Review: QNAP HS-210

Conclusion

As the data needs of the modern-day consumer evolve, there's a greater call for centralised storage solutions that serve multiple devices and guarantee peace of mind through regular backups.

For these reasons, we would suggest that network-attached storage servers will prove to be popular throughout 2014 and beyond. Offering a high-capacity storage repository that's accessible to just about any device in and out of the home, a NAS is well-suited to households furnished with smartphones, tablets, PCs and various other multimedia devices.

Building on these home-user possibilities, QNAP believes that the route to mainstream NAS adoption is to make its servers increasingly user-friendly and more presentable than ever before. The first product to reach for that goal, the HS-210, takes the core of a traditional QNAP NAS and moulds it into a slim, fanless form factor that's designed to fit unobtrusively into a living-room environment.

We like the idea, and we do believe that a NAS can become the centrepiece of any home multimedia setup, but while the HS-210 covers the basics well, there's still room for improvement. Looking ahead, we'd like to see subsequent models add a fan that only kicks in when absolutely necessary - going completely fanless still feels risky for what's ultimately a data-storage server - and the addition of HDMI output would give QNAP the HDTV companion status that it's looking for.

The Good

Capable performance
Slim, stylish design
Wealth of features for the home user
Would be practically silent with SSDs
Low power consumption

The Bad

Is passive cooling for hard disks a good thing?
Lacks HDMI output for direct playback

HEXUS.awards

QNAP HS-210

HEXUS.where2buy

The QNAP HS-210 fanless NAS is available to purchase from Scan Computers*.

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