Thecus M3800 Stream Box [Review]

Thecus M3800 Stream Box [Review]

Jayesh Limaye, Apr 24, 2009 1630 hrs IST

A unique device that combines Network Attached Storage and HD multimedia streaming capabilities

Good performance, HD 1080p playback, RAID 0, 1, 5 and JBOD, multiple outputs, stylish and feature-packed, cool and quiet operation, hot-plug capable

Limited format support (no MKV and MP3), exorbitant price

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Features

The Thecus M3800 is beautifully designed unlike NAS devices in general, which are rather boring. We can say that you will not shy away from keeping it even in the living room. Most of the surfaces have a non-reflective black finish and this should go well with other media devices you may have.

Looking from the front, the upper portion has three perforated grills, which allow air intake to flow over and cool the hard drives situated in the bays inside.

Near the lower portion at the front, there is a blue backlit LCD display with two rows of sixteen characters. The backlit LCD can be easily seen even in a dimly lit room but is not too bright. When the unit is turned on, it displays information such as Hostname, WAN IP, LAN IP, RAID status, Fan speed, etc. These items slowly scroll up as the system boots up.

Just below this LCD, there is a line of LEDs present, which indicate status of hard drives, WAN and LAN. Unlike convention, the LEDs glow orange when everything is OK, but we think that this may be because this color is less distracting and irritating to the eye than the bright green color as is usually the case.

There is a USB port and an IR receiver to the left of these LEDs, while to the right, there is a group of five buttons which again are styled nicely. These consist of a centre button for power with a blue LED inside it while the rest are in pairs, shaped elegantly like teardrops, placed horizontally above and below the power button. The top button pair consists of ESC and ENTER, while the bottom pair consists of UP and DOWN. Keeping the ESC pressed for three seconds turns off the LCD backlight, while pressing any of the buttons turns it back on.

This section of the panel can be easily lifted to gain access to the hard drive rails. Once removed, you can see that there are three drive bays present within. You can easily unscrew the drive rails from their positions and attach them to the hard drives.

After attaching to the hard drives, all you need to do is simply align them with the rails and slide back into position. After the thumbscrews are tightened, the front panel can be replaced back into position.