ZyxelPersonal Cloud Storage Server [4-Bay] with Remote Access and Media Streaming, UK Plug [NAS542]

I had a Zyxel NSA310S for many years used mainly as a media server in the house and it worked flawlessly. Until Microsoft decided to abandon SMBv1 in the latest 10 upgrades and Windows lost the drive shares at every boot. With a heavy heart, the 310S went to someone still running Windows7 courtesy of Facebook Marketplace and I opted for the NAS326 2x bay. A good price even though I had to purchase another 3Tb drive (didn't have to but Raid appealed rather than the 5x ancient 3.5" drives I used for backup) The good bits: inserting drives is simplicity itself and takes moments and there are any number of informative Youtube videos on connecting to the web and PC. The not so good bits: The manager app seems to have a resolution issue and is kind of folded over on itself so is hard to read. The original behaved the same on more than one different monitor and system so I know it's not me. The shares on Windows disappeared as before and attempting to contact Zyxel is a non starter. They talk the talk, but sadly don't walk the walk. Every attempt I made to send a support message failed, it may be possible but I couldn't manage it. In the end, I found out (Google) that it was the Windows credentials manager which had retained traces of the old NSA drive and the admin/passwords didn't match. Once the old NAS was deleted and the IP of the new one confirmed it all works as expected. A very reliable (if my NSA310S is anything to go by) and by comparison with the competition..inexpensive NAS. Only marred slightly by an amateurish app and unavailable support. Despite that it is highly recommended.

Delivered with UK power lead with two pin female connector, instead of the required clover leaf connector. No power, so no meaningful review possible.Edit 23/12/2019I bought my own lead rather than risk returning and being delivered another with the same incorrect lead. To be fair the Zyxel Helpdesk eventually emailed a spares request form to obtain the correct lead.I've now commissioned the 4 bay with assistance from the user forum. The assistance was required, because the manual focuses solely of 'How' to do individual activities, without fully explaining 'Why' or what your best option is in certain situations.I had three previous Zyxel hard drive bays; two NSA310's and one NSA325. I could not swap the disks physically, as Zyxel have changed the drive format for the NAS542, I had to purchase an additional disk and copy the previous data across the network one disk at a time.The NAS542 now performs well and I'm pleased I purchased it. However, it could have been so much easier...

The use case for this is rapidly vanishing.Prime members can upload all their family photos on the cloud, videos can be put on YouTube with a private setting and music well that might be the only use for a truly massive mp3 collection.For backing up documents, again google docs or office 365Are you a content creator or hoarder of video and music? Eg you buy cheap DVDs from charity shops RIP them with handbrake and then redonate them, then maybe this will save your house from much clutter.Configuring the dlna server was baffling.It would show up on wired network but not wifiYou had to tell it it was assigned a static IP address then the upnp would then work, that's right plug and play that stands for, not fiddle and hope!I only got it because the old nsa325 I had would not do smb2 so no chromebook could see it

I bought this primarily to use as a Time Machine backup for my Mac. One advantage that this unit had is that it is possible to put the Time Machine backup on a separate user account, allocating that user only a portion of the available disk space. The effect of this is that the size of the backup can be limited to prevent it from taking over the entire disk. The backups have taken place hourly since I installed it, without fuss and without fail. As my previous USB backup disk has become unreliable this has been a godsend. The operation of this seems rather quicker than a very similar Asustor unit that is connected to the same network by some margin. It is slightly louder than the Asustor, but only by a small margin. Given the price, I'd say this is a bargain. I've had (and still have) some other ZyXEL equipment which have been rock solid and this gave me the confidence to buy this model.

Performance ~30MB upload with Ethernet cable and Raid 5 configured. (Single user).User interface: not allow remote power off.Not equipped with copy button.Prefer acts as backup storage.

Installation from guide in box does not work. Should really visit website and download pairing utility.UI is not bad. Unfortunately cloud functionality from advertisement does not work as expected. Cloud only works within local network or depends on your ability to externalize it, which make it far less useful

I've owned a NAS542 for several years and found it to be reliable and easy to configure. So much so that I decided to buy a second one given its low cost relative to other NAS solutions. I've populated the device with four white label 10TB disks shucked from WD MyBook enclosures. Doing so invalidates the warranties but it's probably the cheapest way of obtaining suitable disks if you intend to run the NAS only when required and not 24x7. I didn't experience the reported 3.3V third pin issue with these disks in the device.

I have a NAS 540 and bought this to create a Raid setup. Installed fresh hard drives and tried to setup Raid. 7 days later still not done!! Useless with raid build times in excess of a week!! I won’t be coming back Zyxel.