New NAS or turn current system into fileserver?

CF93

CF93

CF93

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28 Jan 2005
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I've got a desktop (in sig) and laptop, and Mrs CF93 would like to be able to share docs more easily between the two (I rarely use the laptop tbh.) So I'm thinking....do I buy a NAS, or turn my current desktop into a fileserver and buy a new desktop?

(I also have a Pinnalce ShowCenter but use the SimpleMediaServer software instead of Pinnacles own.)


Which would you recommend? Either way I want something cheap, but for a NAS I would want RAID 1 support at least, and for a desktop, I do want to play games (HL2 and Quake 4 are my most recent - I don't have much time for it these days, to give you an idea) but probably won't overclock.
 
Raid 1 is not a backup, it protects against hard drive failure and nothing else. So if the NAS dies and chooses to take the drives down with it, both gone. If a drive goes and happens to take out the sata controller both drives are on, both are again gone. Had to be said, I'll try to be helpful now.

An NAS is easy, and costs from 100 upwards or so. The cheap and easy option is to let your desktop share files and continue using it as a desktop, obviously it'll need to be turned on for files to be available. Wake on lan may be viable.

I don't know what pinnacle showcentre is, but sharing a folder in windows shouldn't be very difficult. The laptop would gain an icon in "my computer" which is connected to a drive or folder on the desktop, put the documents in said folder.

The fun option is to use the current desktop as a file server and build a new desktop, but that's definitely not cheap.
 
JonJ678 said:
Raid 1 is not a backup, it protects against hard drive failure and nothing else.
Click to expand...

Yeh, I know - the NAS/fileserver would be used purely for sharing more easily between the desktop and laptop, I already have separate backups on separate drives and DVDs.

Neither of my machines supports WOL so that's out I'm afraid.

Maybe a NAS is just easier, which is good, but then my desktop is struggling these days (maybe I just need to finally getting round to installing Win7 that's sitting still sealed in its wrapper)....

Hmmm....

Anyone recommend a good NAS solution?
 
i was recently looking for a nas for home. Was reccomended on by another user on here and it is great
take a look at some of the synology NAS's
they cost a little more than your average one but a very good quality, great interface and a lot of features to boot.



209j is 2 drive so you can do all your raid settings.

Hope that helps a little :)
 
I turned my old desktop into a Windows Home Server for file sharing, back up security, Homlding of all my DVD's for streaming (via MyMovies) and all the other items that go with the Windows Home Server set up.

Worth having a look at it to see if it does what you need.

Taff
 
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