Setup: System Initialization
Initialization
Initializing a Thecus NAS is a breeze and it only takes a few clicks to get it all up and running. The Thecus Setup Wizard tool will automatically find all supported devices on your network and allow you to set the network settings and admin details before sending you to the general user interface.
Once you’ve logged in with your new admin credentials, you’ll need to accept the disclaimer that what you do is at your risk. Pretty much standard for everything.
The small System Initialization Setup Wizard that greets you is a great tool, especially for people that aren’t familiar with ThecusOS 7. It will show and explain the default features and where to find them.
The next thing you have to do is to create a disk setup from the installed drives. Please keep in mind that proceeding will delete any existing data on the drives.
The RAID mode and file system choice is down to you, and it depends on your personal needs and the available drives. A good setup is a RAID 5 configuration for a fault-tolerance of one drive coupled with BTRFS for snapshots.
You got the options between EXT4, ZFS, and BTRFS as file system and you can encrypt the entire volume too while creating it. Master RAID is needed for your primary volume, should you have more than one, and Quick RAID is highly recommended to check. It will improve the RAID build time significantly.
Shared folders are the main cornerstone of your NAS as these are the folders you’ll see and have access to over your network. Access rights are either set by user or user groups.
We should never use our administrator user for everyday connections and especially not store the password anywhere. So you need to create at least one more user for yourself and your daily usage of the NAS. Most likely you’ll also create more users, but that’s all optional.
The only mandatory information needed are a username and a password. Optionally, you can set user quota and group belonging.
Firmware Upgrade
Before you continue, you should check up on the firmware version too. Make sure that you are running the latest version, and if not, then upgrade to it. A newer firmware brings both feature improvements and bug fixes.
You can watch the progress as the new firmware is downloaded and applied. The whole thing is a speedy process, although your internet connection and its speed will affect the time needed.
Was there any testing or investigating into what the 2.5 hard drive connector in the top of the unit can be used for?
I bought one of this for half price on the chance the 5th drive connector was usable: and it is! You can use it as a boot drive or a cache drive or for a parity check drive. You can also flash the in-built MMC drive with a different OS. If you buy one I strongly suggest doing so, as the OS from Thecus is an ancient bug-ridden under-developed barely-supported mess. No, really, the version in the box is Fedora 12, and there’s an upgrade to effectively Fedora 16. I recommend using OpenMediaVault instead.
Thanks for the confirmation that the 5th SATA part indeed is fully working.
Is it possible to use the display and the buttons with an alternative linux distibution like debian? Is it possible too, to control the fan (with fancontrol package)?
Thx
John,
I’m on my 3rd thecus NAS. The first was a W5810(windows storage server) which I could not get to work correctly; got an RMA then resold. the second was/is the N4810; same as before, it did not work correctly, got an RMA, but was not able to secure a reasonable (?) resale price. So, I’m keeping it.
Regarding the 5th drive, I was not able to access a connected drive installed in my initial N4810. Tech USA told me that that drive was not powered by the backplane since the 2 on-board SATA chips only supported two HDs each (only 4 of the 5 slots on the backplane -the ones directly accessable from the front bays). their info was that the 5th could be used only if powered by a separate Sata controller that connects to the DOM (MMC drive?).
So, my question(s) to you:
– how are you powering that drive (I guess as your new boot)
– where is the DOM (under the HD cage?) and is that the alternative power source for the 5th drive, and
– if you flash the DOM for another OS, is there any other way to power the 5th drive or force it to be read by the system?
Sorry to be so long, but still looking to see how best to use this machine. I agree with you in respect to it being under-developed.
Is it possible to use the display and the buttons with an alternative linux distibution like debian? Is it possible too, to control the fan (with fancontrol package)?
Thx
Hello,
I have the same questions to John like Thomas.
I am very interested in this NAS and would like to use the 5th SATA connector for a system SSD to boot a debian or ubuntu server linux.