Zyxel NSA-221

NAS Reviews: Network Attached Storage

The Zyxel NSA221 is a twin-bay NAS that isn't supplied with hard drives. It does, however, have several innovative multimedia functions, such as a smart drag and drop tool that automatically sorts music, video and photo files copied onto the NAS into the relevant folders. It sounds great, but let's see how this NAS really shapes up. First of all, let's take a quick look at the product's design. The Zyxel NSA221 looks like a typical two-bay NAS, with a compact design that's not much bigger than the two 3.5-inch drives it's designed to house. Note that it doesn't come with an adapter for 2.5-inch drives. Connections are fairly limited, with just one Gigabit Ethernet port and three USB 2.0 ports, one of which is on the front panel. The external power transformer is a small, discreet block and there's a button on the front of the NAS to sync files or make copies of folders as and when required. Once we'd installed our two WD VelociRaptor hard drives, the built-in software automatically configured the NAS in relation to the options we selected. Our tests were carried out with the drives in RAID 1 mode for safe data back-up, but the NSA221 also has RAID 0 and JBOD modes.