Seven-bay storage server
Design
Users familiar with the two-year-old N7700 should be well acquainted with the aesthetics of this newer model; the only change up front is the addition of the "PRO" sticker.
Along the curved left edge, a series of six multi-coloured LEDs provide at-a-glance status information for power, system status, and WAN, LAN, USB and eSATA activity. Below the LED indicators reside two easy-access USB ports and the simplistic power button.
In keeping with the clean, simple design, an LCD display - showing basic system information including fan status, time and date, RAID status and the configured IP address - adorns the bottom of the N7700PRO's front. The display is joined by four cheap-feeling buttons that are far from intuitive to use.
Flip open the push-to-release mesh aluminium door and you reveal access to the seven lockable drive bays, each of which is equipped with two LEDs to indicate disk power and activity. Swapping drives is easy enough, but when working with a seven-bay NAS, the need for tool-free disk installation becomes all the more apparent. The initial setup - involving 28 screws - can take some time.
Over to the rear you get dual Gigabit Ethernet (WAN and LAN; can be set to link aggregation), a serial RS232 port for external UPS, a further two USB ports and a single eSATA connector.
Dual 90mm fans are tasked with system cooling, along with a smaller CPU fan inside, and the combination is clearly audible. In a fairly quiet room, the N7700PRO became noisy enough to drown out two desktop PCs, but it shouldn't be a problem in a busy office environment.
Overall build quality is very solid, as suggested by the 8.6kg net weight.
Internals
Providing tool-free access to the system's innards, the N7700PRO's back panel is removed by undoing four thumb screws.
A further two thumb screws unlock the SATA backplane, allowing for the new-look motherboard to slide out.
A 1.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor lives under the small heatsink and fan, and two redundant 128MB IDE DOMs prove that Thecus's dual-DOM technology is exactly what it says on the tin.
Two Intel WG82574L controllers power the Gigabit Ethernet ports, and a bottom-seated 300W 80PLUS power supply feeds the entire system.
Software
Thecus's AJAX-based web interface hasn't changed a whole lot since our recent look at the four-bay N4200, but whilst the admin panel has shown massive improvements over the course of the past twelve months, it still doesn't feel quite as mature as rival solutions.
Readers can get a feel for the software by referring to our previous overview, and Thecus also provides a live demo of its AJAX GUI at Thecus.com/LiveDemo.php (username: thecus, password: thecus).
On a side note, we're also happy to report that Thecus has responded to our N4200 review by making available a new setup wizard. The revamped utility, v2.0.3, became available last month and is now fully compatible with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system.
Bundle, warranty and support
As with most Thecus products, the N7700PRO bundle is very basic.
In the box, you receive a single Ethernet cable, a mains kettle lead, user manuals, a driver disc and a bundled copy of DriveClone5 Pro v1.1. The 10GbE NIC pictured above, isn't included as standard.
The N7700PRO is backed by a two-year warranty when purchased from an authorised reseller. That cover doesn't extend to any malfunctioning drives, of course, and Thecus has a list of warranty-related provisos that are fairly standard for the industry.
Technical support is offered via a web-based ticket submission system, and an official forum that's shamelessly titled "I Love Thecus". Whilst the support options are likely to be acceptable to the average consumer, we'd like to see priority UK telephone support offered with enterprise-specific models such as the N7700PRO.
