Introduction

Looking at the image above you would swear this is a deja vu moment since the new Thecus N4800 looks identical to the N4200 and N4200 Pro, both reviewed on TweakTown previously. On the outside, all three of these SMB flagship NAS products share the same face, but just like in reality, it's the heart that matters.

At the heart of the new Thecus N4800 is a revised architecture that's based on the new Intel Atom D2700 CPU. Paired with the new processor is 2GB of DDR3 DRAM, twice the capacity of the N4200 products. USB 3.0 is now included in Thecus' SMB flagship, but the most disrupting port has yet to bear fruit, the new HDMI display output that will come online in a future firmware release.

In years past, we've claimed the Thecus N4200 and later than N4200 Pro were the very best SMB and consumer NAS products on the market. These units ship with a built in battery backup power system that gives your data time to flush through the buffers and get to disks in the event of a power outage. The feature was very successful for the N4200 series and it has made a return on the N4800.

At the time of writing, this feature is exclusive to this product line from Thecus and makes this the crown jewel of the small business / consumer NAS market. The fact is many of us don't run outboard battery backup (BBU) systems even though we should to safeguard our data. Power disruption is very hard on spinning disks; I've personally lost data because of it in the past. The purpose of a NAS product is to not only distribute, but also protect your data. The extra level of protection found only on this product is why we praise this product line so highly.

Of course just checking off boxes in the features column isn't a sure fire way to insure success. If a product is priced out of reach for most small businesses or consumers it could have all of the features in the world and still be too expensive to purchase. The price is an area that Thecus has worked on as well. In our online search we managed to find the new N4800 for $175 less than the N4200 and N4200 Pro when they were launched. This is a massive price reduction for a flagship product and brings the new N4800 in line with other manufactures SMB and consumer NAS products that are sold without many of the features that make the N4800 unique.