Thecus N3200PRO 3-Bay RAID 5 NAS Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

The Thecus N3200PRO is the NAS box that is supposed to bring RAID5 to the home. It has a large number of features the home user would want, including a large selection of media services, and home-oriented media servers. Thecus has tried to make setup as easy and as painless as possible, and have, for the most part, succeeded. They’ve made both the hardware and software understandable by most, with some reading required. Once it’s up and running it quietly works away at whatever task is sent it’s way. That may also be the one thing holding back the Thecus N3200PRO; the sheer amount of features available.

Try as they might, Thecus still needs to polish the manual and setup program to make this easier to setup for the common user. There is definitely some level of knowledge expected if you are setting up the N3200PRO. There’s also the lack of security around the drives and controls. This means you’ll want to keep the N3200PRO away from the grabbing hands of those who like to press buttons. Also you need to be aware of the lighting on the front, and how it relates to where you are putting the unit. It can be quite distracting in a dark home theatre room.

In the end the N3200PRO is a good little unit, with a whole host of features that make it endlessly customizable. The RAID 5 support ensures that your data won’t be lost, and the large drive support ensures that you have a lot of space to store that data. Thecus still managed to achieve their goal of bringing RAID 5 home. Unfortunately that home is one occupied by enthusiasts only. Like the N5200 before it we’ll give them the nod for high performance with the N3200PRO, but the setup and documentation still needs some tweaking from Thecus.

Pros