[DISCLAIMER: Thecus provided an N7700 Pro NAS unit for review in exchange for advertising space on PlanetAMD64 and PlanetX64. Seagate donated the drives to us with no compensation other than to be mentioned as our source of hard drives.] 

Appearance

Despite the “Pro” moniker, the Thecus N7700 Pro uses a mini-tower form factor. This is not a rack-mountable device. However, it is smaller than a typical PC mini-tower, so it does not occupy that much space. If stored in a rack enclosure on some sort for shelf, it will occupy a little over 7U of space, so plan accordingly. Clad in anodized black and silver, the mini-tower can hold seven drives in its chassis. That’s potentially 12 TB of RAID-5 storage with the largest drives currently available.

Status information is provided via an LCD display on the front. Several manual controls on the front can be used to modify basic setup settings in case the network gets misconfigured and the web interface is not accessible.

Features

Where to start? The unit is fully buzzword compliant and has recently been awarded VMware compatibility status. This means that VMware’s Hypervisor can reliably recognize the N7700 Pro as a storage device and even boot virtual machines from mounted iSCSI images.

Supported clients can be any combination of Windows, Mac, or Linux/Unix.

The N7700 Pro has Thecus’ Dual DOM architecture which means if the primary DOM gets messed up during an update, you can boot from a secondary DOM and reset the primary.

RAID modes offered include: 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 & JBOD. Up to 3 modes can be supported simultaneously.

The unit is managed via a browser-based UI that is clean, well-designed and easy-to-use.

During setup you are offered a staggering variety of filesystems (EXT3, XFS, & ZFS) to choose from. Most notable among them is ZFS, a 128-bit journaling filesystem designed and built by Sun Microsystems which packs upper storage limits so ridiculously large, you would have to use every atom in the Earth’s crust to fill it. ZFS also allows for data expansion via zpools, so you can start small and add drives later to expand. Combine this with RAID-6 (dual parity redundant) volumes and you have the makings of a storage device that can only be taken out of commission through acts of sabotage. By creating ZFS volumes you can enable Snapshot version control for the ultimate in data redundancy.

It supports online migration, online expansion, hot-swap, & hot-spares.

It can communicate directly via RS-232 & USB to UPS systems.

The 7700 Pro sports 2 GbE ports which can be load-balanced, 802.3ad (ganged) or setup in a failover configuration. But for real speed, there is a 10 GbE option (for all you bleeding-edge types.)

Add a wireless dongle and the N7700 Pro also acts as a wireless access point.

The N7700 Pro can act as a DHCP Server or Client.

The N7700 Pro includes backup software for Windows and Mac clients. Linux/Unix client can backup via cron+rsync, as can more gregarious Mac users. I tested the rsync facilities using ChronoSync for Mac. By mounting an iSCSI target volume, Mac user can designate the N7700 Pro as a target for Time Machine backups. If you are going this route, I highly recommend setting up the network as 802.3ad ganged for maximum throughput (unless you have access to 10GB switches and NICs for Macs.)

The N7700 Pro includes a print server, media server (Windows Media and iTunes), Download Manager (Bittorrent, FTP, HTTP)

The N7700 Pro provides a plethora (I love using that word) of methods to access your data:

• TCP/IP
• CIFS/SMB
• AFP
• NFS
• HTTP/S
• FTP
• FTP-SSL/TLS

The N7700 Pro is also extensible. Thecus offers several add-on modules to enhance the functionality of the device (as if it didn’t do enough already.) The list (as of this review) includes:

• Mail Server Module
• Backup to USB/eSATA External Drive Module
• RAID Volume Replication Module
• Twonky Media Server Module
• MySQL Module
• Web Server Module
• Bi-directional USB Copy Module
• IP Camera Server Module
• NZB News Server Module

Performance

In a nutshell, the N7700 Pro is FAST. I only had it configured with one GbE port and was able to back up my entire Windows Home Server (3.5 TB of data) via a Thermaltake BlackX USB drive toaster over the network in a matter of three days. The bottleneck there is the USB drive. In regular operation, I saw a noticeable improvement in my photographic workflow which includes saving a copy of all of my RAW image files to the NAS at ingestion.

The media server functions all work as advertised providing streaming audio, video, and photo services to any device on the network that understands the protocols. Installing the Twonky Media Server adds file transcoding to the N7700 Pro’s burgeoning resume. I was able to see videos on Macs, PCs and even my DirecTV HR200 DVR.

iSCSI targets are limited to 5 per filesystem but this is not really much of a limit in the N7700 Pro’s target demographic: SMB’s and advanced home networks.

Reliability

While not empirically tested, the N7700 Pro’s design has reliability as a top priority. If I had to pick a nit in this area, I would cite the lack of a redundant power supply as the only missing feature. Still, with a nice strong UPS attached the N7700 Pro offers users a product that can be counted on to keep their data safe.

Price

I have seen the N7700 Pro as low as $843 USD (without drives) in some casual Google searches. The average price tends to hover around $950 USD and some places as high as $999 (the MSRP.)

The Contest

As part of the Save the Planets Sponsorship drive, we are giving away a Thecus N7700 Pro NAS with 8TB of hard drives. All you have to do is become a PlanetAMD64 Sponsor and follow me on Twitter (@etrigan63). That’s it. No guessing games, no scavenger hunts. The winner of the N7700 Pro NAS will be announced on Twitter at the end of May 2010.

Receiving the VMware^® Ready certified logo means that these Thecus^® NAS products have passed all relevant laboratory testing and met all the integration and interoperability criteria outlined by VMware^®. VMware^® Ready certification also means that these products are fully compatible with VMware^® ESX 4.0 and are ready to run in a production environment to carry out mission critical business applications and operations.

Besides VMware^® support, Thecus^® enterprise NAS servers are packed with all the essential technologies for modern businesses. Together with 10GbE or SAS HDD support, businesses have the speed and technology required to create a storage network that is able to efficiently and effectively manage their data, enabling them to provide timely services to their customers.

Users can now find these products listed on the VMware^® Compatibility Guide.

For more information on Thecus^® products, please go to:

http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=11&pid=198

For more information on VMware^®, please go to:

http://www.vmware.com/

For more information on Thecus^®, please go to:

http://www.thecus.com

About Thecus®
Thecus® Technology Corp. specializes in IP Storage Server solutions, including Network Attached Storage (NAS), DAS, External Storage and Wireless Media NAS (Bank) products. The company was established in 2004 with the mission to make technology as transparent and easy-to-use as possible, and to make products that are not only the best on the market, but are accessible to experts and novices alike. With a best-in-class R&D team highly experienced in storage hardware and Linux software and with a keen customer focus, Thecus® stays close to the market to develop high-quality products to fulfill the storage Server needs of today’s world.

Business users need to access data as quickly as possible, which is why the 1U4600 is built for speed. Powered by Intel® Celeron technology and 1GB of DDR memory, the 1U4600 delivers tremendous data transfer performance and quick system response even with multiple client access. For organizations that require cloud computing applications, the 1U4600 fits the bill nicely with its cloud networking ability. This feature allows multiple 1U4600 units to be accessed by a master system, forming a huge data pool. Being a Thecus® product, data security is also top-notch, featuring multiple RAID modes, including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD. Best of all, administrators can take advantage of online-RAID volume management to handle such tasks as RAID expansion or migration with zero downtime.

But the 1U4600 is also incredibly flexible. For starters, it can be used in NAS, DAS, or iSCSI mode, depending on the needs of the organization. To keep things running smoothly, the 1U4600 is built with a dual DOM design, which enables the main system DOM to be reprogrammed by a secondary DOM should it fail for any reason. And to guard against sudden power supply failure, power redundancy is also available with the 1U4600R, which packs a 250W redundant power supply for uninterrupted service.

“Enterprises need superior storage at a price that fits within budget, and the newly updated 1U4600 meets these requirements,” said Florence Shih, Thecus General Manager. “With multiple redundancies and superior performance built-in, the 1U4600 sets the new standard in powerful yet versatile enterprise storage.”

For more information on the 1U4600, go to:

http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=11&pid=227&set_language=english

For more information on Thecus, go to:

http://www.thecus.com

 With spam, spyware, identity theft (phishing), hacking (the unethical kind), viruses and trojans becoming more and more prevalent on the Internet, folks who want to run more than one computer in their home have to really consider the security benefits of edge devices. Edge devices are computers (either dedicated or appliances) designed to sit between your DSL or Cable modem and your internal network. Edge devices act as a first line of defense, protecting home computers and servers from intrusion and infection. Untangle has released version 4.1 of their amazing firewall distro for edge devices and we have been using it here in the lab for several weeks. What you will see will amaze you.

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Product: Untangle XD Server + Untangle Platform
Author: Carlos Echenique 
Category: Firewall distro/Edge Device
Reviewed on: January 21, 2007
Product cost: See article
Manufacturer: Untangle (formerly Metavize) 
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Paul Mercer

Introduction
Even with the launch of Windows Vista and its attendant security improvements, using the built-in firewall and the NAT (Network Address Translation) firewall built-in to the modem is not enough, especially if you are running a home (or small office) network. One can purchase security suites from various manufacturers (Trend, Symantec, CA to name a few) to add layers of security to your home systems. However, these solutions steal more and more cycles from your CPU, degrading performance in the name of security. At the rate things are going, you will need a quad-core machine to read your e-mail because of all of the security layers/protections/encryptions that you will have to dynamically use in day-to-day operation.

This is where edge devices make sense. By placing these security checkpoints in between the router/modem and the network, you force all data entering and leaving your network to be scrutinized and checked. Linux afficionados have long enjoyed this ability but had to endure the complexity of administering complex firewall rules and the arcana of trying to mix together various security technologies. Windows firewall offerings for edge devices can be very expensive (Microsoft's ISA Server 2006 Standard lists for over $2,000 USD) and lack features compared to their Linux bretheren.

Enter Untangle (formerly Metavize) with their Untangle Server and the Untangle Platform. This product is a pre-assembled Linux-based firewall distro that combines best-of-breed security technologies with a dynamite front-end to manage the whole thing. Add to that a laundry list of features and regular support updates, and you have yourself the makings of top-tier security product. The Untangle Platform can be downloaded and installed on your own server or ordered on one of three preconfigured severs. Untangle kindly sent us their XD (rackmountable) server preloaded with UP 4.1.

{mospagebreak title=Features}
Features
First and foremost, the UP is an SPI (Stateful Packet Inspecting) firewall and full fledged router based on a hardened Knoppix distro. If you purchase a preconfigrued server (or "roll your own" with three NICs) the Untangle Platform fully supports Internal, External and DMZ network connections. The external connection can be static or dynamic and includes PPPoE (Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet) support.

User authentication can be from either the built-in LDAP server or going against your internal Active Directory server (if you are crazy enough to have one, like me). The software includes a utility to allow the UP to track users via Active Directory and apply policy based on their logins instead of their IP addresses. This is very convenient when you have rules that apply to certain folks (the youngsters for example) and others are exempt (the adults).

The UP offers the following features:

The system automatically checks for updates at a designated time every night. The update check also occurs whenever you log on to the Administrative Console.

If I had one nit to pick it would be the lack of a transparent proxy to speed up surfing for large amounts of users behind a single DSL/cable modem. This should not be difficult to implement as Squid is a popular open source proxy. [Editors note: I have been informed by Untangle Support that proxy services are on the roadmap for deployment in the future.]

Feature Score: 4.95 out of 5

{mospagebreak title=Interface}
Interface
Untangle has gone the extra-mile with the administrative interface. Instead of using the web-based solutions favored by other distros, Untangle sports a Java based interface that uses a "rack of machines" paradigm (see image below). This allows the system to provide status and statistics in real-time (the graphs on the interface are live) and a drag-and-drop metaphor for system configurations. Racks may be added for different groups (admins and users for example) with different "machines" mounted on each rack.

Clicking on each "machine" on the "rack" expands the display and allows access to the detailed settings for each area. The method is intuitive and elegant. I have shown this interface to several IT professionals and they unanimously agree on the elegance of the design.

By using Java to power their interface, Untangle has made it's client platform independent. I have tested this Interface on Windows XP (32 and 64 bit), Windows 2003 Server (32 and 64 bit), Fedora (Redhat) Linux, and Mac OS X (Tiger). Vista users had some issues during the beta, but Untangle support has removed this incompatability and Vista is now fully supported. In order to run the Untangle Client on Vista, you must install Java 1.6 as the previous versions of Java do not work correctly with Vista.

View a live demo here.

Interface Score: 5 out of 5

{mospagebreak title=Performance and Support}
Performance
The Untangle Server XD is a Pentium D based machine with 1 GB of RAM. If you decide to "roll your own" firewall box for the Untangle Platform be sure to meet or exceed the hardware requirements listed at Untangle's website. YMMV. The XD is more than enough to handle well over 100 users without even getting warm. I get copious amounts of spam every day and the Untangle Server/Platform has helped me reclaim my inbox. Looking at the logs and reports will amaze you as to the amount of traffic/garbage/hack attempts pouring in through your DSL/cable modem. Web control is smooth and efficient. When coupled with an AD server, the policies follow the user account, not the IP of the machine.

Support
The support staff at Untangle have been incredibly responsive to the needs of their user community. The Untangle Platform includes a mechanism for remote support by Untangle Staff and there is a 24 hr Support Package that can be purchased. This package, when purchased online, allows the folks at Untangle to monitor and take snapshots of your server's configuration. Should your hardware fail, a new server is prepared and loaded with your config and sent to you overnight express.

Untangle also provides a user forum that is very helpful and is constantly monitored by the support staff. I have used it extensively in my testing and the staff is very knowledgeable. The forum is also a venue for suggestions and improvements and several of my own suggestions are being realized.

Performace & Support Score: 5 out of 5

{mospagebreak title=Pricing}
Pricing
When I started this review, Untangle (known as Metavize at the time) had a pricing structure geared towards business customers only. Subsequently, they renamed their company, released a new version of their software, and completely restructured their pricing.

Here is the current pricing:

Other packages and discounts are available as well. Please see the Untangle web site for more details

Pre loaded servers are also available (if you don't feel comfortable building your own or wish to take advantage of the 24 Hour Replacement feature). Again see the Untangle web site for pricing.

As you can see, the only cost of setting this up in your home or small office is the cost of bulding a machine to house it. The hardware specs are not unreasonable:

Intel? or AMD CPUs will work.

Operating System
The server does NOT need an Operating System; the Untangle CD installs an operating system.

Other
CD-ROM drive to boot the Untangle Server software CD. A bootable DVD drive will work as well.

With the imminment release of Windows Vista (and the required hardware upgrades), there is a high likelihood that a machine meeting these requirements will be available for use as an edge device.

The process is simple: Download the ISO, burn it to CD, boot off of said CD, request a key, install key on the system.

Pricing Score: 5 out of 5
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Price, performance, features, suppport and a killer interface all come together to produce a near perfect product. Ongoing development and a support team that listens to the needs of their customers makes the Untangle Platform your best bet for securing your network.

Scores:
Features:  4.95 out of 5
Interface:  5 out of 5
Performance & Support: 5 out of 5
Pricing:  5 out of 5
Total Score:  19.95 out of 20

PlanetX64 proudly awards Untangle Platform the Best on the Planet.

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PlanetX64 wishes to acknowledge Corky Brown and Dirk Morris of Untangle for their assistance and support during this review.

 Discuss it here.