Thecus W5000 WSS NAS Review

Reviews
By Chris Ramseyer
last updated

Low-cost Windows Storage Servers (WSS) give small businesses access to enterprise-class features at a desktop price.

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Pricing, Warranty And Accessories

Thecus' W5000 ships with Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials for $526 (via Newegg, at the time of this writing). The N5550 model with equivalent hardware, but with Thecus' award-winning Linux-based OS, costs just $389. You're paying a heavy tax for Windows and the SSHD needed to host it.

All Thecus NAS products include a two-year warranty. We would love to see NAS makers increase warranty coverage, but two years is normal for this product group. Most NAS products are deployed for much longer. We rarely hear of failures in the field. In our own experience, NAS failures come from easy-to-replace fans and power supplies, rather than the main components that make up the heart of the system.

The W5000 ships with a deployment guide, power cable, screws for mounting drives and a single Ethernet cable. And again, the system includes a Seagate SSHD drive loaded with Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials.

Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Deuce65
    "Low-cost Windows Storage Servers (WSS) give small businesses access to enterprise-class features at a desktop price."

    Um, is this a hardware review or a press release?
    Reply
  • cpburns
    Did you read the review and verdict?
    Reply
  • Travis Hershberger
    While many people may actually use RAID 5 with this device, this is what we call professional malpractice among IT pros.

    Ref: http://www.smbitjournal.com/2012/11/one-big-raid-10-a-new-standard-in-server-storage
    http://www.smbitjournal.com/2012/11/choosing-raid-for-hard-drives-in-2013
    http://www.smbitjournal.com/2012/11/choosing-a-raid-level-by-drive-count
    http://www.smbitjournal.com/2013/06/dreaded-array-confusion
    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-6-stops-working-in-2019/805
    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162
    Reply
  • CRamseyer
    You need to understand a couple of things about all of those articles. The articles are not talking about your home or small business NAS with four or five drives to start with. The ZDNET author has a history of writing articles and article titles to bring people in. Many disagree with Robin's findings. I wouldn't say that is the case with the only article that relates to this review though, Why RAID 5 Stops Working in 2009. In that article he references a 7-drive RAID 5 array. With 6 or more drives we use RAID 6 (RAID 10 in some cases) for the very reason he cites. With five drives and in a home or small business environment RAID 5 is sufficient as long as you are proactive. Keep the system on a battery backup, keep air vents fee of dust and if a drive fails replace it right away.

    Some users may want to take redundancy to the next level and run RAID 6 on a 5 drive array. That is fine and I know people that do. I don't recommend it on a sub-1000 Dollar system that already has performance issues with RAID 5 though.
    Reply
  • Marco Ullasci
    "We rarely hear of failures in the field"
    Here I am.
    "In our own experience, NAS failures come from easy-to-replace fans and power supplies, rather than the main components that make up the heart of the system."
    Changed power supply and changed fan but still no fun.
    I had to dump my DS411Slim after putting some € on it in an attempt to fix.
    The brown thing happens.
    Reply