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Just a quick update - I've been having a few issues with the unit rebooting approx every 48 hours - the LCD on the front stops cycling the box's status, then about 16 hours later, it will reboot (although the network and the drives are still active during that time). No error messages in the log when it reboots.

It also had a problem today when I powered it right down, and when it came back up, one of the drives didn't get re-added to the RAID-5 stripe. I manually added it back in and it's rebuilding now (about 4 hours to go). No data was lost and it's still accessible while rebuilding, but kind of strange. Not sure if this may be due to the new firmware (all of the drives still read "no errors" ). I'm going to contact Thecus about it and ask for some advice.

[edit]
Another update - after doing a bit of research on Western Digital's website, I checked the jumpers on the drive. Apparently they were supposed to ship with a jumper on pins 1/2 on the back of the drive to disable power management and disable spread-spectrum clocking. There were no jumpers on my drives as delivered (sets power management off, but spread-spectrum clocking on)

I just put jumpers on pins 1/2 on all of my drives and did a shutdown/restart and this time everything came back up without any issues. I'll do some more testing, but hopefully I found the problem.

[edit - edit]
Although the RAID rebuild issues are totally gone now, I'm still having some problems with the 5200R rebooting every 24-36 hours. I opened it up tonight and re-seated the RAM and the network/flashmem daughterboards (maybe they got bumped-loose in transit?). If it continues doing it I'm going to give the Thecus distributer a call.

N.

Nogami, are you using the XBMC to view ripped dvds that are stored in the NAS?? that is what i am hoping for, to rip my dvds to vob and then be able to view them on my hdtv set.

can this be done?

I don't know much about technology so forgive me but I have a question.

Everyone seems to be unsatisfied with the network performance, so my question is, can the dual network ports be configured as an etherchannel? If not does anyone know of a device that is capable and what are the results from that configuration? Is this idea out to lunch?

I dont know about the rest of you but i am anxiously awaiting the full review of the Thecus N5200. It seems to be head and shoulders above the rest. No issues with speed on that one both read and write.

I'm not specifically storing DVDs, but I do have a lot of AVI and MPG files as well as a lot of music on it. I'm using my X-Box with XBMC to handle the playback, or playing back from my PC over the network.

It's just seen as a drive, either mapped to a local drive letter, or as a network share, so if you rip/decrypt DVDs to the box and play them with a DVD player that supports playback from a folder (most do), you should be fine.

Actually i dont know of many players that actually play ripped dvds (vobs) also, many have trouble streaming the vids from a source such as a networked folder or drive. my goal is to has a NAS box on my network and have a media player connected to the network that can play either music or video to my HDTV set. I want the playback to be as if the actual dvd or music source is directly connected to the tv set. I have heard that XBMC allows this capability but i am unsure.

II just bought Thecus N5200 and set it up with 5 Seagate 320G drives (that was the most economical price/performance setup as the 320G Segates were at $90 each)

The NAS works fine as RAID 5 and is reasonably fast - although I did not ran any performance speed tests.

I am however unhappy with the fact that there are no Media Server services on this NAS (I missed this detail when I made the decision to buy).

Now I only hope that I can get some advice on how to add this capability.

My system has been "evolving" for some time and I have accumulated different hardware over a couple of years.

I have:

1. D-Link DSM-320 Player Wired to LAN(with Server software running on a PC)

2. A second D-Link DSM-320 WIred to LAN (using same Server Software as above running on a PC)

3. Buffalo LinkStation HD-HG250LAN Gigabit NAS (which has PCast server on it)

4. Buffalo LinkTheater PC-PL3WG/DVD player wired to LAN Running directly off the Buffalo LinkStation above)

5. Thecus NAS N5200 Gigabit Storage with 5-320G drives installed

With these devices I have a problem to make a "unified” system for Media Sharing.

I would like to be able to play all my media files from the NAS without the use of computer.

Of course the Buffalo Player is using Buffalo Storage without much difficulty. BUT the same Buffalo player would not recognize "Thecus" N5200 NAS.

My two D-Link DSM-320 players are running off the PC Server Software, which is reading the files from the Buffalo Storage. I added Thecus NAS to the Server software list of Media, but I must have computer running to use it.

I also found a third party solution (Twonky Vision software) that appears to do what I am looking for (that is getting my N5200 NAS to be a server for all players on my system WITHOUT the use of computer based software).

But the N5200 is not listed as compatible device on TwonkyVision site.
(I did send the questions to TwonkyVision support and Thecus support as well as Buffalo).

The answer from Buffalo was that I could only run streaming to their player by using their PC software, because my "other" NAS does not have PCast running.

TwonkyVision response was that they had no support for Thecus N5200

I am still waiting for answer from Thecus (I sent two request so far). They apparently have the Media Server running on N2100 but not on N5200.

I hope to get a firmware update or a hack or a solution from Thecus - otherwise I will be forced to sell this thing and go for the ReadyNAS NV, which is apparently supported by TwonkyVision and is compliant with DLNA protocol.

I see a lot of people on this site saying that they plan to use the NAS as media storage - so I thought I would share the warning about streaming compatibility.
It would seem obvious that for home use, people who install such high capacity storage would definitely want to stream the media throughout the house, but Thecus did not include this functionality in their latest offering N5200.

If anyone on this board has any good suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks

I've been considering the Thecus N5200 and want to stream media from it. I don't want a proprietary system that requires the server and client to be tied to one implementation.

If I'm not mistaken, there are devices called network DVD players (or some such thing) that are smart enough to pull media off of generic network file shares, browse the folder structure, etc. They don't require anything special on the server side. The problem is finding them. I had some links to a couple but have lost them.

If anyone knows of such products, post the links here.

I saw your post and have first hand experience....yes, XBMC will play vobs, but I find an image (iso) file is easier (both work excellent). An iso file is my preferred format for ripped dvds as it is just a single file (easier file mgmt). VOBs are a bit messier, but either one will do just fine and through XBMC either one will looks basically the same. The exact same look as via a DVD player...just like butter

Actually, I have yet to find a vid format that XBMC cannot decode....simply the best media center app out there....once installed, you are good to go.

Hope that helps. BTW, I have never had a streaming issue from my file server using XMBC. Now, that obvisouly depends on the quality of your vids and network bandwidth so YMMV.

Any more news on this? Just want to make sure this isn't going to be a problem since I am seriously thinking about buying one of these, depending on Tom's review (the wait is killing me) and how Thecus responds to my question about offering a possible firmware update for DLNA support.

Any chance of showing which units spin the drives down when not in use? I'd hate to kill a drive letting it spin 24-7.

I know that both the Infrant ReadyNAS & Thecus N5200B both support drive spin down with their latest firmware, but it would be good to include it in the NAS charts if not already included.

I reported the rebooting issue to Thecus and they gave me a link to a beta firmware release (v1.00.04.9), which apparently addresses the reboot issue. I've just flashed my firmware and am testing now - I'll let you know how it turns out.

Currently drive spin-down isn't included in the latest Thecus 5200 firmware, however it's planned for a future release (and it shows-up in the web interface, but it's greyed-out). Apparently this beta firmware is due for public release quite shortly. Any users with issues should contact Thecus directly.

N.