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lofgents
06-04-10, 13:59
An update on the MPC prize for March

I am new to the NAS scene and learning about various functions but here are my impressions so far.

Installation and manual:-

First the manual, I think Thecus think you have experience of this type of device and while the manual is comprehensive some research has to be done to understand some of the functions that the device has. Google as usual is a great help.
Installation of hard discs is easy attach to the tray slide in and lock, all sockets on the rear are clearly marked and for the older peeps like myself no problem.
Installation using the Thecus wizard is straightforward and configuring network and comms very easy.

My set Up.
I intend to play around first to find out what I can best use the Thecus for so initially it is purely going to be storage for AV files so I can access from various devices around the house. Network is standard 10/100mb through a Phillips adsl router and a network switch to each floor of the house. may think about changing to gigabyte if needed.

I have a Tvix 6500 which I use on my projector for movies just in the process of finishing a dedicated cinema room for this so not a lot of testing on this.

I have a Popcornhour A110 which is connected via an Onkyo 876 av amp to a Toshiba 42" LCD 1080p screen

Performance on this so far using the Planet Earth Episode 1 opening sequence usually known as bird scene.

Via SMB plays PE1 perfectly no stuttering. Also tested with some dolby truehd 1080p test files and dtsma all play OK.

via NFS stutters halfway through bird scene so gave up on this.

via upnp stutters halfway through bird scene used myihome as the media server. so again gave up on this.

I have just put together a HTPC for playing Blue Ray, using this primarily on the TV as projector only goes up to 576p and converted a couple of Blue Rays (Sherlock Holmes and Battlestar Galactica S1 D1) to ISO and they play perfectly when mounted in Daemon tools and played with Power DVD.

The RAID configuration is RAID 0, I have some spare 250GB drives and till I can get some bigger drives for a RAID 5 configuration I will test using this way.

This is an impressive bit of kit and for a new user like me and will probably take some time to find the optimum set up for best use. Its early days for me so if anyone has any advice or observations I would like to have a go at please let me know.

Hope thats of use to someone.

Cheers
lofgents

farout and fargone

Hi-Jack
06-04-10, 14:06
I'm sure you will find yoru way. I would recommend adding a switch between the Thecus, your other equopment and degrade your router for "gateway" to the internet only, performance will be much higher than you can achieve over 10/100 and quite frankly, is almost a must when using a storage device like the Thecus...

Thanks for sharing your experience. Look forward to new episodes :-)

Kat-CeDe
06-04-10, 15:06
Hi,
to give you a hint what to expect:
1. 100 MBit PC->Thecus should be around 10MByte/sec->BluRay around 45min.
2. 1 GBit PC->Thecus should be around 60MByte/sec->BluRay around 7-8 min.

I still love my GBit-network:-)

Ralf