Thecus unveils the massive N7700 eight-bay NAS

The last time we checked in with Thecus, they'd broken off a five-bay NAS called the N5200. Well, it appears the company upped the ante just a touch at this year's Computex with its new array -- an eight-bay monster known as the N7700. The massive storage appliance doesn't seem to deviate from the previous model much, utilizing a Celeron CPU to control the system, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, and a wide variety of RAID options (0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD). We don't have word on pricing or availability just yet, but hopefully the archiving of your of "films" and "music purchases" can wait.

[R0B3RT @ Jun 9th 2008 1:42AM]

Ha Film and movie purchases lol. Any way thats pretty sweat if you need that much storage...

[maff @ Jun 9th 2008 7:45AM]

http://www.answers.com/sweat&r=67

[Striker @ Jun 9th 2008 2:04AM]

Could anyone clue me in as to what JBOD is?

[Goo$e @ Jun 9th 2008 2:06AM]

"Just A Bunch Of Disks" (JBOD)

[Goo$e @ Jun 9th 2008 2:09AM]

Learn how to use Google. Noob.

[Reader @ Jun 9th 2008 2:16AM]

Urban Dictionary is my savior.

[Intrepid @ Jun 9th 2008 2:58AM]

I was also wondering that. Thanks for asking it Striker, even if some people rudly replied :P

[loosely_coupled @ Jun 9th 2008 2:48AM]

You need a Firefox extension called "inline google definitions" that does exactly what it says.

highlight the word, right click it, select "inline definitions" in the context menu, and the definition pops up over the page.

[Striker @ Jun 9th 2008 12:23PM]

I was and am now surfing on my iPod, and by the time I look it up, someone has already answered my question. I apologize for my curiosity.

[ericdano @ Jun 9th 2008 2:07AM]

Price? This might make one sweet backup solution for Audio/Video production people...........

Or porn obsessed geeks.......

[NLS @ Jun 9th 2008 2:10AM]

Guys check out unRAID (google it) and build yourself something much better than this.

[drtibbs @ Jun 9th 2008 2:10AM]

Just A Bunch Of Disks; I think it just combines all of the drives with no back up or speed advantages. I would have said "a wide array of RAID arrays," just to be funny.

[Hilg @ Jun 9th 2008 2:18AM]

Unless I'm missing one somewhere, it appears that this only has 7 drive bays, not 8 as stated here. Hence the 7s in the model number. But hey, maybe I missed something.

[sinerasis @ Jun 9th 2008 2:24AM]

I was thinking the same thing, but figured there was a hidden one or something...

[feffrey @ Jun 9th 2008 2:29AM]

I am guessing that only 7 of the drivers are hot swappable with one being at the very bottom in a fixed position.

[Olaf @ Jun 9th 2008 2:54AM]

There is a big opening at the top wich suggests that the top drive has been taken out.

[Olaf @ Jun 9th 2008 2:57AM]

The read link say 8 and then 7 bays... Probably is 7.

[scurry @ Jun 9th 2008 5:02AM]

"drivers", um.... what?

[pfromg @ Jun 9th 2008 5:28AM]

forget drivers & support from thecus.I have.
In fact I have forgotten Thecus altogether after having purchased a previous product, which turned out to be totally rubbish (n2100).

[Elvedhel @ Jun 9th 2008 6:39AM]

Its a 7 bay, the 8 bay model is the 8800 that thecus are also releasing along with a revamped 4100 pro and a mini pc. Oh and as regard to JBOD the thecus JBOD is Concatenation so isnt seen as indivual disks but is essentialy a RAID 0 span so if you pull a disk not only does it mess up and need a rebuild you lose all the data.

JBOD stands for Just a Bunch of Disks. The controller treats each drive as a stand-alone disk, therefore each drive is an independent logical drive. JBOD does not provide data redundancy.

Concatenation or Spanning of disks is not one of the numbered RAID levels, but it is a popular method for combining multiple physical disk drives into a single virtual disk. It provides no data redundancy. As the name implies, disks are merely concatenated together, end to beginning, so they appear to be a single large disk. This mode is sometimes called JBOD, or "Just a Bunch Of Disks.

if you want more information about the new thecus boxes check out here

http://www.span.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=thecus

[justDIY @ Jun 9th 2008 8:23AM]

since when is 8 bays considered "massive"? I consider eight bays to be a "small" NAS, with an 8u sixty-four bay unit more on the "massive" end of the spectrum.

[Big Chris @ Jun 9th 2008 12:10PM]

8 bays (it's actually 7 bays in the one above, hence the name, as has already been said) is considered massive for home users who don't have a datacentre in their attic.

[Seanross @ Jun 9th 2008 9:47AM]

this wreaks of 4 assed monkey type science....

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=103344&title=four-assed-monkey

[Buffalo @ Jun 10th 2008 5:28AM]

There are two Thecus units:
The 7700 which supports upto 7TB and the 8800 which supports upto 8TB both units are "stackable" which means you could have 14TB or 16TB for those "fair-use" movies :-)

[Pete Steege @ Jun 9th 2008 3:19PM]

Be sure and use server-class SATA drives for boxes like this. Rotational vibration for 7 or 8 drives is significant. Seagate's Barracuda ES, for example, is made to work in close quarters with lots of drives.

[s0ad @ Jul 17th 2008 3:37AM]

has anyone heard anything about a release date/price ? I really want to build a NAS and this looks good.

[dean collins @ Sep 6th 2008 11:17AM]

when is this being launched already - i've been holding off buying the N5500pro for the last month until i know the pricing for the N7700.....but getting information from thecus is like watching paint dry.

enough already announce rrp or release dates otherwise I may go elsewhere.


Dean