QNAP TS-251A 2-Bay SOHO NAS Review

Direct Usage via HDMI

I really love how modern NAS have embraced the power they have and thanks to the built-in HDMI port, you can connect it directly to your TV for even more usage joy.

The TS-251A has two features that you can use here, either the Linux Station or the HybridDesk Station. You can either install it through the Config Panel or you can do it directly on your TV.

You don’t even need a keyboard to install it, you can do it with the included remote control.

It won’t take long to install and you can follow the progress on the screen.

The TS-251A even supports 4K/2K resolution for use with the latest generation of TVs and monitors. Once it’s ready with the installation, you’ll need to login in order to proceed. These are the same users that you’ve created previously though the config panel and you can also choose to let one user stay logged in this way.

In itself, the HybridDesk Station is empty, as we see here – but we can add a lot of extra apps to it in order to actually use it.

The easiest way to do this, in my opinion, is through the Control Panel in the GUI that we’ve used up until now on our computer or other computing devices.

As the NAS installs the apps, they become available on your TV too and all you need to do is to select them and launch them.

You can for example browse your favorite web pages in FireFox and Chrome.

You can even work on it via LibreOffice, may it be with presentations, sheets, or text.

You can stream all your media through Plex if that’s your favorite tool for this.

But my personal favorite is still KODI and it’s something that I use in pretty much all rooms of my apartment. It’s easy to use and there are thousands of useful plugins available for it.

Even Skype is available to you on your NAS.

You can also play games, but not all of them are optimized for usage with 4K setups as we see here with OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe).

But there are other games available too, such as the Battle for Wesnoth.