NAS Storage for Mac

sbi5ar

sbi5ar

sbi5ar

Soldato
Joined
14 Apr 2006
Posts
3,699
Location
Nottingham
Right, well there was a toss up as to where to put this thread but I settled on the Apple Hardware sub-forum as I think I will get the best response from others that have apple machines.

I would like a NAS device that will do the following...

  1. Allow for high capacity drives (4tb)
  2. Have 4 bays (2 might be okay though)
  3. Allow the disks to be arranged in a RAID
  4. The content be accessible via an app on iOS devices
  5. The content be accessible from OSX machines
  6. The content be accessible from an apple TV
  7. Be accessible through a web app anywhere in the world
  8. Have USB 3.0 interface and the usual ethernet
  9. Quick edit: Able to have a section dedicated to a time machine backup (Knew I would forget something)

What can you guys suggest? (preferably like to hear form people who stream things on a NAS to Apple devices), or is it impossible to do this?

Budget - Would like to keep it relatively low, but if it costs more to get the job done and will last a long time then so be it.

Thanks folks!

A
 
Last edited:
Most recent NAS devices will cover 1-5 and 8 no problem. Synology boxes can be configured to use a hybrid raid setup that allows you to start with 2 drives and then expand the volume to 3, 4, etc while always providing single drive fault tolerance. I'd deffo go for 4 bays even if you only populate 2 with drives to begin with.

6. Apple TV is pretty locked down when it comes to streaming non-iTunes content. Your best bet is if you have a "Smart TV" - they usually have a DLNA client built in so you can just connect it straight to the NAS. Failing that, if you have an iPad / iPhone then you should be able to AirPlay to the ATV from a DLNA app.

7. Most NAS will come with a web-based admin interface and also some kind of remote download access for files. Remote media playing over web browser is a bit rarer but possible (see below).

If you want to stream media to mobile devices or in a browser, then you'll need something a bit beefier than a typical NAS to do the on-the-fly transcoding (i.e. a computer with a reasonable CPU). I use a Mac Mini which acts as a Plex media server and Plex client for the content stored on my Synology NAS. Plex also provides a really nice UI for keeping track of what you've watched whichever device you use to view it (including the web player).

*edit*
Actually just had a look and it seems Synology (no I don't work for them! :)) now do a NAS with hardware accelerated transcoding (https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS415play) so it avoids the need for a PC / Mac in the loop. I think there's a Plex server app for it too.
 
Last edited:
Qnap covers off 1-8 barring the Apple TV access but then it depends what you mean by Apple TV access. There are plenty of apps that can stream from a DLNA device to the Apple TV but unless you've got a jailbroken Apple TV you'll be hard pushed to find a NAS that can be accessed directly by an Apple TV.

I have a Qnap by the way and I did have a jailbroken Apple TV.
 
another vote for Qnap devices here.

The support is second to none, the firmware updates for them come thick and fast and they are always adding new functionality as part of them and they are added for free.

The feature list for them is simply too long to list and I've had excellent service out of my TS-419 and its been very good at predicting failure of drives prior to it happening and it warning me in plenty of notice. When firmware bugs have been introduced they've been quick to release updates that fix them.

They also have their own forums with tons of users on them and lots of useful advice. Never yet had an issue I couldn't find an answer to, usually from questions others have already asked on that forum that others have got answers to.

Can't recommend them enough.
 
Last edited:
sbi5ar said:
(preferably like to hear form people who stream things on a NAS to Apple devices), or is it impossible to do this?
Click to expand...

ATV streams from iTunes not network shares. I've found Direct Attached Storage far less troublesome than NAS. I've using one of THESE after binning my Synology. I'd recommend you weigh up the benefits and capabilities of each as they're very different animals. If this was Windows, Linux or XBMC I'd recommend NAS. But for iTunes streaming DAS wins hands down.

p.s. That Drobo is VERY expensive here.
 
Thanks for all the info and time folks... I'll have a look at what people have suggested and come back with questions no doubt!
 
the synology i linked actually lists streaming to apple TV in the features.

the syno management interface is excellent, and the OS is always rock solid in my experience.
 
monkeyspank said:
the synology i linked actually lists streaming to apple TV in the features.

the syno management interface is excellent, and the OS is always rock solid in my experience.
Click to expand...

DRM protected movies wont stream from Synolody iTunes server, so non of your iTunes purchases will work. There's also no garauntee that future versions of iTunes wont demand locally stored media - I remember MKV playback suddenly stopped working on PS3.

My experience with Synology was terrible and I wont be buying another, but I'm aware there's many who swear by their awesomeness so I wont be dissing the brand. But NAS just isn't suited to iTunes unless you're gonna run it 24/7 without putting it to sleep, even then iTunes on the host machine is slow as hell. By contrast, iTunes with DAS is super nippy and DAS can fire up and down as and when iTunes needs it to, even when the Mac's asleep. The convenience of that alone is priceless.
 
TheUncookedPie said:
DRM protected movies wont stream from Synolody iTunes server, so non of your iTunes purchases will work. There's also no garauntee that future versions of iTunes wont demand locally stored media - I remember MKV playback suddenly stopped working on PS3.

My experience with Synology was terrible and I wont be buying another, but I'm aware there's many who swear by their awesomeness so I wont be dissing the brand. But NAS just isn't suited to iTunes unless you're gonna run it 24/7 without putting it to sleep, even then iTunes on the host machine is slow as hell. By contrast, iTunes with DAS is super nippy and DAS can fire up and down as and when iTunes needs it to, even when the Mac's asleep. The convenience of that alone is priceless.
Click to expand...

To be honest I'd say these issues are more to do with iTunes and Apple's insistence on walled gardens rather than NAS devices. A NAS is a lot more flexible than a USB hard drive.
 
I rarely stream to my apple TV. I have one, but it mainly gets used for streaming photos from my iphoto library and watching youtube.

Most of the media streaming I now do to the DLNA app i have on my smart TV. That streams everything without complaint.

Apple TV is not the best media streamer and I'd be looking at something else tbh.
 
HP Microserver for £120 with XPenology (a modified version of the software run on Synology NAS's). As said streaming to a Apple TV from a NAS is a pain in the ass as you need a computer with iTunes acting as the middle man.
 
Last edited:
I'm using the two-bay Synology DS211j as storage for my MacBook. I've had DDNS setup for remote access (also "QuickConnect"), TimeMachine backups syncing to it and streaming media to my XBox One or iTunes server to iPhone/iPad. Only downside was format support for media files in transcoding. It could be different with recent models but I've mostly had to convert files to avi for XBox playback. This has been DVD-rips converted with avidemux.

I haven't tried Apple TV (hopefully soon) and you can either setup your own "cloud" with Cloud Station or sync to OneDrive/Google Drive. OneDrive didn't support Office 365 for business accounts as far as I'm aware.

I'd expect the newer 4-bay models to support 3Tb+ drives and USB 3.0. My main problem with the DS211j was the relatively slow speed when writing to it on Gigabit network.

I'd suggest looking over the Synology support forum for any issues that others might have picked up if you're interested.

Apart from the slow write speed/codec issues I've been very happy with the DS211j for multi-O/S support depending on what I was working on at the time and ease of use.
 
A bit more effort, but I run a HP micro server N54L.

Although it's a full blown server, I am running it with FreeNAS as the OS. This lets me have a ZFS file system with dual redundancy, and it hosts my Plex library on 5x4TB drives.

I've set up 2 shares (1 for me, 1 for the girlf) and the permissions allow me to control everything whilst keeping things locked down. There's plugins available which allow you to setup automatic off-site backup of the NAS using crashplan, as well as ways to use the server as a download centre for torrents/Usenet. There's literally so much I don't utilise!

I knew nothing about servers before I bought this, but it's been one of the best purchases. HP currently running a £60 cashback deal on the Gen8 models too.

Very helpful thread here too: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18216324

:)
 
LazyManc said:
Most recent NAS devices will cover 1-5 and 8 no problem. Synology boxes can be configured to use a hybrid raid setup that allows you to start with 2 drives and then expand the volume to 3, 4, etc while always providing single drive fault tolerance. I'd deffo go for 4 bays even if you only populate 2 with drives to begin with.

6. Apple TV is pretty locked down when it comes to streaming non-iTunes content. Your best bet is if you have a "Smart TV" - they usually have a DLNA client built in so you can just connect it straight to the NAS. Failing that, if you have an iPad / iPhone then you should be able to AirPlay to the ATV from a DLNA app.

7. Most NAS will come with a web-based admin interface and also some kind of remote download access for files. Remote media playing over web browser is a bit rarer but possible (see below).

If you want to stream media to mobile devices or in a browser, then you'll need something a bit beefier than a typical NAS to do the on-the-fly transcoding (i.e. a computer with a reasonable CPU). I use a Mac Mini which acts as a Plex media server and Plex client for the content stored on my Synology NAS. Plex also provides a really nice UI for keeping track of what you've watched whichever device you use to view it (including the web player).

*edit*
Actually just had a look and it seems Synology (no I don't work for them! :)) now do a NAS with hardware accelerated transcoding (https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS415play) so it avoids the need for a PC / Mac in the loop. I think there's a Plex server app for it too.
Click to expand...

Hi mate which Synology NAS do you run as I'm in a similar situation to yourself as I currently have a Mac Mini 2009 with 8GB RAM running Plex media server and home theatre from content stored on an external Western Digital 2TB Firewire hard drive so looking at something that can take the 2TB Firewire hard drive's place and leave everything else as it is as the drive is nearly full.

I don't think I'll need the DS415play as the Mac Mini will still be used.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom