ZyXel NSA-220 Network Storage Appliance w/ DLNA Compatibility - NSA220 - Capturing the Next Wave of Digital Home Evolution

Seem to be a solid appliance, will see if reliability is up to the looks. Nice, easy to use web-UI. I'm using it on a 100Mb LAN so can't comment on max network throughput, but I wouldn't expect much as it is a consumer oriented product. My only disappointment is that my older Omnify MP3 streamer doesn't work with the DLNA media server.
 
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After reading some reviews (like Pete's from Seattle), I was worried that my Xbox 360 wouldn't detect the NSA-220 as a media server. I tried to verify their compatibility at DLNA.org - but the Xbox 360 isn't listed as a DLNA compliant device. I still thought it was a good deal, so I bought it and two 1TB Hitachi 0A38016 hard drives. First, I updated the NSA-220 firmware from 1.2 to 3.12. This required booting from a USB thumbdrive, and clearing my browser's cache. Then, I installed and formatted the hard drives, and configured them for RAID1. The web gui refused to do this in Firefox, but worked just fine in IE6. The process took almost 3 hours to complete. By the way, I now see 916 GB available in RAID1. After verifying that everything was working, I copied an .avi video file to the NSA-220's video share and turned on my Xbox 360. I was thrilled to see "NSA-220" appear as a media source in My Xbox >> Video Library. Playback was smooth and instantaneous. So far, so good!
 
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Pros: Works as advertised, great price, ease of installation, quiet and sleeps when inactive and wakes up without any timeouts on the computer. Great copy function from cards or disks plugged into the USB port. I was able to populate the disks relatively quickly instead of copying everything over the network. Cons: 1)If powered off (power failure) without being properly disconnected from the computers you need to press the reset button to be able to reconnect. The environment remains intact but the admin password is reset to the default. 2) The mail in rebate is for money off other products by ZyXEL which I don’t need. 3) No ability to connect directly to a computer’s USB port for direct transfers. 4) USB ports (two) are only on the front so my permanent printer connection sticks out of the front of the NAS and is in the way. 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).
 
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Fast shipping, easy to install the 2 WD Caviar Green 1.5 TB drives I also bought. Up and running without a hitch. I'm running Win XP, Vista, and Ubuntu Linux on my home network and sharing or transferring files among the computers is easy. I did have a problem with the Linux machine using firefox/gmail not picking up an email attachment stored on the server. After transferring the file from the NAS to the Linux machine, it attached without a problem. I haven't installed the provided software yet, so I cannot comment on that aspect. But, for the size, functionality (DLNA) and low power consumption, this is the way to go!
 
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I've had mine for about 1 month. Seems to work great in my home network. The user interface is very simple and easy to use. The read/write performance is decent. Could be faster, but I'll always want something faster. I use it as a file server and a print server mostly. I did borrow my brother's PS3 and confirmed that the media server works. I have not tried the web server. Here's my setup: Cable Modem -> Gateway router/FW -> Switch (VLAN1) -> VPN box -> Switch (VLAN2) On VLAN1, I have my NAS connected at 1GE, wireless AP (FE-PoE), Vonage MTA, and PC's.
 
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I bought this because I needed RAID 1 which offered more protection for my data. It has worked great from day one with the exception of it being able to send media to my Xbox 360. This is a problem with the Xbox not the Zyxel however. Setting it up is easy and I really like the download function as I do not have to leave a computer on to download torrents. It even looks nice. Highly recommended!
 
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For an entry level NAS, the NSA-220 seems to be one of the better choices. It is one of the cheaper NAS devices in the "bring your own disk" (BYOD) category. The main selling feature for me was the Gigabit NIC, Web GUI, FTP and Torrent Services, and the expandability compared to Non-BYOD models. <br><br> I have installed two of the Western Digital WD5000AACS Green Power models. They are 500Gb. The first time I installed them, it took quite a firm push to get them seated properly in the bays. After the first time, the drives were much easier to seat. The NSA-220 in combination with these drives, runs extremely quite. On occasion, depending on usage, I can hear the drives spin up or shut down (one of the green power features to reduce power consumption during inactive periods). The entire device runs very cool. Very little heat can be felt exiting the unit. <br><br> With the NSA-220, as you are probably aware, you can have RAID-0, RAID-1, or simple volumes. I have chosen to use RAID-1 since I am using the NSA-220 as a primary backup for all of my irreplacable files. You can install the software that ZyXEL provided, but I for one, am never a fan of company-included software. When possible I try to avoid it. I did install this software to investigate the backup features it provides...but it unfortunately loads a memory resident application. If this sort of thing doesn't bother you - go for it. It seemed like a slick little app for backups. Otherwise, I would just recommend using the Windows Backup utility. you can also access the device like any other share from the run prompt (i.e. \\shareName ). This works extremely well for adding a shortcut to your desktop. You can also map different portions of the device. The admin portion can be mapped to a different drive than your main storage area. The admin area requires the admin user's creditials by default but that can be changed from the web gui. <br><br> As for performance, it is what I would expect from a NAS under one thousand dollars. The gigabit nic performs only slightly better than a one hundred megabit nic. Small Net Builder has some great statistics on network device transfer rates. I also simulated a drive failure for both performance and recovery reassurance. Once I had transfered 50Gb, I shutdown the device (since the drives are not hotswapable) and pulled a drive. I them attached the drive to my computer and formatted it. I then powered up the device with just one drive in it. Via the Web GUI, it detected that the RAID was in a degraded condition. All of the file were still available. I powered it back down, reinstalled the freshly formatted drive, booted the NSA-220 and logged back into the WEB GUI. Once there, I saw that the RAID was still degraded, but I had an option to repair the raid. The repair took approximately two and a half hour on my 500Gb drives. The data was available the entire time. <br><br> The bottom line is that for under five hundred dollars this is a great unit. The gigabit nic performance is the sole reason this product did not receive the full five stars from me. If you can afford something over one thousand dollars, you can find a device that will provide better performance from the gigabit nic. <br><br> Good luck with your decision!
 
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