it yourself: RAID 6.A 2 drive NAS is only going to support JBOD, striping and RAID 1. Fairly easy to implement as far as hardware goes. Once you get to 4-bay and plus units, you start getting real redundancy with RAID 5 and 6, with hot swap spares and data error correction. This stuff doesn't come cheap.
If you want to see the difference between them, take apart a 2 port NAS. It's a single circuit board with a few low level IO chips. Take apart a Synology DS1511 or something similar and it's a full blown micro server on the inside with a real RAID controller card.
Even building your own unit isn't a cheap affair, especially if you factor in your own time. Up to a 4 or 5 bay unit, you may actually save some money building your own. Try building your own 8 or 12 bay unit and watch your build cost skyrocket.
DanNeely - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
Not everyone is using their NAS to store thousands of DVD/BlueRay rips or tens of thousands of high megapixel raw images from their SLR. If you're just using one because you want your backups on something a bit more fault tolerant than a USB drive sitting on your desk and with a faster restore capability than pulling an entire system image down from the cloud, a 2 bay option is more than plenty.I built my current NAS with a 4 bay mITX enclosure; but after a year I'd give even money odds that the system will be old enough I'll decide on a precautionary replacement before needing to add a 3rd data drive. The 4th bay is almost certainly going to remain empty unless I undergo a lifestyle change and greatly accelerate my rate of data retention.
In particular I suspect that 2 bay NASes sold with drives preinstalled are primarily marketed to people who want an appliance; not something they can tinker with. For them smaller is almost universally better since it takes up less room on the shelf in the corner where their modem and router are. If it fills up in a few years they wouldn't know how to add more disks to it, and the price the local computer shop would gouge them for labor to work on is high enough to make just getting a new one seem really appealing.