Review on 💾 Zyxel 4-Bay Personal Cloud Storage Server: Remote Access, Media Streaming, Disks not Included [NAS540] by Tim Kallimanis

What I use it for: As a file history destination on my Windows 10 machines Works great. The backup images themselves are always bad for some reason. I can remotely view the most important computer files (backups) even if they are not working. As a web server for a small personal website, NoIP.com works great. The NAS upgrade app for NoIP works great. Storing music and video files and serving them to anything including tablets/phones works great, especially for Fire TV (with DLNA client app). As an OwnCloud server to provide instant uploads from my phone camera anywhere and (literally) keep my own cloud to sync important data between devices. As FTP storage for a webcam. PROS: Easy to set up, web/ftp server works great, media services work well, didn't freeze or crash. had technical problems last year, fast enough to stream video to two tablets simultaneously (didn't try again). Requires a reliable network to function properly. I didn't even get full functionality until I upgraded my router to the WRT3200ACM. It is reliable (1+ years). CONS: No encryption, only sharing/user access control. The CPU couldn't handle it anyway, it truncates the backups as a workaround (they don't work anyway). I spilled quite a bit of water after losing my public IP address. The Zyxel Drive app connects but always hangs when trying to retrieve something. Accessing your data remotely is fine IF you have a public IP address via Web/FTP/WebDAV, but Zyxel's cloud apps are rubbish. I'm currently using Softether for VPN on my home computer, but it's terribly slow. The UPnP setup talks to my router but says the ports are already in use and need to be remapped. It's easier to just set up DMZ (potentially dangerous) or forwarding manually on the router. The fan is quiet but doesn't move much air and doesn't seem very responsive, the drives get hot at 60C with the cover on and 50C without the cover. It vibrates (probably can't help with 4 discs), some rubber furniture feet helped avoid noise on the wooden shelf it sits on. The processor is SLOW and the interface is not fast. In fact, the file transfer speed seems reasonable, 100MB/s over the network. OwnCloud client is older but works quite well, haven't seen any updates for quite some time. However, it hides the OwnCloud data directory in an inaccessible system directory. I was able to change this to a normal share via WinSCP and the config file, but you still cannot access or back up your OwnCloud except via a client on another computer. The biggest downside is the junk backup app. At first I thought it would be very easy to back up the RAID to a large external one. I've never had a full backup on an external or internal drive (prior to using all 4 RAID bays) and certainly would never trust it for a restore. I back this up using WinRAR on my main computer, which is tedious and obviously not real-time. The lack of new packages to secure the cloud service is quite disqualifying in 2018. The SMART flags don't notify you in any way - I have a limit drive that I need to monitor manually. incomprehensible. I bricked mine and had to restore from a firmware settings backup. It's not a big deal to me other than a new computer having to install a default certificate or you keep getting browser errors saying the certificate is expired/invalid, bad if you want an HTTPS website or really block it from public access . HTTP works fine, but then your only firewall depends on your admin password, which isn't great. Your sharing permissions become crucial here. In summary, it was basically a good car, not a great one. However, its features and capabilities are definitely dated, and given the HD's cost, it's hard to recommend when so many newer models do more.