Which NAS

[TheSkiingGardener]

I want to rejig my home computer set up and am told I need a NAS.

I have no idea what NAS's are or how they work so please can someone kind help me choose what I need?

We have

MacBook
2 iPhones
Windows computer
Hopefully an iPad soon

What I want is somewhere to store all the data, mostly Dh's millions of recorded and converted films and tv shows, but also to back up all my work.

I'd then like to be able to move all those files on and off all our devices at will. Even remotely if it could be done.

Is it possible? And if so, please, what do I need?

Thank you for all and any help.

This one or this one if you can afford/need more space.

It should do everything you ask, even remote web access. Buffalo have the easiest admin software of any NAS I have seen too.

If you want to use the NAS as a storage for Time Machine backups and are, or are planning on, using OS X Lion then check very carefully that what you buy is compatible explicitly with Time Machine.

Buffalo look good, why them rather than QNAP though?

Will watch out for Time machine compatability, we are running Lion.

Anything else we should consider?

As an example I'm not totally convinced about that Buffalo driving working with Lion's time machine.

Here's the document that lists the drives that are compatible with Lion's Time Machine:
www.buffalotech.com/files/Buffalo_products_MacOS_X_10.7_Lion.pdf

That model is the LS-WX4.0TL and that isn't on the list, but it's also labelled as the "LS-WXL" series and that is...

However the sheet says "Unsupported products: Products released before Mac OS X v10.7 launched." and that drive seems to have been released in 2010, so before 10.7...

It is a minefield, 10.7 changed some key parts of Time Machine so you need to be very particular that the NAS drive works with 10.7 Time Machine if that's what you want. Something can work with 10.6 Time Machine and fail completely with 10.7. It might be worth double checking on the Buffalo tech forums to be absolutely certain.

Thank you BadgersPaws. Thats very helpful and we will triple check for Lion compatability as that is key to the whole thing.

DH reckons QNAP is better quality than Buffalo, by which I think he means more expensive so I shall go a-googling to see what it says.

I recommended the Buffalo because you said "I have no idea what NAS's are or how they work" so I inferred that ease of use was a bigger issue for you than technical specification.

I did say it 'should' work, obviously if you have a specific requirement you should check it out, ideally by trying it before purchase otherwise make sure you understand the supplier's returns policy

Why people continue to praise Apple when their attitude to anything they don't make money from is to try and break it so you have to buy from them is beyond me.

"Why people continue to praise Apple when their attitude to anything they don't make money from is to try and break it so you have to buy from them is beyond me."

I'm not going to even try to paint Apple out as Saints but that just isn't true here.

The fault lies with the company (NetApp) who provide the technology used to talk wirelessly to NAS drives, Apple just use what they provide. That company changed how they operate, they used to give their stuff away for free but they have begun charging for the latest version.

Apple needed the features that the new version provides and paid the company the money they ask for. Some NAS producers did the same, some didn't.

So the drives that fail with Lion are those drives provided by companies who didn't pay for the latest version.

Therefore the fault for this mess lies either with the drive providers who said to that company "we're not going to pay you, we're going to keep using your old free technologies". Or it lies with the company for suddenly changing the manner in which it works (and in doing so quite possibly breaking several "rules" of software licensing).

Apple aren't to blame, and Apple aren't winning from this. The biggest benefactor is the other company who have now found a way to force the people who use their technology to pay for the latest version rather than stick with an older standard.

Apple could quite easily have refused to pay this other company the money and developed their own way of talking to NAS drives. That would have shut out every drive that wasn't produced by them and let them sell their own kit. Instead they kept on paying another company money and kept Time Machine compatible with a standard that is beyond their control, doesn't profit them and that anyone can build to.

And that's about as far from "their attitude to anything they don't make money from is to try and break it so you have to buy from them" as you can possibly get.

Excellent, that's given me some very good points to go for. I used to be very good with technology but haven't really paid much attention for 5 years and therefore have no idea what's possible now.

With the points you've raised I know what to look out for so thank you.

The bottom techy line seems to be that a NAS drive needs to support "Netatalk v2.2" for it to work with Lion's Time Machine.

Personally I wouldn't worry about support for Lion and Time Machine.

I've got an iMac and a Time Capsule yet I don't use Time Machine. The reason is that I don't particularly want EVERYTHING backing up. Just my key files/data. Typically photos.

So I just copy them manually. Your macbook will talk to anything which is compatible with Samba so that should be virtually every NAS. Iphones & iPad's won't really benefit from a NAS unless your DH wants to use something like EXplayer to stream movies from the NAS onto the iphone/ipad like I do. I use a Windows server for that.

I've got a synology diskstation and it's very happy with Macs - it can be a Time Machine drive as well as a regular drive. It is also DNLA compliant, meaning that if you put videos, music and photos in the correct folders you can stream them to a TV or similar device if it is DNLA capable.

Your DH may also be interested to know it is also a BitTorrent client in its own right.

And there's an iPhone iPad app to access & control it remotely. Great bit of kit.

Hi All - below is a thread I recently put on one about smartphones where someone mentioned NAS but I git directed here which is a much better place for my query so hopefully you can advise me. For backgroud, technical spec/performance/functionality are most important to me, cost second, ease of use and setup not a consideration as I am a techie and work with SANs so, in theory at least, not an issue. No direct experience of NAs or the home market though and the are where I fall down on is, similar to OP, last 5y been busy with kids/work and have lost track of the home entertainment side of things (for example - we are just losing the CRT now!).

I know I need DNLA compliant for streaming to the TV - see original post below. What I don't get it why I need a server somewhere in the setup too? Or do I? Might get macs at some point but not that bothered about backups if the NAS is RAID (is this foolish?) - in the past have just robocopied relevant files like photo to an external hard drive.

Anyway, I was thinking QNAP - please tell me if you think that is the way to go given what I am trying to achieve below - thanks!

"apologies for hijack - I am in the market for a NAS - bit confused about options - could you recommend/advise?

Basically, I want broadband coming into wireless router then I want everything sent to / stored on a NAS - then we will view everything from smart TV / laptop / iphones (sorry) - don't have and am hoping don't need a desktop anymore. Also want to store music on here and send to Sonos / airtunes or similar (music currently all in iTunes but am happy to convert if necessary)

Was loking at QNAP NAS but not sure how all this will fit together in reality (just moved house, so havent bought anything yet - just got laptops and phones and have ordered Virgin broadband). And people keep confusing me with boxee box, that apple one etc.

I just want one RAID device to store and stream all files - music, video, photos (wireless printer, digital photo frame etc) etc - is this possible?"

post not thread, sorry

also a NAS that is a bit torrent client would be particularly fantastic since I have ordered virgin 50MB broadband

QNAP are traditionally the gold standard of NAS, I'm not sure their consumer-level products are any better than Netgear/Seagate/Buffalo etc. though, and you might find a better bargain on a consumer brand. Most recent consumer brands can run bittorrent s/w, and also http servers for remote access to files, but obviously check specific needs against specific models before buying (download a manual from the support site so that you can see how it actually works in practice - this will give you the detail of how you can set up diffferent layers of access etc. that you will never get from a spec sheet).

I just want one RAID device to store and stream all files - is this possible?
music - works perfectly through a Sonos once set up (you may need to allocate the each Sonos device a fixed IP address: couldn't get ours to work after a power cycle otherwise, although it was first set up donkeys years ago so software may have improved since then). Sonos uses its own WiFi channel which has the advantage that there are no bandwidth concerns, but the disadvantage that you must have a Sonos base station wired into the LAN. The quality available through a decent HiFi will make you want to ditch all your lossy mp3s and iTunes files for lossless FLAC though.
video - subject to WiFi bandwidth limitations of course
photos (wireless printer, digital photo frame etc) etc - not sure many WiFi printers can traverse network drives to locate images to print direct from files, no experience of WiFi photo frames but presume these can otherwise what would be the point?

Oh and check your Virgin Ts and Cs because they may not be happy with you sucking in 50MB/pumping out 2MB of dodgy torrentz 24/7

ha ha! I'll be careful

Thanks for the info - I was only really considering QNAP from corporate experience (sit next to NAS boys) and hadn't thought about Buffalo etc. Will take a look. Happy to pay for a small QNAP I think to get it setup well from day one (been waiting a long time to rejoin the 21st Century AV wise).

I take it all these Apple TV, Boxee Boxes etc etc are a bit gimicky and I should stick to a fully fledged NAS or are any of them worth a look?

Would a 2 drive QNAP do and mirror?

And do I still need a desktop/MAC as a server or can I set up a decent network with wifi router, NAS, TV and 2 windows laptops/phones as clients?

Have just dumped aged desktop and I still can't see why I need a new one if get a NAS that can stream direct to TV and laptops?

The 'black box' media servers are basically designed around a single funciton, and none of them offer RAID AFAIK. A QNAP NAS with 2x2TB or similar in a RAID 1 configuration will give all the performance and redundacy you want. If you want to future proof it, go for one with more than 2 bays and online RAID level migration and you can add another 2TB drive to go to RAID 5 and 4TB etc.

You won't need a desktop or anything else permanently attached, but you will need to attach a laptop to the router by ethernet occasionally to maintain the WiFi network.