Thecus N5810 Pro NAS Review

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Thecus' N5810 Pro is the only NAS in its price class with a built-in battery backup that allows the system to save your data even after the power goes out.

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Technical Specifications

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Thecus promotes the N5810 Pro as a zero-crash NAS due to its built-in mini-UPS that keeps it from succumbing to a power fail event. There is more to the story than that, though. The N5810 Pro also uses Intel's new low-power, quad-core Celeron J1900 SoC and pairs it with 4GB of DDR3.

The Intel SoC has a 2GHz base clock speed that can burst up to 2.42GHz. Its maximum TDP is just 10 watts. That thermal design power is amazing for a host processor, but the J1900 also incorporates a graphics engine that supports HDMI output and audio. Its only limiting factor is the small amount of DRAM the Celeron can address. Thecus pairs the processor with 4GB of DDR3, though the system can be upgraded to the J1900's 8GB ceiling. In a desktop system, 8GB sounds like a good starting point. But in a NAS, it's more than acceptable.

The N5810 Pro uses five hot-swappable drive bays. Thecus publishes an extensive list of supported drives that it updates as new models are introduced. Users can run more than one array in RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 or in JBOD (just a bunch of disks). 

Additional connectivity comes from five USB ports, three of which are USB 3.0 and the other two limited to USB 2.0 rates. The system doesn't expose any eSATA ports for further expansion or give us access to the four PCIe 2.0 lanes coming off of the SoC.

Moving data in and out of the N5810 Pro can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. The system has five gigabit Ethernet ports. One port supports Wake on LAN (WOL). Users can run the NAS on up to five separate networks or team two or more. The teaming options are 802.3ad, load balance, failover, balance-XOR, balance-TLB, Balance-ALB and broadcast.

A small but growing group of users have used newer NAS systems with HDMI and supporting software to turn these products into media center systems connected to home theaters. The N5810 Pro supports this feature as well.

Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Karsten75
    You don't mention if it does data scrubbing to protect against bit-rot?
    Reply
  • Lulzon
    Typically battery backups are SLA (sealed lead acid) which is most likely why they don't get packaged with NAS systems - they're heavy, they're a dangerous good by transportation and shipping rules, they expand and can release gasses when under load and charged. The upside? They have way more capacity than that of a lithium-ion as shown in this little unit, they (probably) cost much less, and they last longer (5+ years vs 2-3). In terms of a NAS though, the capacity isn't really an issue if the only thing the NAS is doing is shutting down to avoid data loss/corruption.
    Reply
  • ldun
    What's the idle and load power draw for one of these?
    Reply
  • Aris_Mp
    55.3W under heavy throughput and 35.1W at idle with 5x Seagate ST500DM005 HDDs and RAID 6 configuration.
    Reply
  • TontNZ
    I'm not sure if I've just missed it - but: How many drives of what brand and capacity, in what raid mode were used for the testing?

    It would be good to single this information out into one of the section headings. It may be redundant as you presumably standardise this across NAS of a given bay capacity - but it would still be useful.
    Reply
  • This is an impressive device. I'd definitively give it a try for home office solutions. The only downside I can see to it is that if the internal memory were to die (flash, ram), the backups are probably gone unless they keep using the same system/setting organization and it is forward compatible with other similar systems.

    5 years is a long time and unless they intend to have the same product line around for a long time, it will either be EOL or replaced with an updated version.
    Reply