What’s inside the N5550
Normally when you see a NAS you don’t think of it as a small PC. After checking out the exterior of the N5550 we are going to dig in a little and see what makes it all tick.
The exterior of the N5550 is fairly basic. The front of the device features four control buttons, an LCD screen, and a small window that gives a peak at status lights up the front of the device. The front also opens up to give you access to all five hard drive trays.
With the door open you can see that the door has mesh on it to allow for a little airflow through it to keep everything cool. You now have full view of the five drive trays; the door has mesh on it to allow for a little airflow through it to keep everything cool. You can also see that they actually have locks, this is great if you are only running a few drives and you plan on adding more in the future, this way you can lock down the loaded bays to prevent you from pulling one out accidentally. Behind the door we also have the power and reset buttons, this keeps them from being bumped day to day. There is also a USB 3.0 port right on the front of the N5550. This was especially impressive to me, all of the other NAS that we have in the office only have USB 2.0 ports. If you need to pull files off or put files on, or even temporarily expand capacity, you will have the high transfer speeds of USB 3.0.
With two of the hard drive trays pulled out, here is a peek inside, you can see the hot swap PCB.
Both sides of the N5550 have a corner perforated for additional airflow into the device. Beyond that there isn’t anything going on the top or side panels.
On the back you have more ventilation holes as well as two fans. One is a large 120mm fan that is located behind the hard drives. This fan will help keep your drives cool during their 24 hour operation. The second smaller fan is part of the power supply and located next to the power plug and on off switch. The back of the N5550 has a surprising amount of connections for a NAS. You have everything from microphone and headphone ports as well as an audio input. You have four USB 2.0 ports and an e-SATA port for additional storage connections, the USB 3.0 on the front would still be the fastest. You also have both HDMI and VGA ports for hooking up to a projector or television, something you wouldn’t normally see on a NAS as well. Last but certainly most important you have two Ethernet connections down at the bottom. The back of the N5550 looks more like a full PC than a NAS, but its feature set is more than a normal NAS as well.
After taking the outside shell of the N5550 off, I was greeted by a motherboard that takes up the entire height of the device. This is obviously designed specifically for the N5550, this isn’t a Mini ITX board or anything off the shelf. The LED indicator lights on the front of the N5550 are directly on the motherboard for example, this wouldn’t work in just any case. Beyond that you do get a peak as the Atom processor that powers everything as well as the small ssd that the OS runs on. It’s also nice to see that the RAM is actually replaceable if you decide to upgrade in the future as well.
One thing I noticed when taking the cover off was the on one of the sides they have actually covered up the ventilation holes in the case with a clear film. I’m assuming that they did this for a reason, but it’s still not something you see every day.