14 DAY TRIAL // Network-attached storage devices are usually qualified as small, compact servers with less storage than big ones, or data centers, but better looks and ease of installation. The new ones from Thecus challenge that view a bit though.
Well, Thecus hasn't exactly launched any new range of NAS units. More like updated the N6850, N7510, N8850, N8900, N10850, N12000 N12000PRO, N16000, and N16000PRO.
And the update consists of support for RAID 50 and 60 technologies, which allow for better performance than the much more common RAID 5 and RAID 0 protocols.
For those unaware, RAID is a technology that allows two of more hard disk drives to be recognized by a host system as a single device or partition.
Some of the total capacity is sacrificed in order to achieve it, acting as a better sort of page file, but the read/write gains and security benefits are undeniable.
RAID 50 combines the benefits of RAID 5 and RAID 0 modes. RAID 5 needs at least 3 disks and is better than others at ensuring no data loss in case of a single drive's failure.
RAID 0 lacks data redundancy and fault tolerance but has improved performance through parallelism of read and write operations across multiple drives.
RAID 50 combines these assets, just like RAID 60 merges the benefits of RAID 0 and 6 (fault tolerance up to two failed drives as opposed to the single drive tolerance of RAID 5).
Combine that with 10 Gigabit Ethernet card support and maximum capacity of 24 TB or more and you have more than just a small reason to boggle.
Speaking of which, it's possible to daisy chain certain systems, like N12000 PRO and N16000 PRO, with D16000 DAS for up to 2.5 petabytes. Lots of room for documents, pictures, video files to back up or stream (Thecus NAS have HDMI and USB 3.0, among other things).
"SMB and Enterprise firms have long been looking for a NAS solution that leverages the latest innovations to combine reliability, performance and cost effectiveness in a single device," said Florence Shih, general manager at Thecus.
"By being the first to bring RAID 50 and RAID 60 to the NAS device market, we believe we have finally met this growing demand. We're already seeing great interest from our SMB and Enterprise partners."