Looking at buying a NAS

Soldato
Joined
31 Mar 2006
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Sydney Australia
I'm looking at getting a NAS hopefully around 1TB but I don't want to fall foul of the DRM restrictions that some of them have, i.e. I'd like to be able to stream music and video from it.

Any help is appreciated.
 
I'm in a similar position, looking for a dual bay NAS, there only seems to be a couple at the same price as the Icybox one, and that seems to be the most recommended.
 
I use a Qnap 409 myself with 4 x 1Tb drives in it
Its pretty amazing , the amount of features it has is damn good ( only thing is tho it is a bit expensive )

It shares media to my 3 PC's and also my PS3 , they do a smaller version with 2 drive bays the 209 ,
if your looking for something cheaper , also the transfer rates on the qnap stuff is a lot better than the competition.
 
Maybe its because I work in a room full of PC bits, but I have never understood the fascination with NAS when the most basic PC you can build from bits will do the same and in some cases a far better job...... :confused:
 
Well, you can still use old equipment. I have a P-III 1.4ghz with 512MB RAM for this purpose. Motherboard is a VIA so it's low powered and run from an Active PFC PSU. OS installed on laptop HDU (so 1-2W depending on use)... Can be done with the right parts.
 
i'd go for an atom motherboard and use that.. costs about £55 + case + psu + ram, but there's far more functionality :)
 
*Hijack*
Hi guys, so I currently have 4x 500GB Samsung F1's in my PC7+ but I don't like leaving my whole computer on all day when the rest of my house leech off me.
Its my birthday + christmas + just sold bike for £160 so I have a max of £300 to spend though ideally I'd look at around £250.
I've built several mini-itx setups over the past few months and definately seen the advantages of them, but I need my solution to be:
  • low power
  • can sit in a large cupboard (plenty of cooling air) and be forgotten
  • gigabit (OK atm it doesn't need it, but does in 6 months)
  • support for atleast 4x 3.5" SATA
  • prefer not as bit as MATX case unless its something like a v350 or sugo 01

I can't make up my mind whether I should go NAS or build a media server. Looked at the chenbro ES34069 a few times. Lovely case, but so expensive and would need a SATA controller card to get 4x sata connections on a mini-itx board. So the price adds quickly.

So if SFF then what and if NAS which would be best?
Thanks
 
For £250-£300 you're unlikely to get a fast NAS.
I think even the fastest SOHO NASs will only do about 15Mbytes/sec whereas even a budget PC could get >90Mbytes/sec depending on HD configuration and network equipment.
 
Noticed people talking about this: Synlogy Disk station
It seems to fit what I need, is it any good?
Or is a dual core atom with SATA controller and small case the way to go?

or even 2x smaller cheaper NAS like the Icydock?
 
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