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ZyXEL Central Media Library NSA-220 Plus

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Pros
Web service support, one-touch backup
Cons
This unit has too little capacity

$252.15
From 1 Merchant

ZyXEL Central Media Library NSA-220 Plus Review

by Jon L. Jacobi and Melissa J. Perenson, PC World

The ZyXel NSA-220 Plus proved to be a more than capable media server, dishing out HD video and everything else with nary a glitch.

The ZyXel Central Digital Media Library NSA-220 Plus ($220 enclosure only) proved to be a more than capable media server, dishing out high-definition video and everything else with nary a glitch. This two-bay device is sold without drives, but it can pack up to 3TB of storage. For our tests, ZyXel sent us a unit with 320GB of RAID 1 mirrored storage. (RAID 0 and JBOD concatenation are supported as well.)

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Like every network-attached storage unit in our media-drives roundup except the Windows Home Server-based Hewlett-Packard MediaSmart ex487, you configure the ZyXel using your Web browser. The settings, as with all NAS boxes, may seem a bit technical for less experienced users, but we found the ZyXel actually more friendly to use than the Synology DS209+'s (but less friendly than Iomega's products).

The NSA-220 Plus is fairly straightforward; like all the boxes in this roundup, it has USB ports for connecting additional hard drives or flash drives, or even a digital camera or printer. At the front is a button for automatically copying content from a USB device to the NAS. A nice touch: The NSA-220 Plus can let you upload content to Web services; for example, after stepping through a bunch of configuration screens, you can set up the NSA-220 Plus to automatically upload content placed in designated folders to Flickr or to YouTube. The unit ships with Memeo Autobackup software for continuous backup; like the NAS itself, the software works with PCs only, not Macs.

This model's performance in the PC World Test Center was just fair; it was among the slower devices at copying files, for example. It took 408 seconds to copy 3GB of files and folders.

Our one complaint about the NSA-220 Plus is a minor one-you must refresh the database for the iTunes server manually after you add new tunes. This in itself isn't uncommon (the Synology makes you re-index occasionally), but it led to dual entries for the server on the iTunes shared list during one re-index. You can easily remedy this by having iTunes disconnect from the older entry.

--Jon L. Jacobi and Melissa J. Perenson

User Reviews for ZyXEL Central Media Library NSA-220 Plus

Reviewed by: moconnor

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Works as advertised, great price, ease of installation, quiet and sleeps when inactive and wakes up without problems. Great copy function from cards or disks plugged into the USB port.

Weaknesses: If powered off improperly the reset button needs to be pressed and admin password reset. Cannot directly connect to a computer USB port. No USB port on the back, only the front.

Overall Evaluation: General comments: I?ve managed RAID systems in work environments for almost 20 years. This NAS is just what I?ve been wanting for home use. But ? if you are used to more sophisticated systems you may get tripped up like I did. 1) I thought I could take a pre-existing disk and create a RAID 1 with it but the NAS initializes the disk for it?s use so all is lost (I was backed up). 2) I had one 1TB disk with the intention of purchasing a second in the future but I found out that you cannot create a RAID 1 without both disks in place. The single disk can only be JBOD or RAID 0. Since I did not have the ability to backup a full 1TB disk, since it will be initialized when creating the RAID 1, I immediately purchased a second 1TB disk. Once I was finally set up it has worked very well. Additionally, I really like having a printer on the network but the printer setup would not recognize my much older printer. It did recognize the newer printer. Lastly, if you try to do multiple copies over the network from the same computer at the same time there may be timeouts causing the copies to abort. I have not tried to do simultaneous copies to/from the NAS from different computers (not usually done at my home).The mfg?s mail in rebate is for money off other products by ZyXel which I don?t need.
Reviewed by: Lurker3

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: solid metal build not plastic, dual SATA drive support with RAID, front USB, Gigabit Network, media server, autobackup, FTP Server. Best of all: BitTorrent server!!

Weaknesses: included manual is very basic and lacking in detail. Get the online one at http://us.zyxel.com/upload/download_library/NSA220 User Guide.pdf

Overall Evaluation: Overall a very nice product, with more features and better quality construction that other manufacturers. It is solid metal build not plastic. It has dual SATA drive (up to 1TB each) support with RAID, front USB ports. It also features Gigabit Networking, which is much better tehan the 100MB many other products have. It also has a built in media server, FTP Server, and autobackup functions. But the best of all features, and one not found in most other products of this type, is a built-in BitTorrent download service!! You don't have to have your computer on to download torrents any longer...this will take over the workload, freeing up your computer for other tasks. It can also do direct downloads via FTP and HTTP, again bypassing your computer and reducing load on it. The paper manual that comes with the prodcut is just a Quick Start Guide, that doesnt go into very much detail. You can get the latest online full user manual at http://us.zyxel.com/upload/download_library/NSA220 User Guide.pdf Overall a very nice product, one I would easily recommend to anyone looking for this type of device. It is certainly one of the most solidly built, and feature-packed items out there.

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