NSA-310, 320, 325, S ? for linux and experimenting

[razorjack]

Hi!
I thought a lot about NAS and server for home, at the beginning I thought about Synology DS213j, but it's not so cheap, later, I thought about HP Microserver +freenas/OMV (as I want to run some simple Tomcat server (java)).
Now I see that Zyxels have similar hardware to Synology and I can install ArchLinux or Debian or other customized OS.
So now, I want to buy cheap Zyxel, to experiment with it, and later maybe HP Microserver, and use Zyxel only for backup.

I see that I need to avoid 'S' version? (it refers to 310s and 320s ? )
another question, NSA-320 has more RAM (512MB) so It's more preferable for being a simple server? or there is no really difference? (except 2 bays and ports).

I want to use it for storing some music and films (for DLNA in Samsung TV - works great with Serviio), and some backup (duplicate data from PC),
I want to experiment with linux (I'm not very accustomed to linux, but I'm a programmer (c/c++ once, now mainly java) so I guess I can handle it ), Java etc.

So, NSA-310 or NSA-320 ? or something different?

[WarheadsSE]

The 'S' models appear to be just a re-skin of the devices, I can see no other discernible differences.

[razorjack]

I'm asking about 'S' because I found posts that says there is something different (bootmanager?) and people have problems with debian squeeze installation http://forum.nas-central.org/viewtopic. ... 49&t=14173
Ok I see I can abondon 310 (not enough memory), so linux will work on 320 and 320S without problems?

Does NSA320S have only 256MB RAM? I see some specs and it says 512 or 256 sometimes (and very often photos are mistaken)

[WarheadsSE]

I don't know about the S, as I have never had one in person, nor prior heard of it. The NSA320 is confirmed to have had 512M.

[razorjack]

NSA320S is updated (renewed?) version (and cheaper than NSA320), it has 256MB of RAM according to this datasheet ftp://ftp2.zyxel.com/NSA320S/datasheet/NSA320S_1.pdf
Powered by a 1.0 GHz CPU and 256 MB memory, the ZyXEL NSA320S 2-Bay Media Server works as
So, better to get 512? or 256 is enough ?