Thecus Announces NAS With Built-In UPS

By Kevin Carbotte
published

Thecus announced a new innovative NAS (Network Attached Storage) device that features a built-in lithium-ion battery backup to prevent data corruption caused by sudden power loss.

One of the most damaging things that can happen to electronic devices, and especially storage devices in RAID configurations, is sudden power loss. The unexpected shock of losing power can potentially cause data corruption. To prevent this from happening, the common solution is the purchase of a separate battery backup unit.

Thecus has opted to combine a mini-UPS directly into its N5810PRO NAS. The device features a 2000 mAh 28.8 Wh lithium-ion battery. This provides enough capacity to keep the NAS operational for approximately 30 seconds. If power is not restored within that time, the N5810PRO will begin to shut down all operations. Thecus said the added UPS will prevent the RAID array from compromise caused by sudden power loss.

The N5810PRO from Thecus comes equipped with an Intel Celeron J1900 Quad-Core SoC processor, with 4 GB of DDR3 memory. The NAS supports up to five SATA hard drives and supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD. N5810PRO also includes five gigabit LAN RJ45 ports that support load balancing and failover with multiple network connections, along with other link aggregation features.

The N5810PRO includes five USB ports, two of them USB 2.0 and three USB 3.0. These ports can be used to back up phones, cameras or external hard drives. There is also a single HDMI port found on the back, which can be plugged directly into a TV for device management, Web browsing and HD video playback.

Included on the front of the device is a small LCD screen and four buttons used to navigate the menus. It can also be accessed remotely through a PC, or by using an application available for iOS and Android called "T-Dashboard" that lets you manage, upload to, or stream from the NAS.

The N5810PRO includes Acronis True Image software and supports snapshot backups. Cloud storage through DropBox, Amazon S3 and ElephantDrive are also natively supported.

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Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jaber2
    Now you have two thing that can go bad, I don't think it would be a good idea unless you setup redundant PS and UPS, at that point it would be too heavy to move around.
    Reply
  • nukemaster
    Short backup time, but better than nothing.
    Reply
  • mikeangs2004
    Now you have two thing that can go bad, I don't think it would be a good idea unless you setup redundant PS and UPS, at that point it would be too heavy to move around.
    ups don't usually go bad for no reason
    Reply
  • dgingeri
    I want Corsair to build a PC case like this, with a replaceable UPS battery and higher capacity.
    Reply
  • mben
    Once again Tom's showcases a lack of background and is reduced to using a Press Release. This is not the first NAS with a battery. In 2012 there was the Thecus NAS Tower N4800 Atom D2700 2GB DDR3 USB 3.0 4XSATA with a battery. And just like today's PR, the battery was just good enough to power system shut down. In 2012 the Thecus NAS Tower N4800 with 4 bays, no hard drives cost me US$650 from SimplyNAS.
    Reply
  • rantoc
    It will allow it a proper shutdown by flushing caches to the drives rather than missing out on data sent to it - That said, pretty much all frigging nas'es are way overpriced and this one will unlikely be an exception...
    Reply
  • quiddian
    DropBox, Amazon S3 and ElephantDrive? You mean all the clouds who suck and gouge us? How about Amazon Cloud, Hubic, or any of the other services that don't try to rip us off for a thousand dollars a year? Amazon Cloud? $60/yr. Hubic? $5/mo. Synology diskstations support these, have the best customer ratings on Amazon, can be automated, and have unlimited and high-capacity storage at fixed, low rates.

    I've had a Thecus. I gifted it to someone I hate.
    Reply
  • billyboy999
    Did the article mean 30 minutes instead of 30 seconds? A 28.8Wh battery only being able to sustain 30 seconds of operation of a system containing up to 5 drives doesn't add up. They could have used a beefy capacitor instead.
    Reply
  • toadhammer
    BBU for Raid has been around forever on servers. Surprised its not already standard (or standard option) on all these 4+ bay nas units.
    Reply