Introduction
The Thecus N8900 is the latest 8-bay SAS and SATA 6G combined unified NAS that is aimed at capturing an audience that is now demanding large capacity, high performance, utmost reliability, and the most flexibility at a price point that does not require senior executive red-tape buy in. Thecus has delivered on these needs demanded by its user base by upping the ante with a recent spate of new product launches, which includes the Thecus N8900 model. We have seen a migration by Thecus on the SAS and SATA platform with the Thecus N12000, N16000 and now the N8900, the latter packing a huge 24TB with the possibility of stacking more devices, it has the potential to compete with any small SAN, without the need to have a hefty budget.
The offering of iSCSI, Virtual client support (VMware, Hyper V and more) as well as Dual Dom technology and RYSNC for replication the N8900 allows it to be positioned as primary storage by offloading data from file servers that need the extra performance to serve applications quickly and efficiently for users. The street price packed with 24TB is currently at $4,474.00 averaged over a number of resellers.
Figure 1: N8900 Dimensions
The Central Core
At the heart of the Thecus N8900 purring and harnessing its power is Intel’s Core i3-2120 processor integrates 2 cores at 3.3GHz complimented with 8GB of DDR3 memory. The N8900 rose to our performance challenge admirably when we connected up 10 VM’s using RAID 5 and the resulting degradation was insignificant. The N8900 has one of the most solid performances we have ever recorded and the only bottleneck that stifles this performance is the network bandwidth, which can be boosted by port trunking features or merely upgrading with a 10GbE add-on card to get serious bandwidth performance.
Figure 2: Thecus N8900 Processors and Memory
The Thecus N8900 has a comprehensive list of supported hard disk drives, the list is frequently updated to ensure newer drives are tested and inserted within its compatibility list. Anyone wanting to go out on a limb and integrate their own hard drives needs to be sure they use drives provided on the recommended list. Failure to do so will only result in issues that may cause the system to be totally unreliable and this will be an unwanted exercise in futility. Thecus can and may indeed refuse to help and warrant the product as they would be within their rights to do so.
Figure 3: Thecus N8900 HDD Trays
Connectivity is impressive with 3 x RJ45 (Ethernet) ports using the Intel 82574L supporting 10/100/1000 modes with WOL supported. This is then coupled with 6 x USB 2.0 host ports with 2 at the front and 4 at the back, and not to be outdone USB 3.0 and eSATA are both supported with 2 ports each at the back and front respectively. What is also very impressive is Thecus is the only manufacturer that has encouraged user upgrades by using an open policy and this has been further vindicated with inclusion of several free PCI-e extension slots (one 4-lane and two 8-lane slots), which can be used for virtually everything, including adding more USB 3.0 or eSATA slots. Companies with higher-end needs can install 10GbE Ethernet adapters, allowing you to use either traditional fiber or high-performance/low-cost base-T cable solutions. The N8900 specification is impressive and hard to beat at a price point that will make it a firm favorite for years to come.
Figure 4 and 5: Thecus N8900 Connectivity and Expansion
The OLED feature has now become a de-facto standard on all the newer generation of NAS systems. The display is crystal clear and provides all the relevant HDD, RAID monitoring and connectivity information you would need, as is with all the Thecus N12000 and N16000 models as well as the newer N4200. Great looking displays and features.
Open, RAID, Set and Store
Editor's Note: click the photos below for larger images
Figure 6: N8900 Open Front Unit
Unpacking and removing the unit to installing all eight drives took us less than fifteen minutes, the packaging is impressive substantial enough to avoid damage, yet easy to unpack. The drive trays (caddies), do not come installed in the drive bays, but are provided in a specially cut foam that accommodates all eight trays in one large panel thereby allowing the panel to double up as an extra layer for packing purposes. If you are installing drives please take the necessary steps for using anti-static precaution in case you accidently touch the bare HDD controller located at the back of the drive. Everything needed to install drives is provided and the process is not difficult just needs care and attention when handling drives. We do advise all our readers to consider buying units ready assembled and tested by resellers who are specialist in the storage arena, who also carry out the required testing and burn in process. The important word here is “tested”; if the units are not tested with the hard drives installed to an accepted level to ensure a very low risk of Dead on Arrival (DOA), then don’t buy it with drives installed. Of course this comes at a small price premium and it’s most prudent when purchasing systems with this functionality.
Once booted you can access the management panel via static IP address allocated that is documented and is also displayed on the OLED panel the WAN, LAN1 and LAN2 ports all have their own static IP addresses. Once in, select the RAID option and continue to set RAID.
Editor's Note: click the photos below for larger images
Figure 7: Thecus N8900 OLED Panel
The RAID levels supported are impressive and more than sufficient. Single disk, RAID 0 (Disk Striping), RAID 1 (Disk Mirroring), RAID 5, RAID 5+ Hot spare, RAID 6, RAID 10, RAID 50, RAID 60 and JBOD (Linear Disk Volume). The Thecus N8900 supports AES 256bit Encryption. The RAID is courtesy of a PCI-e LSI 2008 HBA card that supports 6G SAS/SATA (x8) protocols, this is impressive from a strategy perspective as it allows Thecus to replace quickly if problems occur and not create a bottleneck in warranty swap outs, thus eliminating many of ifs and buts of warranty swaps. All other manufacturer still continues to adopt inferior onboard controllers.
The IP address can be left as is i.e. static or select Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for the unit to determine an automatic configuration protocol on the network, enabling locating the NAS on your network with having to mess about with settings.
Prominent Features
Thecus has constantly continued to improve the GUI for the Management panel respecting what their customers had to say and its latest version is a major shift from the old days when they were prone to being criticized as unfriendly and difficult to use. The current revision is comprehensive and allows ease of use. The panel does provide an easy to use navigation with all the major functions listed to the left of the page and content displayed clearly in the rest of sections.
Figure 8: Thecus N8900 Flash Entry Page
One of the most unique additions to the Thecus N8900 is the deployment of HDMI connectivity allowing users to connect for Audio and Video seamlessly and with no other messy standards. This is new and innovative for Thecus on this platform. This would be a boom for users wanting to make the N8900 as their main storage server in a media center at home, with the excellent turn of performance, VMware compatibility and fast Ethernet the N8900 maybe in the fore front of convergence of NAS devices with home Media center solutions. The one feature that we were pleased to note was how cool the drives ran, and this was due to the powerful HDD fans that are installed, these though do increase the noise level somewhat higher than normal.
Figure 10: Thecus N8900 GUI Login
RAID Options and Capacity expansion
The Thecus N8900 has an impressive bevy of RAID options to choose from as we as being able to expand capacity on the fly. Many vendors will have you believe you can add two or more drives into an existing array and expand without loss of data in the current volume, we would advise one drive at a time is the safest option, but expand it does, as it will allow RAID migration to the next level, once you go to the next level it is not possible to go back. RAID options of RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 and JBOD are all offered with RAID 6, 10 , 50 and 60 being the most critical for deployment as primary storage as well as when the data is critical and requires a high level of protection. The implementation of RAID 50 and 60 is very sound at this level.
Editor's Note: click the photos below for larger images
File system support is also sufficient using EXT3; XFS, EXT 4, and ZFS the Thecus N8900 will not disappoint and will conform to almost all requirements.
iSCSI with Thin Provisioning
Another fine feature is a built in iSCSI target service that will allow the device to act as a NAS and iSCSI target. The iSCSI target will facilitate connectivity for up to 8 iSCSI devices allowing a small scale IP-SAN farm. iSCSI targets support Microsoft/Mac/Linux initiators, and the iSCSI initiator will allow the N8900 to stack with almost any of the other Thecus products from the 5-bay and above (N5200/1U4500/1U4600/N5500/N7700 series/N8800 series/N12000/N16000). iSCSI Thin Provisioning can configure to a virtual size of 16TB. MPIO and MCS are fully supported as is clustering and SCSI3 persistent group reservation. Thecus was amongst the very first manufacturer to implement iSCSI on this platform back in 2006 with the launch of Thecus N5200.
NOTE: Want to know more about iSCSI? – Click here
Backup, FTP, Add-ons and Remote Replication
Aside from redundancy, storing and sharing files centrally, the ability to share those precious family photos and video’s with family and friends via a secure remote connection established using an FTP server feature or even using the Multimedia Station feature by setting up a fixed IP address and utilizing your routers DDNS service or obtaining your own domain name from any DDNS provider such as http://www.dyndns.com/ is fully supported. Backup is taken care of by the bundled 5 user license using Acronis True Image OEM, this will be sufficient for many users. We hold all Acronis products in great esteem here and this one is no exception. As far as replication is concerned this is provided by the inbuilt NSYNC and allows for Volume, incremental and synchronized. Setting up the remote replication is a little time consuming but once set up it is flawlessly and continues to operate at a level that is only limited by the network bandwidth.
Editor's Note: click the photos below for larger images
Figure 13: Thecus N8900 FTP Setup
Performance
The Thecus N8900 with its sleek and smooth looks has a mean turn of performance, with 8GB of memory it will not only do proud not only in virtual modes but in any environment. The N8900 did exceptionally well in the media, office productivity and also Copy, Backup and Restore sections returning one of the fastest scores falling just short of the N16000 which has to date the best scores of all.
Test Environment
Thecus N8900 installed with 2TB Seagate Enterprise drives
Firmware Revision: Version: v2.00.01
RAID LEVEL TESTED: RAID 5
Network
HP ProCurve 1810G-24 Managed Switch
Test Method
We use a Real-World testing utility as well as a realistic Drag & Drop procedure as depicted in everyday normal operations.
Our tests are carried out with a combination of reads and writes, we do not separate the two, both are combined to produce an overall result that depicts the actual performance of the device tested.
This category is one of the most demanding from a file size perspective as the smallest size file is 2GB and the largest being 30GB.
A combination of demanding Video, Audio and Images files are combined to make this the most challenging category of them all.
The Office category is mainly for business users who may compare the typically used business applications, consisting of spreadsheets, databases, Word, PowerPoint, Visio, and email management. We have also combined Photoshop based images that are used to cut and paste within a document to make up a 30 page mailer as well as Visio templates used for presentation within a PowerPoint file that exceeds 15GB file size.
Our Third category is a combination of files from the previous two categories to initiate copying, backing up, deleting all content and then restoring from a backup made within the RAID array.
| Thecus N8900 Read/Write Comparative Performance | |
| Video/Audio/Images | 101.80 |
| Office Productivity | 80.84 |
| Copy, Backup and Restore | 88.41 |
Figure 14: MB/s Read/Write Performance Test Results
| Thecus N8900 | |
| MB/s Overall | 90.48 |
Figure 15: Overall Read/Write Test Performance
Overall Conclusion
The most common criteria often stipulated by users comprises of performance, reliability, price, compatibility and quality for selecting the best NAS solution. In this test we discovered the N8900 system makes an excellent fit all these and more with its added media features that will allow users of all walks of life to relate closely with the N8900 to meet their individual needs. As a unified storage appliance the Thecus N8900 fits like a glove and will not disappoint.
The Thecus N8900 with its sleek contours and excellent build quality is as good inside as it is outside, purring along with one of the best performance results we have ever seen in this category along with sporting the more features and more add-ons than anyone could desire. As far as performance is concerned the Thecus N8900 is undoubtedly and undeniably unbeatable. It is the NAS of the moment. If you are in a market for an 8-bay NAS stop looking, save valuable time and get the N8900 it’s all you will ever need.
The best street price we found for a Thecus N8900 Diskless was $2895.00 and populated with 8x3TB Seagate Constellation Enterprise class drives providing a total of 24TB was the Thecus N8900 24TB Enterprise at $5493.00.
