Overall and Final Verdict
After spending so much time with the N7510, I have really grown to love it. Typically, the sweet spot price wise for a small business or home NAS is around four bays. Thecus set out to make a cheaper 7 bay NAS and without a doubt that did that. That isn’t to say that it is perfect at all. Frankly, the Intel Atom processor that they put in it might be okay with a smaller NAS but at this size it is a little undersized. Day to day you will never notice this, but when you have to build a RAID array of that size it will take longer. That isn’t a bad tradeoff to save money and keep costs down, especially when you add in having to buy 7 hard drives to the overall cost.
Even with this being a budget NAS Thecus did still upgrade the build quality with its aluminum design. Thecus OS is also packed full of features and adjustability, you can do anything you want with the NAS. All of the app options that can be added on via Thecus’s website are great. My only complaint was that Qnap has something similar but you can click install on their NAS’ where on the N7510 you have to go to the website, download, then upload it to your NAS. Hopefully Thecus works on this in the future.
So how cheap is the N7510, well you can find it for around $640 currently. That might not sound cheap to some of you, but compared to the competition it is. Right now on Newegg the cheapest 6 bay NAS is $718 with the prices going up quickly from there, that is with one less drive bay even. Eight bay NAS’ start at an even higher price of $842 with the next cheapest being over a grand. Even with those models you get the same Atom processor as well. You really have to pony up even more to go with anything faster. If you are on the market for a NAS, you should really consider jumping up to the N7510 and giving yourself the expandability in the future, you know you will need it!
