Can you recommend a NAS drive?

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone could recommend an easy to setup/use NAS drive, primarily for back-ups.

My needs are:

- backups of 2 laptops over wireless network
- quiet, ideally powers down when not in use
- possibly to connect printer to via USB (though this isnt a deal breaker)
- small footprint

Thanks in advance

A

 

hey,

I looked all over the place for a device which could do the following:

+ share Hdd's (for backups + media)
+ work as a media server (for ps3)
+ work as a print server (with support for almost all printers)
+ share my scanner over a network
+ work as a bittorrent client.

Surprisingly enough I did not find any such device. I considered using a netbook as a server for that, or even an Atom based PC but that would be just bulky and overkill for that application.

I finally decided to go with a OpenPlug ( PlugComputer Community) which is a small computer running a arm chip which sucks about 3-5W of power. To that little piece of awesomeness I attach a usb hud and all my devices to it (2 Hdd's + 2 printers + 1 scanner). Note, that there is also an eSata port if you wish to use an eSata external drive.

The downside of that toy is that its really hard to set up (especially for people who are used to plug and play). The up side however is that you get tons of functionality for a device which costs 99 bucks. This little device can be used to do all the stuff I have mentioned, and supports a huge number of printers (compared to regular print servers).

Furthermore, I did not have to reset the device since I started using it. If I had to restart the device, I can easily do it from my laptop without having to physically unplug the device at all.

If you decide you would want to invest more time into such a solution, give me a ring.

On a different note, this thread is in the wrong forum as such a device has nothing to do with alienware. You might also get better responses from a different forum. Therefore I am forced to include this little animation (actually I am not, but I like the animation (I did it meself) ):

 

It was worth it for the animation!

 

I can recommend the QNAP TS-210.
It is very reliable, has space for two disks that can be set up in mirror raid mode and it does everyting you asked for and then some.
I personally own it, it is very easy to set up and I very happy with it.
There are cheaper solutions but I prefer my backup solution to be as reliable as possible

 

I JUST bought a NAS a couple weeks ago and this is what I ended up with..

Buffalo Technology LinkStation Pro LS-XHL 1TB.

I am extremely pleased with this model, plus it was only about $175.

Supports streaming media to your PS3 or whatever.
Comes with a real nice backup application with gives you the ability to backup or even create remote images up to 5 machines.
Has remote access, either FTP based or web based
Functions as a web server, sql server or print server.
Is about the size of a wireless router
Has the ability to set sleep times so it shuts itself down when you want it to or wakes it up etc.
Has a USB port in the back if you want to attach an additional external hard drive which will work as additional storage or you can Direct Copy the contents of your NAS on a backup schedule to the external for redundancy

those are just a few things i can remember.

 

I will recommend the Buffalo Linkstation Live LS-CHL. I got the 500Gb from dell for $124 which is really cheap. It works very well with my wireless computers, (transfers rates can be a bit slow espcially if you use a laptop to transfer files between other computers ). It has a bit torrent client, sleep function, back up utilities and a usb port for additional disks. I mainly use mine for backup and media streaming.

EDIT - Just saw the post above for the Pro version which has a faster processor but does the same as the Live version.

 

Not sure if you know this but I had transfer issues as well until I increased Jumbo frames to 9k and it made a huge improvement over wireless, although my router supports this..i cant confirm LAN transfer though.