Thecus has made an interesting variation on the market with their W4000/W4000+ NASes (a 2-bay and also a 5-bay version is also available) considering that we no longer have a Linux distribution on our server but Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Essentials and the product can be used from scratch like a regular PC. Windows Server 2012 is quite complex for entry-level users and we can clearly say that we would not recommend this product for home use simply because it is not as easy to set up as a Linux-based NAS and also requires a Connector software to be installed on each and every station in order to integrate the client with the server (and implicitly the newly created internal domain).

With the extra 2GB of memory, the system should allow running more processes at once, but at its heart we still have the dated Atom D2701 SoC, which besides the fact that it went EOL in Q3 2011, Intel did not provide any support for it on 64-bit operating systems so yeah, that also means that we do not get any integrated graphics driver for it. The resolution remains at a maximum of 1280x1024 which is way too low even for Full-HD TVs and the space on the desktop is implicitly quite small for such a complex operating system.

Regarding our experience with the Windows Server 2012 R2 OS, we could say that there were moments when the mouse cursor has remained locked during certain configuration procedures, but afterwards the system has stabilized itself. Be prepared for a long wait time during the initial updates because these will take at least six hours to complete. The transfer performance is a mixed bunch, in Intel NAS Performance Toolkit resulting average read/write rates which tells again the limitation of the included Atom SoC.

In order to reset the server to default, factory settings, we will have to get the ISO prepared by Thecus on their website, boot it and follow the steps in order to restore.

The Thecus W4000+ business-oriented NAS can be found online for about 566 Euros, with any storage drive installed.

Thecus W4000+ Windows Server NAS is Recommended For:

We would like to thank again to Thecus for making this review possible!