NAS Purchase Advice

[ToneDeff]

Could do with some advice looking to buy an ethernet NAS that has dual sata bays.. for around £100/150..

just want to put 2 x 1.5TB drives in it and be able to use them both as network storage like you would with a windows share. nothing fancy like auto backups from one to other etc...

also need something that is Dreambox/Enigma Friendly and doesn't need special software installed etc.

any advice appreciated.

 

[stevemac40]

Although you will get cheaper, the Synology DiskStations appear to be widely considered at the high end of the NAS market.

I have had the DS108j for a couple of years now and it is one hell of a piece of kit.

Ebuyer have the 2-Bay DS210J for £149.99, top of your budget but i'm sure you wouldn't be disappointed. Synology Disk Station DS210J NAS Drive Gigabit Ethernet | Ebuyer.com

These are easy to map network drives, are UPnP which I'm assuming will make it Dreambox friendly, you can even use it to manage your downloads from newsgroups/torrents/rapidshare etc. which means you can turn your computer off and just let the diskstation get on with it in the background.

To top it off, these are very well supported and frequently updated.

 

[oneman]

If you have an old PC lying around that would be an option. Anything P4 upwards will be fine and there are several NAS linux distro available. Of course because its a PC you have a whole new range of options available as well.

 

[zad]

I just bought a cheap netgear stora of amazon for £50 takes 2 drives so 2 x 2tb for me, it works ok not the fastest in the world by any means but streams movies fine(1080) and will also host my iTunes, and iPhoto libraries along with all my movies for my media centre.

 

[ToneDeff]

I just bought a cheap netgear stora of amazon for £50 takes 2 drives so 2 x 2tb for me, it works ok not the fastest in the world by any means but streams movies fine(1080) and will also host my iTunes, and iPhoto libraries along with all my movies for my media centre.

looked at this but is it true you can only access the settings interface etc via a "real" website that you need active net connection to reach and not the usual LAN webui...

If you have an old PC lying around that would be an option. Anything P4 upwards will be fine and there are several NAS linux distro available. Of course because its a PC you have a whole new range of options available as well.

got quite alot of them but they are all pic and ide motherboards really old

NAS seem to be so cheap now i don't think i could get parts etc for much cheaper, and it saves me the hassle

@stevemac40
looking like the best option but it just means only getting 1 drive for now..

not sure if id rather get cheap NAS then extra 1.5TB

 

[TheCheekyMonkey]

as oneman says build your own, i use freenas before now, absolutly spot on and fairly straightforward to use.

pickup a cheap atom mainboard / case and bang your drives in that, powerful lower poewered.

 

[ruddyrum]

look into the xtreamer etrayz - just recieved one a couple of weeks back, and its awesome. You'll particularly like it if you make use of torrents or usenet

 

[Captin]

If you have some USB external hard drives or USB flash drives knocking about then this will turn them into a 4 port NAS. Perfect for network storage but not much use for bittorrent or DLNA (works with PS3mediaserver though).

Newlink USB 2.0 Networking Server NAS Quad 4 Port - HD-LANUSB04 - kenable for HDMI Optical TOS Network Ethernet RJ45 Scart Audio Phono Jack USB Firewire 800 ADSL Cable Leads

£35

 

[TheCheekyMonkey]

shopping list

BOXD510MO The Intel Desktop Board D510MO is designed to unleash the power of the new Intel Atom" processor D510 which supports the new revolutionary twochip layout. This new chipset layout reduces the package footprint by 70 percent, enabling easier

Scan.co.uk: CiT MTX002B, Black, mini-ITX Case with 300W PSU

(will take 1x 3.5" hdd + 1x 2.5" hdd + 1x slimline optical driv

Scan.co.uk: 1GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) Single Channel Desktop Memory

Scan.co.uk: Samsung Slim DVD Writer, SN-S083F/BEBE, SATA, Black, OEM

thats everything minus hdds.

cost
roughly £135 which is include delivery (like i say delivery is roughly bit)

just need to add hdds and that will give you an extremely powerful NAS you just need to load freenas or another free dist on it.

it will be pretty quiet as well as mainboard is fanless only psu has fan and may chuck another in case to keep hdds vented (recommend a scythe fan for that @ about £7)

i can even test it for you (freenas) as i have one sat on my desk now.

also the case can be faily easily modified to take another 3.5" drive by drilling a couple of holes but i`d deffo recommend a system fan in there. Freenas supports justr about every kind of network share availible, i used to use it myself not too long ago until i turned my xbmc system into a file server also.

 

[Captin]

If you have some USB external hard drives or USB flash drives knocking about then this will turn them into a 4 port NAS. Perfect for network storage but not much use for bittorrent or DLNA (works with PS3mediaserver though).

Newlink USB 2.0 Networking Server NAS Quad 4 Port - HD-LANUSB04 - kenable for HDMI Optical TOS Network Ethernet RJ45 Scart Audio Phono Jack USB Firewire 800 ADSL Cable Leads

£35

Just found out that these can also be used with USB printers to make any USB printer networked.

 

[ToneDeff]

Thanks for the Replies managed to forget i started this thread.

Think I'm going to get the USB server linked by "Captin", already have about 6 sub enclosures..

Really appreciate the shopping list though "TheCheekyMonkey"

might get that aswell at somepoint