The N3200 features FTP, iTunes, and UPnP servers, and they worked very well in our tests. You can't set up the interval that dictates how often the device will automatically scan folders for newly added media; however, it seems the device does it very often and we were able to get the newly added media to the share list within a few minutes.
The device also supports both USB and eSATA external hard drives. Once plugged in, the external hard drives will be shared as "USBHDD" and "eSATAHDD." The hard drive needs to be formatted in FAT32 to offer read and write access; NTFS drives can only be read. The N3200 can also copy the entire content of a USB thumb drive into its internal hard drive--all you have to do is plug the drive into the front USB port and initiate the command using the navigation buttons and the little LCD.
The N3200 supports up to six USB devices at a time via its two USB ports (you can add more devices by using a USB hub). It can also support a limited number of USB printers, USB Webcams, and USB Wi-Fi adapters. We didn't have any that it supports to try this out. The N3200 worked very well, however, with all external hard drives we tried it with, including three USB external hard drives and two eSATA external hard drives. All of them were recognized and shared within less than 30 seconds upon being plugged in.
The most interesting and unusual feature that the N3200 offers is called ISO Mount, where you can mount up to 200 ISO 9660-standard files. Once mounted, the content of the ISO files is available to network users from the read-only folder within the shared folder where the ISO file resides. This is a very convenient feature in case you want to access the content of ISO files without having to burn them to CDs. Keeping data in ISO format is also a good way to compress it to save storage space.
The Thecus N3200 comes with a backup software application called Windows Backup Utility that we found primitive, both in design and functionality. It's so rudimentary that it's hard to describe. The software's interface looks like that of program written by an amateur programmer, or a quick mockup for some college programming assignment. You can't pick more than one folder for each backup job, and while you can set a schedule, during our hands-on testing, none of the scheduled backup jobs ran at the preset time. Every step you do with the software, you need to sort of guess what's going to happen if you click on this button or that field and so on. We definitely recommend using a third-party backup software with the N3200.
Performance
On CNET Labs' read and write throughput benchmarks, we were very happy with the device's performance. We tested the N3200 with three 320GB, 7,200rpm drives and used two RAID configurations: RAID 0 and RAID 5.
In RAID 0, the configuration optimized for performance, the device topped our charts on both our read and write tests by a relatively large margin with the scores of 62.5Mbps and 57Mbps, respectively. When we switch to RAID 5, where the device balances the performance and data redundancy, the throughput speeds were lowered to 50.3Mbps and 54Mbp for write and read tests--still very high on our charts.
Despite the fact that it has a very big fan, the Thecus N3200 worked very quietly during our testing process. It emitted almost no noise. Performance-wise, other than the fact that it took a very long time to build a RAID 5 setup with the stripe size of 64Kb (about an hour for each 20GB), we were pleased with everything else. Except for the backup software, all of its functions that we tried worked well and as intended.
Service and support
Thecus backs the N3200 with a one-year warranty, which is short and disappointing. Its tech support is available Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST, where you can open and manage support tickets. You will find a lot of useful information, including firmware update, device compatibly lists, and instructions at the company's Web site.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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CNET editor Dong Ngo has been involved with technology since 2000, starting with testing gadgets and writing code for CNET Labs' benchmarks. He now covers networking and storage, and also writes about other topics from online security to new gadgets and how technology impacts the life of people around the world. Full Bio
