NSA310 of Zyxel is such a simple single-disk
NAS enclosure, having an ambition to become a media server than a NAS device
with top configuration.
It is definitely a real bargain in
accompany with a 2TB hard disk, at half the price of 2TB NAS enclosures of
Synology such as DS111. Nevertheless, it doesn’t neglect its configuration at
all. Being equipped with a 1.2GHz ARM processor and 256MB RAM, a heavy workload
including a large amount of data and HD streaming content can be handled easily.
This NAS enclosure is absolutely well-made,
and an USB port in the front panel makes it useful for you to easily copy files
from the external storages with a copy/sync button on it. At the back of
enclosure lies a USB port with an eSATA port, while a 40mm fan offers the
cooling atmosphere. Fortunately, this fan acts quietly, though the lack of
sound proofing for its one and only disk means the NSA310 isn’t the quietest
NAS enclosure we’ve ever used.
It is so fast and easy to install this hard
disk, along with this easy-to-understood software; as a result, you can set up
NSA310 and make it ready to work within half an hour. The user interface is
quite nice and smooth, but provides limited access to NSA310 options. These
options, which including settings for the media server, download manager,
energy and storage management, are allocated in a completely different section
with the System. There is no clue about this in the instructions, which makes
it a little bit disappointed.
Ideal for streaming
Zyxel advertised NSA310 as a media server,
for this aspect, it supports UPnP and has been DLNA certified; therefore, it
can stream contents to phones, joysticks and media streamers as well as act as
an iTunes and Logitech Media Server. However, what it can do is not fully
listed. It is also convenient for you to upload images and video straight to
Flickr and YouTube, no PC needed, and NAS has one of the best downloading
application we’ve seen in a NAS enclosure NAS. Besides, it supports BitTorrent
and eMule via a drag-and-drop download manager; consequently, you can easily
download files directly to NSA310, and NAS will immediately sort files into its
specific folders.
You can keep an eye on the contents
directly on the web browser by using a built-in media player of the interface,
or listen with the free VLC player on the www.videolan.org. The media streaming
to different devices through shared folders or joysticks worked quite well, and
HD video playback on our wired network was also smooth. During our transfer tests,
NAS achieved the average result at 30MB/s in dealing with large files, but only
7MB/s towards small files. NSA310 works so well on video presentation much more
than a general storage device.
Zyxel NSA310 is easy to use, performs quite
well. It can’t provide the fastest transfer speed we’ve seen but at this price,
it is such a real bargain.
Summary
Comments: A NAS device focusing mainly on media is such a real bargain.
Network enclosure storage: 2TB hard disk, Ethernet 10/100/1000Mbit/s, 1 USB2 port, UPnP media,
iTunes server, printer, USB, web, FTP, life-time warranty, 130x362x110mm.
Power consumption: 11W idle, 14W active.
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/network-storage/1289791/zyxel-nsa310
|
Ratings
|
|
|
Price
|
$150
|
|
Website
|
www.dabs.com |
