Thecus N1200 single bay NAS device review

The last year or two have seen some major changes to the way people use PCs in the home, largely brought about by a single phenomenon - The wireless network.  Whereas in the past networking involved creating intricate topologies of switches, hubs and routers, thus remaining very much the tool of businesses, the introduction of the wireless router as an almost standard piece of kit for any user with a broadband connection opened up a whole new world of possibilities.  No longer did a family have to survive with a single PC, with a single wireless connection both Internet and network connectivity could be shared around the home, allowing the kids to have a PC or laptop in their bedroom, while their parents could enjoy a machine of their own.

This huge uprising of home networks has also coincided with another issue which is becoming ever more prevalent in our information society - Data storage.  With hard drives as large as 1 Terabyte now readily available, and at respectable prices to boot, there's no reason to struggle to find space for all the data you want available to you.  Now that so many of us virtually live around our computers, that data is becoming both ever larger and more important, as we find ourselves dumping our entire lives onto them - Music and movie collections, all those holiday snaps, e-mails, names and addresses.

Of course, this reliance on data brings up a whole new set of problems for anyone with a home network - How do you efficiently share that data?  Sure, setting up shared folders on PCs is easy enough, but then that data is only available when the PC is on, and if you try to transfer large amounts of data then you're going to bog down the owner's machine to boot.  Hence the recent rise of the NAS, short for Network Attached Storage.  Previously (as per networks themselves) only the object of businesses, the data storage needs of the home has seen the concept of networked storage devices adapt and find a more mainstream audience amongst home users.  There's no better example of that than the subject of today's review, in the form of Thecus' N1200 NAS product - A single bay network attached storage device, with a very home-centric focus with regard to both its feature set and price point.

So, if you're looking to expand both the capacity and availability of your data, is the N1200 a good fit for your needs?  That's exactly what we're here to help find out.