Thecus N5550 NAS Server Review

The Thecus N5550 has a market price of around $400 (give or take) depending on what online vendor you purchase it from. At this price, it falls on the lower end of the price spectrum from other 5-bay SMB NAS products from competing vendors. Generally, lower cost translates into lower performance, feature set, and quality. After spending time with the Thecus testing the unit, there are a few areas where I can see the lower cost being a factor (chassis quality, lower end Atom CPU, some missing features like no Data Deduplication), but these really end up being insignificant in the end. The Thecus N5550 is easily one of the fastest NAS devices in this segment we have tested here at Techwarelabs, which was unexpected given the lower end Intel Atom D2550 CPU it comes equipped with. This tells me that the folks over at Thecus have streamlined their NAS OS to a degree that they can leverage less horsepower (requiring less power and generating less heat) and deliver high end performance. I think this speaks to the maturity of their products, and dedication to delivering real value to their customers.

If you chose to skip to the end of this review to read the conclusion in hopes of skimming a single line to get the gist, well here it is. The Thecus N5550 will deliver well beyond it’s price tag, compared to other 5-Bay NAS devices from competing vendors, which is a welcomed and unfortunately rare trait for tech products these days.

Pro’s:

• Impressive high performance
• Responsive and functional web user interface
• High value, considering feature set and performance vs. product cost
• Reliability during unexpected drive failures
• HDMI, USB, and Audio ports allow for direct KVM access

Con’s:

• Single USB 3.0 port
• Longer then expected RAID rebuild times
• Performance halved during parity RAID rebuilds

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