NAS or External Drive?

gavinlp

gavinlp

gavinlp

Associate
Joined
13 Dec 2005
Posts
30
Location
Near Newcastle upon Tyne
Hi all,

I'm looking to sort out my back up and storage solutions to prevent any data losses.

I'm currently running a SFF (see sig) and backing up important files onto DVD every month. I would like to move all my music and photos etc to another drive - preferably external that I could access through my wireless network (therefore a NAS). But I would also like to be able to use the drive to be my main back up store / mirror so that if things go wrong I'm always up to date.

I cant really put a drive on the floor next to the pc as its in the lounge (some of us live in terraced houses you know) and not really enough room.

PC is used predominently for gaming and surfing!

Can anyone suggest a decent solution (probably a 250 GB is sufficient) I could use - budget is tight so the cheaper the better! :)

But if people think I should go down the External route and find somewhere to balance it then please let me know.
 
If you have space next to your wireless router the nas would be easy to set up. Depending on the unit transfer rates can be slow. I have a cheapo box which cost around £20, fit your own drive and it currently just about manages 2.5MB/s whereas through 100Mbps lan it should give ~6-7MB/s.

The transfer rate is just about ok for streaming MP3s or Standard def video streaming.

USB2 is a fair bit quicker, I depends on how much speed matters to you and how much data you really need to backup weekly.

E.G. For regular backups you could use usb2 and then use a pendrive to mirror key local files daily.

AD
 
You should have no problem streaming HD through a NAS. USB 2 hard drives suck, because of the CPU/chipset overhead and data loss (can happen on certain chipset/chipset combinations)
 
badbob said:
You should have no problem streaming HD through a NAS. USB 2 hard drives suck, because of the CPU/chipset overhead and data loss (can happen on certain chipset/chipset combinations)
Click to expand...

I get a solid 35MB/sec in HDtach with a USB2 drive.
 
Internal / esata will be faster. Also the problem of USB chipsets...read up on Prolific, very common USB 2 chipset, some have lots of problems. And 90% of the time I have no problems, on funny days it just doesn't see the drive, or just disconnects itself.
 
Got a NAS box myself and there quite nifty.

Very good for sharing across the house.

If you have no need for one, best getting USB or preferably eSATA.
 
Thanks

Thanks guys,

I've been chatting to the Mrs and we've decided that a NAS box stuck up near the router is the best way to go.

Transfer rates are not massively important as it's only photos and music backup (not live playing) and the mirror of the hard drive will only be done once a week as I'm not a major PC user (2 small kids means I dont have the time).

Will probably opt for this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-029-FC

Cheers.:)
 
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