Which NAS device?

Prophet

Prophet

Prophet

Soldato
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I'm looking to add a NAS device to my home network. Its main function will be to store/backup all my pictures and MP3's. I'd like it to have an inbuilt FTP function too.

I've had a quick look around but would appreciate info from people who actually own a NAS device.

It doesnt have to be a NAS unit with a drive included. I'm happy to supply my own drive.

TIA,
OP :)
 
Most NAS only gives a 10mb/s read/write speeds (even over a gigabit network) so don't think that the largest capacity is best. Quite a few have FTP e.g. Thecus N2100 but you may want to look at the ones with media servers (music or music+av).

I have a Thecus N5200 with 5*400GB disks which transfers at 35mb/s and is the Dog's danglies, but then the system+disks cost £1k
 
I use a Linksys NSLU2 with OpenSlug firmware.

Yes you get the 10MB/s slowness, but it runs happily enough.
It's small
It's silent (the USB HDD makes a low noise (320 GB attached via external USB2 housing))
It supports USB2 devices
It has ethernet
It has loads of software pacakages for FTP, mail, DHCP etc.
It's extremely low powered compared to a normal PC functioning as NAS.

It's good value for money too.
 
I'm glad I did a search for 'NAS' before starting a new topic.
I also want to set up a NAS for mainly streaming MP3's.
Ideally I want a NAS box that will do mirror raid and supports SATA HDD's.
I will also need to be able to assign and IP addrees to it because I don't use DHCP.
Anyone got any recommendations on a suitabe NAS box?
 
Loads of NAS linux distro's exist for turning an old (or new) PC into a fully funcional NAS and a whole lot more. Advantages of this are:

Cost - older hardware is cheap/free
Speed - Choice of gigabit NIC if you want/need it (check support)
Flexability - Add additional drives of the size you want, don't like xyz distro ? Switch!

Disadvantages are it's not plug and play, it's another PC running 24/7 and it's going to take some measure of time to build/config.

That said i'd rather not trust my data to an oem specific file system in the event I need to recover my data (SC01 anyone ?) At least with a linux NAS i've got the option of dropping a drive in another box in the case of hardware failure rather than trying to track down the same device to put my drives in.

Off the shelf NAS' are good but think carefully before you commit, the majority of home NAS stuff tends to go EOL pretty quickly and if a firm simply contracted it out they are unlikley to offer much in the way of support.
 
Avalon said:
Loads of NAS linux distro's exist for turning an old (or new) PC into a fully funcional NAS and a whole lot more. Advantages of this are:

Cost - older hardware is cheap/free
Speed - Choice of gigabit NIC if you want/need it (check support)
Flexability - Add additional drives of the size you want, don't like xyz distro ? Switch!

Disadvantages are it's not plug and play, it's another PC running 24/7 and it's going to take some measure of time to build/config.

That said i'd rather not trust my data to an oem specific file system in the event I need to recover my data (SC01 anyone ?) At least with a linux NAS i've got the option of dropping a drive in another box in the case of hardware failure rather than trying to track down the same device to put my drives in.

Off the shelf NAS' are good but think carefully before you commit, the majority of home NAS stuff tends to go EOL pretty quickly and if a firm simply contracted it out they are unlikley to offer much in the way of support.
Click to expand...

I've just been looking at the specs for the SC01.
As I am a fan of netgear kit there's is the first website I looked at.
Is this model iffy then?
I'm a Windows user, I have nothing against Linux but it's not really for me.
I also have enough boxes running 24/7 as it is so a small device would be more ideal for me.
 
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