NAS for PC & Mac Mini

Raelthorne · 19 Mar 2012 at 19:25

Hi folks,

I have a query about NAS'. I'm a newbie to the topic so be gentle

I currently have a PC with an external HD connected with all my music and video files stored on it. I'm getting a Mac Mini so I'd like to be able to set up a NAS, put all my multimedia files on that and be able to access them from both devices. In essence I'd like to have my local iTunes content stored on the NAS.

Am I correct in thinking that to access the NAS, it's just a matter of physically connecting it to the same router the PC & Mac are connected to, and then accessing the NAS from either machine through an IP address in a web browser or via a W7/OS X program supplied by the NAS manufacturer?

Getting down to the rest of business, can you recommend which NAS to go for (budget of £300) and I'd like to get a decent amount of storage (at the moment my media library weighs in about 600gb but will keep expanding)

Thanks for any and all help,

Rael

welshdragon · 19 Mar 2012 at 21:24

Hi Rael

You are correct in your thinking. Your NAS is hooked up straight to your router and then other devices access it through that as part of the network. Depending on NAS you then access that direct via the web browser.

I have a synology DS212 with Two 2tb Hard drives in Raid 1. This gives me 2tb of space and the security of the information being mirrored (raid 1). I can't recommend Synology enclosures highly enough. You can check out my reviews of them here.

I find the DS212 an absolute breeze. It's feature rich. I have shares mapped to my computer and it has excelelnt media server features. Including a built in itunes server. I particularly like the ios apps for accessing my media on my iphone/ipad. Bit more on the features here.

The only real competitors to Synology are Qnap or getting a HP Microserver or similar with freenas or whs on it.

If you have any questions about my experiences I'm happy to help and you can either email me via my website or the trust button.

Just wondering is your budget of £300 for the enclosure only or including drives? You should be able to get a DS212J with two 2tb HD's for just a shade over £300.

Raelthorne · 19 Mar 2012 at 22:25

welshdragon said:
Hi Rael

You are correct in your thinking. Your NAS is hooked up straight to your router and then other devices access it through that as part of the network. Depending on NAS you then access that direct via the web browser.

I have a synology DS212 with Two 2tb Hard drives in Raid 1. This gives me 2tb of space and the security of the information being mirrored (raid 1). I can't recommend Synology enclosures highly enough. You can check out my reviews of them here.

I find the DS212 an absolute breeze. It's feature rich. I have shares mapped to my computer and it has excelelnt media server features. Including a built in itunes server. I particularly like the ios apps for accessing my media on my iphone/ipad. Bit more on the features here.

The only real competitors to Synology are Qnap or getting a HP Microserver or similar with freenas or whs on it.

If you have any questions about my experiences I'm happy to help and you can either email me via my website or the trust button.

Just wondering is your budget of £300 for the enclosure only or including drives? You should be able to get a DS212J with two 2tb HD's for just a shade over £300.

Thanks for the reply, I was thinking of £300 for the NAS. I have a Seagate 2TB in my PC, which I'd be happy to move to the NAS and pick up another 3 2TB Drives. I was thinking of 4 X 2TB drives in a 4 Disk RAID Setup, not sure which one yet.

welshdragon · 19 Mar 2012 at 22:39

Perhaps something like the Synology DS411 or DS411J? Or perhaps a HP Microserver with the cashback offer. Chuck in a copy of windows home server and go.

Essexraptor · 20 Mar 2012 at 01:06

For a newbie - I would go with welshdragon's suggestion to be honest.

Even a 2 bay model with 2 x 3TB drives in RAID 1 will give you a large chunk of storage for at least 18 months upwards while you grow and expand your knowledge.

After a bit of experience you can always sell and upgrade to a bigger unit.

If your current 2TB does not contain any vital data - I would slap it in an enclosure and use it as a means of backing up the NAS whilst you learn.

As a relative newbie myself it has saved me on more than 1 occasion in the past year or so

Raelthorne · 20 Mar 2012 at 03:09

Thanks for the advice, another question for you. I'm slighty be confused about something. My PC works on NTFS which OS X can read but cannot write to, in turn OS X uses HFS.

When you install either 2 or 4 Drives to the NAS, depending on which one I get, does the Synology NAS apply its own file system that can be read and written to by Windows and OS X or even my Android Phone?

Essexraptor · 20 Mar 2012 at 09:14

yep

It applies it's own file system and DSM is installed to a small partition. Synology supports Win, OSX and Linux file transfer protocols

It's really simple. I have a much older, single bay, DS107 at home which only uses a much older DSM (3,1) and I can share all the folders and files between Windoze, Linux and OSX machines

welshdragon · 20 Mar 2012 at 10:32

As Essexraptor has said. The enclosure uses its own file system that can be accessed by windows/mac os/linux. And as he has also said, if you start with a smaller unit it is fairly easy to migrate to a new synology system in the future depending on what raid type you use. If you look here it will tell you about migration and whats possible/not possible. There's a nice migration table there. Look at the second one as you will be running the latest DSM.

The DSM software allows you to export your settings so that when you migrate you can reload your settings and not have to set everything up again.

It is also worth having a backup of important files beyond the nas. For example I have two 2tb drives in raid 1 in my DS212. They are a mirror of my data drive in my pc (os and apps on an ssd). If the nas failed I have the one in my pc and vice versa. The NAS dishes data out around the house then. I only do this as I know hard drives can and do fail being mechanical devices. Odd's of both failing together though are slim but I don't like taking the chance. Or you could hook up a drive to the nas in an external enclosure as suggested. I prefer mine in my pc but thats up to you.