Thecus N3200 NAS Review :: Thecus N3200 Unit

The front of the unit has three drive bays to which you would install the Hard Disks into the unit. The front also has status LEDs for the LAN, WAN, HDD 1 HDD 2, HDD 3. A USB 2.0 port, a Power button, an Escape Button, and up 1 drive down 1 drive button round out the front of the case. It's important to note that this unit does not have front door locks for the doors as the N5200 does, but it is meant for the home office.

Front of unit)

LEDs

HDD bays

Power/Escape button/HDD

The rear of the unit has a DC In for the power to the unit, an Expansion slot, an external SATA port, a USB 2.0 port the LAN and WAN ports. Also present is a Reset button, which is interesting in that the Power button is on front of the N3200. Of note is the Expansion slot on a system that is meant to be a file server and data storage device.

Rear

Right Side

Left side

Angled Rear view

Thecus decided to go with a Freescale 400MHz CPU on their N3200 NAS Server. This has been upgraded in the N3200 Pro to an AMD Geode CPU. As file servers don't require a lot of computing power as they aren't doing anything but sharing files and limited functions that are needed to keep the files in. There is 256MB of memory; also enough to run a small file system without problems.

The right hand side of the N3200 is totally clear while the left hand side has the model number and Serial Number of the unit. The unit itself is a compact version of the N5200 unit which I reviewed earlier and has many of the same functions and expandability of the other model. The N3200 is designed for three drives while the N5200 has five drive bays.