Best NAS unit?

[Cobbydaler]

Currently looking at these two:

http://www.lg.com/uk/it-products/net...rage-N2R1D.jsp

http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS211j/index.php

Really only want it for a centralised storage point for music & files to share between two or three laptops/PCs.

Any advantages to the Synology? Seems very expensive for a bare unit with no storage, almost twice the price of the LG.

[Stuart]

The Synology scores major points by having a relatively fast CPU (1.2GHz), but it's not easy to compare with the LG as LG don't specify a CPU..

The Faster CPU means that it's more likely to be able to handle more users without any noticable drop in speed.

1.2Ghz may not sound a lot (when PCs are 2, 3 and even 4 Ghz), but bear in mind that the NAS is likely to be running a Linux clone (Linux, for all it's faults, is more resource efficient that Windows) and not likely to be running a virus checker.

[Cobbydaler]

Appparently it's:

Processor clock speed 800MHz
Processor Marvell 88F6192

So two thirds the speed, but not sure that's important for my needs.

[qasdfdsaq]

To be fair CPU speed is not really an issue for file sharing as it just uses so little. My mobile phone could easily saturate a wireless network (and probably a 100mbit ethernet network) if used for plain file serving. More complex stuff such as media streaming can use more but for music it's negligible.

Anyhow, I've not seen much mentioned about the LG units. Synology make nice compact units and are generally held in quite high regard. SR have a review of the 410j (slower, 4-disk version) here:
http://www.storagereview.com/synolog..._ds410j_review
just to give you an idea of the performance and interface.

At the end of the day though, I wouldn't spend that much money on a NAS if you just want to share a bit of music and files between two laptops. Exactly how much are you going to be sharing and what will you be doing with it? It may be cheaper just to get a router with a USB port (if you don't have one already) and plug an external hard drive into it. You won't get as much performance but you could get a router + a 2TB hard drive for less than the price of the LG alone.

Originally Posted by Cobbydaler

Appparently it's:

Processor clock speed 800MHz
Processor Marvell 88F6192

So two thirds the speed, but not sure that's important for my needs.

It isn't, if you look at the review for the Synology you'll see it has an 800Mhz ARM processor too, and can serve up data at over 400mbps, far faster than your network or laptop could probably handle (wirelessly anyway).

[danielf]

Looking at the LG: Why would you want (or pay for) a DVD burner in a NAS drive? The main thing I'd be looking at is support for additional USB drives.

[Cobbydaler]

Originally Posted by Stuart

The Synology scores major points by having a relatively fast CPU (1.2GHz), but it's not easy to compare with the LG as LG don't specify a CPU..

The Faster CPU means that it's more likely to be able to handle more users without any noticable drop in speed.

1.2Ghz may not sound a lot (when PCs are 2, 3 and even 4 Ghz), but bear in mind that the NAS is likely to be running a Linux clone (Linux, for all it's faults, is more resource efficient that Windows) and not likely to be running a virus checker.

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

It isn't, if you look at the review for the Synology you'll see it has an 800Mhz ARM processor too, and can serve up data at over 400mbps, far faster than your network or laptop could probably handle (wirelessly anyway).

As Stuart reckons it's 1.2Ghz?

[qasdfdsaq]

The DS211j you linked has a 1.2Ghz, the DS410j in the review I posted has an 800Mhz (and still does over 400mbps with just that). As I say, the review is there just to give you a ballpark idea of the Synology units. The one you linked is newer and faster.

[Mr_love_monkey]

I'm a big fan of qnap - I have one of these : http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=122

[jonbxx]

If you were after a cheap and cheerful NAS, I use the newish D-Link DNS-320 box with 2 2TB drives in. It streams at nearly 300Mb/s to my media streamer. For £70, I couldn't be more pleased!

[ZrByte]

Or if you have an old system You could try FreeNAS Though probably best if your old system is small, quiet and slimline if you don't have anywhere out of sight to hide it.
Most of the time it will work out cheaper with freeNAS and I would also say that most of the time its also a fair bit faster. Also features BitTorrent, uPnP, iTunes server as well as a lot of others.

edit: I run my FreeNAS on a HP D530 USDT, P4 3GHZ HT, 512MB RAM with 1x2TB drive and 1x1TB drive linked in via a dual SATA USB enclosure. RAM seems to be stuck between 30% - 33% usage and I have never seen CPU go above 5% on each thread and I run BitTorrent on mine non-stop as well as serving blu-ray images to my media centre.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by jonbxx

If you were after a cheap and cheerful NAS, I use the newish D-Link DNS-320 box with 2 2TB drives in. It streams at nearly 300Mb/s to my media streamer. For £70, I couldn't be more pleased!

I've got one of these. After much swearing and threats of ultra-violence against the box and dlink as it refused point blank to play nicely with my Macs I upgraded to the new firmware which seems to have sorted out all the issues.

All I need to do now is move all the files I've stored on numerous DVD's, CD's and portable drives onto the NAS.