Alas, the TS-251A’s hardware-assisted 4K transcoding didn’t work as well as we’d hoped. The QNAP video app running in its own window-within-a-browser-window. Sadly, you can’t redirect video or audio through its HDMI port. You can even attach a USB TV tuner to the TS-251A and record OTA or cable shows. The Roon service itself is pricey, but it delivers CD-quality sound from nearly any type of file.

QNAP’s boxes also support the audiophile Roon streaming service with its high-quality up-sampling via a free third-party server. The QNAP’s multimedia software features include iTunes and DLNA serving, web apps for playback directly off of the box, and apps for iOS and Android mobile devices that do the same. The QNAP TS-251A is a fast reader, but its write performance was near the bottom of the pack. Press the copy button next to the ports and voila! The back of the TS-251A is home to two USB 2.0 ports, dual gigabit ethernet ports supporting aggregation, as well as speaker and microphone jacks, just in case your direct-attached display doesn’t have speakers, or if you want to feed audio to something more sonorous.

On the front of the TS-251A are a Type B USB port, a Type B micro-USB port, and an SD card slot for quickly copying multimedia files to the box.

Best nas for home use 2011