Mediasonic SU2LA Dual Bay RAID + NAS Review

Conclusion

The SU2LA is a puzzling mixture of ease of use and frustrating, needless complications. The instructions are not complete and unless you know exactly what you are doing you may end up hitting a seemingly dead end. If you do actually know what you are doing, its instructions are annoying at worst and ignorable at best. This duality does not stop when the installation process is finished; rather, it seems to be a reoccurring theme throughout the SU2LA’s user experience. On the one hand you have a robust enclosure, but on the other its performance is purposely hobbled by MediaSonic.

This annoyance can be overlooked as most of its intended customers do not use anything but their 10/100 router for their home network and we will never notice its lack of speed. However, for the user who has a 1GB network you may wish to look at more expensive NAS’s and invest in a good 10/100/1000 capable NAS.

With all that being said anyone seriously considering purchasing their first NAS for their home network that does not want to spend megabucks on accessories or features they will never use should give this unit some serious consideration. While I would be hesitant to recommend it for a power user, HTPC or any environment where speed is important; it could be a cheap & easy way of setting up a small FTP server, a good music server or just storage of important documents.

Overall with an online retail price of less than $120 this “no frills” basic NAS can be considered a good beginners model as long as one understands its quirks and limitations before buying. More importantly if you do outgrow it and want to invest in a bigger NAS, this initial outlay of funds is minimal and will seem like money well spent. If however you find this unit performance and features “good enough” you can rest assured for if it does break when its older you know that your data is still safe and will require only a modest investment to get it back.


Pros:

- Price
- Good Front Side information display
- Good USB performance
- User replaceable fan
- Quiet operation
- Can use any standard 3.5” SATA Hard Drive(s)


Cons:

- Plastic body
- 10/100 Ethernet
- Slow RJ45 performance
- No printed instructions
- 1 year warranty
- Incomplete installation instructions
- Mysterious “hang” during extended test
- Not easily identifiable as a NAS enclosure
- Packaging can be confused with other HUR1 Models