NAS Advice

Greeting fellow cable forumaties.

I am looking at setting up a NAS. I need advice but I am such a newbie that I don't even know what advice to ask!!

So if you could furnish me with information that is vital to know and consider when buying and setting up NAS equipment I would be grateful.

This is the one I am considering: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149510

Then a 2tb drive...

[Paul K]

Using the Readynas duo here, RAID enabled and piece of P to set up and use.
Questions to answer are how are you looking to use it, how many people need access to it, do you need USB and print server options?

Originally Posted by Paul

Using the Readynas duo here, RAID enabled and piece of P to set up and use.
Questions to answer are how are you looking to use it, how many people need access to it, do you need USB and print server options?

Media server. Will store digitalised video collection and music. Will probably only be accessed by one person at a time but via different sources.

[Paul K]

Readynas should be a good choice then, we can access ours internally and from external connections. Have all our photos etc on it and use it as our central location for all data.
Also doubles up as our print server so we can access the printer from any PC without worrying about having a certain computer turned on.

ive been toying with the idea of building my own for some time now. Using a Mini ITX board based round the Atom using Freenas as the OS just aint got round to it yet lol

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Caviar-3-5-inch-Internal/dp/B002ZCXK0I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1282758554&sr =1-2

This is the hard drive I was considering...

[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by zing

ive been toying with the idea of building my own for some time now. Using a Mini ITX board based round the Atom using Freenas as the OS just aint got round to it yet lol

Have done that myself but with a HP D530 USDT instead of an Atom. Attached a dual USB hard drive bay to it for my 2 1TB SATA drives because I only had the IDE version of the D530 and it could only house one drive at a time even if I did have one that accepted SATA. Worked a treat until I had the bright idea of letting a mate of mine borrow my D530 as a media centre, Haven't seen it or him since lol.

Originally Posted by Paul

Readynas should be a good choice then, we can access ours internally and from external connections. Have all our photos etc on it and use it as our central location for all data.
Also doubles up as our print server so we can access the printer from any PC without worrying about having a certain computer turned on.

How does it work for streaming and what about remote access to your files? Does RAID work automatically and basically mirrors the first drive?

[Paul K]

Streaming is simple, we have our Nas mapped to drives on our PCs and the streaming is excellent on it, (mate of mine streams films to a remote desktop at work but we shall over look that .. lol).
Remote access is via ftp, forward the necessary port on your router and then setup access controls on the NAS for FTP via it's interface (point and click on the right things basically).
RAID is automatic, plug the second drive in and it asks if you want to RAID it, you say yes and it trots off and does it for you.

Do I need a SATA cable to plug in hard drives into it?

[Paul K]

Ours came with all that was needed, the drives fit into a slot in caddy as they are swappable and the caddy goes into the drive housing. All I had to do was find the fitting screws that I lost when I opened up the packaging for the drives lol

Originally Posted by Paul

Ours came with all that was needed, the drives fit into a slot in caddy as they are swappable and the caddy goes into the drive housing. All I had to do was find the fitting screws that I lost when I opened up the packaging for the drives lol

Cool!

Can they take any SATA Hard Drive then? 2tb is sweet.

[Paul K]

There is a compatible drive list on the Readynas forum,
http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=82

[Jonnymeg]

I have a Synology system with 4 1TB drives in. It is excellent.
There are more expensive than the ReadyNAS but in my opinion so worth it.

Look into them before making a decision, you can just buy two drives for them and upgrade as you need them.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Synol...us-iPhone-Apps

The iphone apps are sweet too.

Ordered them from amazon. ReadyNas Duo and the 2TB HD.

Any tips on what to do when I get it?