Thecus N2310 NAS Review – A Fantastic Entry Level NAS

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The Thecus N2310 NAS

I love my digital media, so I built my own Home Theater PC that streams all of my movies and TV shows to my HDTV.  So, a Network Attached Storage system is perfect for me.  The Thecus N2310 is an entry-level NAS with two Hard Drive bays, RAID support and a slew of other features.  It retails for $159.

Everything included in the retail box.

Everything included in the retail box:  Simple instructions, warranty card, software disc (not needed if you download from the internet), assorted screws, power cable, ethernet cable, and the NAS itself.

The N2310 is a great value and a perfect way to step into the Network Storage arena.  The N2310 has room for two hard drives with RAID 0 and RAID 1 support.  RAID 0 spreads your data over two hard drives to increase speed and performance while RAID 1 mirrors one hard drive to the other in order to fail-safe your data so that if one disk gets ruined, you still have the same data on the other drive.  The files on the Thecus N2310 are also accessible over the web, and you can remotely control the NAS and stream media with Thecus’ T-OnTheGo app for Android and iOS.

N2310 with Drive Bays open.

N2310 with Drive Bays open.

The N2310 also has built-in FTP server support, built-in BitTorrent client, and Plex Media Player support.  Another really nice feature of the N2310 is that it’s incredibly energy efficient.  Thecus claims that it consumes 5W without hard drives and only 14W with two hard drives spinning.  Another major feature that Thecus boasts about is a simple, 5-minute complete installation.  We’ll be talking about that later when I discuss my experience with the N2310.

The N2310 with one drive holster removed.

The N2310 with one drive holster removed.

The entire NAS unit is made from black plastic; most of the NAS is a matte finish with the sides of the NAS in a glossy black.  The front of the N2310 provides access to the dual drive bays, assorted LED indicator lights, USB Copy button and Power button.  The rear of the unit has one USB 3.0 jack and one USB 2.0 jack.  The rear also has a LAN port, reset button, exhaust slots, AC power jack, and Kensington lock port.  It’s definitely an attractive system, especially when considering the price.

The front of the N2310.

The front of the N2310.

Setting up my N2310 was very easy, although not as easy as Thecus claims with their “5 minute setup” boasts.  At first, I put the hard drives in the wrong way, not realizing that they had to be screwed in.  I figured that since the system came with hard drive holsters, there was no need to use the included screws to attach my hard drives.  Wrong decision.  So, after finally screwing in the hard drives, inserting the drives and holsters into the unit, and plugging in the Ethernet cable and AC cord, I was ready to go.

The back of the N2310.

The back of the N2310.

I just went to install.thecus.com to download their software and it automatically recognized my NAS system and guided me through setting it up.  The hard drives I had available were a 1TB disk and a much smaller 192GB hard drive.  The N2310 did not recognize the smaller hard drive, unfortunately, so I was not able to create a true RAID 0 configuration.  After creating a Thecus ID, the N2310 had to initialize my disks and prepare them, which they said would only take about 5 minutes, but took a bit longer.  Not a huge deal, but setup definitely did take a good deal longer than 5 minutes.

The hard drives I installed.

The hard drives I installed.

Once everything was completely set up, I was able to access the NAS’s home screen which has a ton of options and initially might seem daunting to you if you don’t have any prior experience with NAS systems.  You have the option to download additional applications to use on your NAS, you can set up an FTP server, set up Bit Torrent downloads, or set up an iTunes library that can be streamed throughout your network.  You can also create a shared folder that can be accessed by anyone on the network for family file keeping or anything like that.

Check out the slideshow below for a few photos of my experience installing the N2310:

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The User Interface (UI) of the ThecusOS is decent, but not spectacular, however it’s easy to use so that’s the most important part.  You’ll want to take a walk around the OS before diving right in, however, so that you can make sure you know what you’re doing.  One thing I really loved about this NAS system is that once I initialized it with Thecus’s software, I did not have to fiddle with any Windows settings in order to get the system to show up in the Network Drives on my computer.  It was just there all of a sudden, ready to use for any storage I could think of.  The one thing you need to keep in mind with the N2310 is that it does not come with any hard drives, so you’ll need to purchase or provide your own if you plan on doing anything with it.

ThecusOS's User Interface, where you set up all of your preferences, install apps, etc.

ThecusOS’s User Interface, where you set up all of your preferences, install apps, etc.

There are just so many options, settings, features, and functions built into the N2310 that it’s a really compelling entry-level NAS option.  I would highly recommend the Thecus N2310 to anyone who is in the market for a budget NAS system.

You can purchase the Thecus N2310 from Newegg.com.

MSRP:  $159.00

What I Like:  Pretty quick setup; Attractive black case; Low power consumption; Tons of features and functions.

What Needs Improvement:  Hard drives sold separately.

Source:  Manufacturer supplied review sample

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About the Author

Perry Brauner
I'm an architect by trade, but the overarching theme of my life has always been trying to keep up with the newest, coolest technology. Ever since I picked up an NES controller, I've been hooked on the latest and greatest gadgets, gizmos, and toys. Whether it's gaming, mobile phones, and accessories, or PCs and Apple products, I'm interested. I use many Apple products in my daily life, such as the iPhone, iPad, and my MacBook Pro. I've also built a few PCs in my day, so I'd like to say that I'm a pretty well-rounded techie.