Mediasonic SU2LA Dual Bay RAID + NAS Review

Interior Impressions


When you first remove the two side panels you are greeted to the first real change seen compared to the other Mediasonic models. In the other models the interior is fairly spacious and nothing is cluttered or bunched up; rather, everything is well laid out and you can tell careful planning went into the placement of every part and its effects on airflow. In this model things are not quiet as nicely executed. To get Network connectivity, MediaSonic had to cram a lot more circuitry and another controller chip into the same (now seemingly small) space as before. Since the single PCB found on earlier modes was obviously at full capacity, the solution MediaSonic’s engineers came up with is to take advantage of the relatively unused backplane board. In this model most of the original PCB controller board found on the other two models has been relocated to the much larger backplane area, thus leaving room for a completely new Network PCB to fit in. In a nutshell this makes the interior very cramped and “messy” when compared to the earlier models. One does have to wonder how all this additional clutter will affect the NAS’s air flow characteristics.


The same exhaust fan which was used on the previous models is once again carried over to this model. Where this unit has twice as many PCBs and more heat producing parts to cool, one has to wonder if this small fan has enough cooling potential to get the job done. On the positive side it is a standard 40mm fan that uses a standard 2 pin connector and removal of the fan consists of unplugging it from the printed circuit board (PCB), and sliding it out of its cradle. This means that if you do find its cooling properties to be lacking it can quickly & easily be swapped out for a more high performance fan. Later in the review we will see if this extremely quiet fan can handle the heat even when the NAS is under the most demanding of loads for extended periods of time.


The all-metal two bay hard drive cage is mounted to the enclosure with two easy to remove screws. When these screws are removed a gentle horizontal tug and then vertical pull removes the drive cage & backplane board from the main PCB. The drive cage itself uses the reliable mounting method of screwing the hard drives to the sides of the drive cage, allowing for a very secure mounting that keeps vibrations to a minimum.


As mentioned previously the backplane on this unit does a lot more than just power the hard drive and act as a data intermediary. In this iteration all the internal RAID communications take place on the board. Since the controller is much closer to the hard drives and data has less distance to travel, it will be interesting to see if this translates to an improvement in real world performance numbers. Alternatively, where the data and external communication now have to go through a second chip before entering/leaving the NAS will any of the above befits me made moot? Or even worse, will the overall real world performance suffer because of the increase complexity of the controller circuits? We will answer this question later in the review.

Even though the backplane board itself is different from previous HUR1 models it is mounted to the hard drive cage the same way with the help of 4 simple screws. This does make it very easy to be removed and replace but extra care should be taken not to damage the sensitive board while removing the screws. Metal screwdriver + easily cut data pathways = high risk of dead backplane and this would not only ruin your new NAS but probably your whole day as well!


As you can see this HUR1-SU2LA RAID+ NAS model uses the same Oxford chip for their USB controller as did previous models. While its location greatly differs from that of the previous models we reviewed, the Oxford 921DS chip is still not only the dual SATA to USB controller chip, but is once again also responsible for all of the enclosure's RAID functions as well. Where this unit does use the same chip for RAID and USB as the earlier models it does raise an interesting question about the data recovery IF the enclosure itself fails: Would you be able to simply swap out the circuit board and not loose your data?


As commented on in previous models, Mediasonic once again opted for Evercon capacitors, a this time a whole bunch of them (and way more than used on previous models). Yes as before these capacitors are rated for 105c and we have no issue with this. What we do have issue with is the fact that “Evercon” was formerly known as “GSC”. This Chinese manufacturer was one of many that sold less than optimal capacitors to various motherboard and video manufactures earlier this decade. In some instances these capacitors quickly swelled and failed. It is for this reason that many video and motherboard manufactures stopped using older style capacitors and went to “solid state” capacitors.

Please note: This is a low voltage device and these capacitors are not the same model as the ones that failed. One should never condemn a company’s full line because of one bad product. We would however, be remiss in not mentioning Evercon’s history and let you the consumer decide if this is a big issue or not.


As you can see from the above picture Mediasonic opted for a Codetek 1618 network controller chip. This chip is very limited in capabilities in that it only supports 10/100 Ethernet and not the newer 1000 or “1GB” Ethernet. Why Mediasonic opted for a 10/100 Network controller is extremely puzzling but it is probably due to keeping costs down. This will certainly have a negative impact on its “marketability” as many of its competitors can use 10/100/1000 Ethernet. While no NAS in this price range can truly take full advantage of 1G Ethernet it would have been nice to have it as an option.