A cheap NAS quick enough for HD video streaming

sswats

sswats

sswats

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I'm currently using one PC to store all videos and another HTPC in the other room to stream off it.
So looking for a NAS to take the strain off the PC but apparently the cheap ones are too slow for full HD. So I'm looking for the cheapest one that will be capable of it
I guess the only vital feature is to share folders. Xbox 360 or PS3 compatibility would be a bonus but far from essential.
 
I'm planning on setting up an HTPC and was thinking of a similar setup i.e. Main PC + HTPC + NAS.

But after reading a load of reviews, most of the out-of-the-box NAS setups such as WD, Maxtor, LaCie are pricey, noisy and most importantly have very poor transfer speeds that aren't really sufficient for HD.

I didn't think there was much point custom building a NAS (cost, space etc) and the Icybox setup a lot of people use doesn't seem that great so instead I thought what will be cheapest and easiest is just to stick 2 1TB harddisks in the HTPC for the time being. That way you can use it as both a NAS for the other PCs and as an HTPC and as all the HD stuff is stored locally you'll have no streaming problems. Transfer rates should also be quicker across the network to other PCs than the WD, Maxtor NAS from what I've read too.

So essentially, what might be easiest and cheapest is just to upgrade your HPTC's hard disks.
 
For streaming video you need to be able to sustain 50Mb/s comfortably at the maximum, that's for AVC on blu-ray which spikes into the high 40's. Any NAS device can do that without the slightest problem.
 
AbsenceJam said:
For streaming video you need to be able to sustain 50Mb/s comfortably at the maximum, that's for AVC on blu-ray which spikes into the high 40's. Any NAS device can do that without the slightest problem.
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Heh, I wouldn't be so sure...

Maxtor Shared Storage

The Gigabit Ethernet port makes its presence felt for general performance with a straightforward drag and sort copy of a 690MB video file from a Supermicro 3.2GHz Pentium D workstation taking 48 seconds for an average write speed of 14.4MB/sec. Copying the file back to the workstation delivered average read speeds of 19.2MB/sec.
Click to expand...

Others

Tests run on an Infrant Techologies ReadyNAS NV and a Thecus N5200 RouStor returned 12.3MB/sec and 14MB/sec respective write rates and 25MB/sec and 26.6MB/sec read speeds.
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From: http://www.trustedreviews.com/networking/review/2007/01/02/Maxtor-Shared-Storage-II-1TB/p2
 
Problem is I want to run 2 HTPC's which is why i don't want to just cram hard drives into one of the HTPC. My main PC also acts as a HTPC.

So in practice would i be able to get that consistent speed of access with ANY NAS. even the cheapo £40 ones?
anyone have expereince of it or can recommend one

As for using a 1Gb hub. would my main router which is connected top the net and giving out the DHCP have to be a 1 Gb hub or just the hub that the 2 PC's will be connected on?
 
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