Thecus debuts N3200 Pro NAS: now with more AMD Geode CPU

Thecus Technology has retooled the N3200 and come up with the aptly named N3200 Pro -- a brand new NAS now featuring an AMD Geode CPU. The device boasts a veritable cornucopia of features, including three SATA drive bays for up to 3TB of storage, the option of RAID 5 striping, and an LCD display. Photo, iTunes and DLNA-compatible server options as well as browser-based management should assist users with the "digital lifestyle," while a feature called "Web Surveillance Server" allows you to take regularly scheduled photographs just by plugging in a USB webcam... which is interesting in a vaguely creepy way. No word on price or availability but the previous N3200 sells for $339.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 29th 2008 2:37AM]

"Web Surveillance Server" so you can catch the babysitter get nak... misbehaving.

[bstrobl Posted Oct 29th 2008 2:49AM]

So what, nothing can beat my high-tech home/web server running on an original celeron coppermine-128 @ 600 Mhz with 256 MB RAM, state of the art USB 1.1 ports, high-speed floppy disk drive and high-capacity 5 GB IBM HDD. And its been working reliably for the past 8 years (although the laptop casing did break apart...).

[blash Posted Oct 29th 2008 3:09AM]

yep - cheap, custom built NAS's beat retail consumer NAS's any day... I'm especially eyeing that Geode processor with a good amount of contempt. Put a cheapo processor, cheapo RAM, cheapo mobo, no dedicated video, then load it up with FreeNAS and all the storage you want and *el Stevo* BOOM.

[Awjvail Posted Oct 29th 2008 3:19AM]

A toaster?

[Oli D Posted Oct 29th 2008 3:34AM]

i love amd geodes
i love Raid 5
do i need a home server?

No.

[k1n0n3 Posted Oct 29th 2008 6:51AM]

My question is: what happened to the Thecus M3800 which had pretty much the same hardware specs with the addition of HDMI out and native video and audio suppot, which was announced months ago ?!
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/NAS-Thecus-Geode,5538.html

[pfromg Posted Oct 29th 2008 9:26AM]

If you buy a Thecus product you should take into consideration that every time they bring a new product to market the old one is history. You will never see a firmware update for anything that is not the actual product.
That means if it aint fixed now , it never will be.And your new gadget quickly becomes an old gadget.
This kind of product needs a lot of software support over a long period of time and Thecus dont provide this.



Buying Thecus is like visiting a restaurant where the menu offers 1000 meals and they have just one cook.
You might have a huge variation (something there for everyone), but it is guaranteed that nothing you order will be fresh or have any degree of quality.And you sure as hell wont revisit this place.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 29th 2008 8:17PM]

Obviously three people could decipher all of your unintelligible abbreviations and contractions. I'm one of the 10 million who couldn't. Could you strive for a bit more intelligibility in future? Some of your readers, like me, are real people and not Martian geeks. A little more plain English would go a long way.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 29th 2008 11:00AM]

I disagree - I have the current N3200 and yes it had a few issues when I first got it (mainly due to the PS3 using non standard DLNA), but they have been resolved via firmware updated, it quite happily sits there with 3TB raid 5, running BT's, itunes server, DLNA to my PS3, serving my girlfriends apple, remote login, 24/7 usage, no problems - great piece of kit.

Also good support from vendor and Thecus when needed.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 29th 2008 11:50AM]

Does it work with 1.5TB drives?

[rudolfo2 Posted Oct 30th 2008 1:42PM]

Too small.