NSA 310S 1-Bay Zyxel NAS enclosure

NSA 310S 1-Bay Zyxel NAS enclosure only, drives sold separately

WD Blue, Green or Purple drives are not recommended for use in NAS environments, please consider using WD Red hard drives for desktop RAID and NAS environments.

NSA 310S is Simple

Zyxel’s NSA310S is a simple single-bay NAS enclosure which aims to be more of a media server than a top-specification NAS. It doesn’t skimp on specification though – powered by a 1.2GHz ARM processor accompanied by 256MB RAM, it should have enough grunt to dish out large amounts of data and stream HD content.

Installing a hard disk is quick and easy and the software included was straightforward – you should have the NSA310S up and running in less than half an hour. The main user interface is very slick and fast, but only provides access to a fraction of the NSA 310S’s options. These, including settings for the media server, download manager, power and storage management, are located under the System Settings.

The NSA310S feels well made, and a useful USB port on the front panel makes it easy to copy files straight from external storage devices with the copy/sync button above it. The rear of the enclosure has a further USB port along with an eSATA port, while a 40mm fan provides cooling.

NSA 310S is a Media server

Zyxel pitches the NSA310S as a media server, and to this end it supports UPnP and is DLNA certified so can stream content to phones, consoles and media streamers, and it can also act as an iTunes and Logitech Media Server. However, that’s not all it can do. You can also upload photos and videos directly to Flickr and YouTube, without the need for a PC, and the NAS has one of the best download clients we’ve seen in a NAS enclosure. This supports BitTorrent and eMule through a drag-and-drop download manager, so you can download files straight to the NSA310S, and the NAS can sort files automatically into specific folders.

The Zyxel NSA310S is easy to use, works well, and is very good value. It may not have the fastest transfer speeds we’ve seen, but at this price it’s a bargain.

Product Specification :