A Look Inside

Cracking the N5810 Pro open was pretty straightforward, though we had to deal with lots of screws, disconnect enough cables, and fight with the on/off switch since it was really hard to put back into place. A good technique when you dismantle something is to take pictures of it before you proceed. Such pictures will let you know where everything has to go when you put everything back together.


The chassis is out of metal, which makes it really heavy and incredibly robust. This NAS is build like a tank, which we like, although its exterior doesn't look that nice. The mainboard isn't secured with screws, but slides in on two rails and stays put because of the rear cover that holds the fan. We would definitely prefer some screws that keep it in place instead.


Here is a close look at the LCM module and the buttons that control its functions.


Although small, the mainboard holds many controllers for the many features it offers. It even has a BIOS POST code display!


The mainboard's solder side holds many interesting components we will mention in the following paragraphs.


Here are the LED indicators at the front, along with that USB 3.0 port. All other I/O ports, including the five Gigabit Ethernet ports, are on the mainboard's opposite side.


An NXP PCA9532 LED dimmer handles the mainboard's LED indicators.


Since its incredibly low TDP (10 W) allows for it, the Intel J1900 Trail-D CPU is passively cooled.


There are two RAM slots and only one of them is populated with a Transcend DDR3 1600 MHz 4 GB DIMM.


An ALC262 HD Audio codec takes care of this server's audio capabilities.


Here are the 2GB of flash memory with the server's ROM. Behind the flash memory chip is an Avago expressLane PEX8605 with four PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) lanes.


Four Intel WGI210AT controllers provide network connectivity, and in the photo above is also a Marvell 88SE9215-NAA2 controller with support for up to four SATA III ports.


The first of the above photos is of two NCP3170 PWM controllers. The second photo shows an NCP3232N high current synchronous buck converter, and you can see two P81109G controllers near the CMOS battery in the last photo. All these components are by On Semiconductor.


An ASM1042A USB 3.0 controller handles some of the corresponding ports.


Above are an ATMEL ATmega168 micro-controller and a Fintek F75387SG H/W Monitor IC with automatic fan-speed control.


Here is a Lattice LCMX02-1200UHC FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array).


The single x8 PCI Express expansion slot that holds the SATA HDD backplane is on the mainboard's solder side. Close to it are several Macronix MX25L3206E CMOS Serial Flash ICs.


Several polymer caps by Sanyo, Enesol, and probably NIC on the mainboard handle all ripple-filtering duties.


Here is the PCIe card that holds the HDDs. As you can see, Thecus reinforced the HDD backplane with a metal plate on the solder side to easily allow it to cope with the weight of five mechanical disks.


Here is the case that holds the mini-UPS battery. At its front is a small PCB with two connectors.


Utilizing an AcBel 130 W AC/DC converter (model number OT9002), Thecus used a different approach to covering the NAS sever's needs for power. Bronze certified, it also comes with a small DC-DC converter. This converter delivers what power the mainboard and all other system components require. It also takes care of charging the UPS battery.


The polymer caps on the DC-DC converter are by Sanyo and OS-CON and are of high quality.


The cooling fan is by ADDA, and its model number is AD09212UB257B00 (12V, 92 mm, 0.38 A). Using double ball-bearings, it will last for quite a long time.