NAS advice?

Magic_x_uk · 1 Apr 2011 at 14:07

Hi, I have a Netgear NG834v2 router. Can I connect a hard drive to it and is that then called a NAS?

Basically I would like to have access from my wireless laptop to a Hard drive whilst at home without having to turn the main PC on.

Not 100% if that is what a NAS is.

Hopefully someone can help.

SparkyG · 1 Apr 2011 at 19:32

A NAS is a Network Attached Storage device which basically is a Hard drive(s) that is conected to your network via router. The NAS will then be accesssable to any PC/ laptop/Media streamer etc that is on teh network plus some give access from outside the network via the internet.

If you want to connect a hard drive to your router it must be a network drive i.e have a LAN connection

Magic_x_uk · 1 Apr 2011 at 22:53

Can you give me a link to a overclockers suitable one?

and also, will it work with my router ?

JonJ678 · 2 Apr 2011 at 02:08

Your router doesn't have a USB port, so connecting a usb flash stick or hard drive isn't an (easy) option. It might be possible with a soldering iron.

The hard drive, along with the box enclosing it, would be the NAS. The hard drives themselves are generic internal drives, but the case you put it into needs to have an ethernet connection. As a result you can buy disk-filled ones, and ones which you supply your own hard drive for.

I'm very fond of my cheap western digital drive (as in sig), which would indeed work just fine with your router. It comes with windows compatible file sharing (and various other things) already set up out of the box. However other drives, such as this one, will not connect to your router as it only has a USB port.

Network attached hard drives are excellent in many ways, but don't expect amazing read and write speeds with it, especially over wireless. It's not as quick as a USB drive unless you're using a gigabit wired network.

Randall8686 · 3 Apr 2011 at 00:14

can highly recommend synology, I Have one and it is Fantastic, it downloads your torrents and downloads for you can access it from any where in the world stream music video over lan and web, media server and DLNA compliant. really are fantastic bits of kit would never be without mine now, you can setup multiple user account too checkout there website.

sypher365 · 3 Apr 2011 at 17:20

Randall8686 said:
can highly recommend synology, I Have one and it is Fantastic, it downloads your torrents and downloads for you can access it from any where in the world stream music video over lan and web, media server and DLNA compliant. really are fantastic bits of kit would never be without mine now, you can setup multiple user account too checkout there website.

This.

Depending on how much storage you want both of these are good for the money.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-001-SY will give you 2 drives so 2x2tb drive = about 3.6tb storage or 1.8 protected (where the drives mirror so constanlty backed up)

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-002-SY this is what I run with 4 drives in raid5 so got about 5.4tb of storage with one drive working as backup incase a drive fails to rebuild.

quite a few synology reviews on kitguru.co.uk