Thecus TopTower N10850 review

A big 44cm NAS appliance, the 10-bay N10850 is cheap, fast and packed with features. However, build quality and design let it down.

IT Pro Verdict

The N10850 is a bold desktop NAS appliance but it’s ugly and is poorly built. It does provide an impressive range of storage features for the price along with good performance but we recommend checking out Qnap’s TS-1079 Pro instead. It may cost more, but it is ultimately better value and is a superior choice if you’re planning on using 10-Gigabit connections.

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Data Burn

The Data Burn module could prove useful for archiving data. The appliance has room above the disk cage for a slimline optical SATA drive and a combined power and interface cable is ready to receive it.

We fitted a DVD-RW drive which was picked up correctly. Using the web interface, we selected files and folders and burned them directly to discs without any problems.

For workstation backup, Thecus includes a single user copy of Acronis True Image Personal. It takes manual backups of files and folders or entire drives as images to the appliance and can create a bootable disaster recovery disk. However, this is a stripped down version so if you want job scheduling, disk cloning, incremental backups and more you'll need to cough up around 30 to upgrade.

Thecus N10850 - Data Burn

The new Data Burn module allows files to be archived directly to a slim-line optical drive that you install inside the appliance

Overall

Costing 1,155 for a diskless appliance, the N10850 looks good value for a 10-bay NAS appliance. However, size isn't everything and we found build quality of this big tower to be questionable.

Businesses looking for a high capacity desktop NAS appliance should also consider Qnap's TS-1079 Pro. It may cost 400 more, but it's better built, half the size, has a superior feature set and supports a wider range of 10GbE adapters.

Verdict

The N10850 is a bold desktop NAS appliance but it’s ugly and is poorly built. It does provide an impressive range of storage features for the price along with good performance but we recommend checking out Qnap’s TS-1079 Pro instead. It may cost more, but it is ultimately better value and is a superior choice if you’re planning on using 10-Gigabit connections.

Chassis: Desktop CPU: 3.1GHz Intel Xeon E3-1225 Memory: 1GB SATA DOM; 4GB DDR3 Storage: 10 x hot-swap 3.5in/2.5in SATA II (8)/III (2) drive bays Array support: RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 Network: 2 x Gigabit Other ports: 4 x USB3, 4 x USB2, eSATA, audio in/out, HDMI Expansion: 2 x PCI-e X8 slots Power: Fixed 400W supply Management: Web browser Software: Setup Wizard, Acronis True Image Personal Warranty: 2yr RTB warranty

Dave Mitchell
Dave Mitchell

Dave is an IT consultant and freelance journalist specialising in hands-on reviews of computer networking products covering all market sectors from small businesses to enterprises. Founder of Binary Testing Ltd – the UK’s premier independent network testing laboratory - Dave has over 45 years of experience in the IT industry.

Dave has produced many thousands of in-depth business networking product reviews from his lab which have been reproduced globally. Writing for ITPro and its sister title, PC Pro, he covers all areas of business IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, network security, data protection, cloud, infrastructure and services.

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