NAS

Roalith

Roalith

Roalith

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Joined
7 Sep 2003
Posts
2,280
Location
Hampshire
Looking for a decent dual-bay 3.5" drive NAS box for my home network, something in the < £100 range preferred - whilst all answers are responses, not all responses are answers, but any advice is appreciated :)

My current network set up is a TP-Link WDR3600 running in to a Virgin Superhub in modem mode. Off the TP-Link I have an HTPC and my desktop running off gigabit Cat 5e. A couple of laptops on wireless.

Currently the HTPC has a 2 TB 3.5" drive, and as to date it's also been acting as our backup network drive it has now got to the point where it is rapidly filling up.

So, I've picked up another 2 TB drive, and I plan on upgrading the HTPC to 3 or 4 TB, and repurposing the current 2 TB drive in a raid-1 array with the new one.

All well and good, but the HTPC chassis can't fit any more 3.5" drives.

The main two drives I've been looking at so far - the D-Link ShareCenter Pulse DNS-320L and the Zyxel NSA325 both seem more or less to fit the bill.

Of the two, the Zyxel seems the better as it is both quieter and has better bandwidth performance (I keep reading that the D-Link only pulls 11MB/s?)

Any suggestions gratefully received.
 
Does the HTPC currently have a USB3 controller? You could expand it with an external USB3 or even an eSATA adapter?
 
Plenty of SATA ports left on the HTPC, it's the chassis that's the problem... although now I've been rummaging around a lot more a I think a Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced should just about fit the bill. Will leave me with:

CPU: Core i3-3225
Motherboard: MSI B75IA-E33
RAM: 2 x 4 GB Crucial 1333 Mhz
1 x 60gb SSD
2 x 2 TB 3.5" in RAID-1 Mirror
1 x 3 TB 3.5"
Slimline Blu-Ray drive

All in that one box.
 
Last edited:
After weighing up the costs of upgrading my HTPC chassis, buying a new PSU to handle the 2 extra drives, a PCIE SATA card (only 4 SATA ports on my board) and getting a 5.25" to slim optical bay adapter, I decided to just plum for the D-Link DNS-320L Sharecenter 2-Bay NAS box. Have read some mixed reviews, although the negatives mostly seem to be inexperienced users... will let you know how it goes :)
 
TheVoice said:
Synology DS214se seems to be the best budget 2-bay NAS now.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I did spend some time eyeing those up, and the performance numbers were certainly a strong plus point... but it's twice the price of the 320L. Can always shove it back on the 'bay I guess if it doesn't work as well as I want it to.
 
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