External Network HDD

Gilbern74 · 8 May 2006 at 15:50

Hi

I was thinking of upgrading/adding to my current HDD (partitioned Maxtor 120gb 7200 IDE) alongside my current system upgrade (Athlon X2, PCI-E graphics + mobo) by getting a new SATA II drive.

But looking at the Overclockers products I saw a nice looking Freecom 250Gb external network drive that would be great on my home LAN (for putting just mp3's, and video's to share with the kids PC's).

Is anyone else using one of these (or similar/another brand) who can recommend this?

ChrisLX200 · 8 May 2006 at 17:25

IF you have a Gigabit LAN then it's just about workable (personal experience) but if it's only 100MBit it's really too slow. MP3s are maybe OK, but videos (CDs @ 700MB or DVDs @ 4.5GB) are a real pain to transfer to the drive - and the DVD may not even play due to bitrate/Network CPU overhead limitations. Admittedly, the kid's computer was fairly low spec. What throughput do you get on your LAN?

benjo plz. · 8 May 2006 at 17:33

Best to use a network drive as a backup or shared storage, as it will be slow.

Gilbern74 · 8 May 2006 at 18:00

Phnom_Penh said:
Best to use a network drive as a backup or shared storage, as it will be slow.

Thanks guys.

yes - it will just be used for backup, storage, mp3 sharing and photo sharing, plus the odd video.

I've opted for the Netgear set up so I can use my old IDE HDD's in it.