NAS

This is not new news.

Its time people had a discussion on the most reliable ones.

Sorry, didn't realize it wasn't something new. As to the most reliable ones, I agree. What's out there, and what's good? Lacie, others?

Well I thought it had been mentioned by gary us I could be wrong.

I use a drobo with drobo share. Has been pretty reliable. That being said its had to be rebooted twice now in just over 2 weeks which is a tad annoying.


This supplies a mac mini and appletv with data which in turn is read by the rather uber good PLEX media server.

Is the NAS attached to one of the USB ports on the back of the HDX? Or, to my iMac? Also, I've been looking at a Lacie 2big Quadra Raid - would that suffice?

You can't attach a NAS to a USB port because then it not strictly a NAS - Network Attached Storage - it must be on a network, which mostly means it has an IP address and connected using Ethernet.

However you can have an external drive connected by USB.

For those who do not know a Drobo is black and green

Oh and a little bit of blue.

I've been using a 1Tb Buffalo Terastation Pro for almost 2 years. It's configured in RAID5 mode, so only about 75OGb is available. I lost one disk in the array after 6 months, but replaced that and it rebuilt without problems so no data was lost. Since then it's been rock solid.

netgear SC101turbo. its a HD ready NAS and works 101% perfectly. since i set it up ive not even been in the cupboard where it sits quitly invisable. its soo simple to setup and doenst use a GUI interface. it comes with its own software and streams faultlessly via a netgear DG834Nv2 (HD version). it runs raid 1 in realtime too.

Supposedly Naim has been testing different NAS devices, I don't know about SATA drives, and will make some recommendations in terms of performance to use with the HDX (Uniti/DAC). I know at the Bristol show they were using a Netgear with the Uniti.

It will be interesting to see what they recommend and what price point they turn out to be. On Dave Dever's rec I have been using a D-link 323 and I have to say it sounds great with the files I have stored. This NAS is cheaper than the Netgear even when I added 2 1TB drives which I use as mirrored (Raid 1)by a few hundred bucks. I've been using Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM.

We'll see what they say. Unfortunately my experience has been that each NAS and SATA sounds different, as with software ripping programs as well, which poses a problem. I've heard Ken C's A2D stored on a small Lacie drive and they were terrific as well.

I think Naim was using a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo from a Uniti post. We'll have to see.

How about recommendations for a 4-bay RAID 5 enclosure? I see decently priced units from Western Digital and from Buffalo (which includes a BitTorrent client). Any experiences with these?

I've got the Infrant NV+ 4 bay unit - runs Raid X as they call it and currently has 3 drive bays in use. No probs with it (cue hard drive failure as i type...)

James

I've been considering purchasing either the QNAP TS409-PRO or the Thecus N4100 PRO. They are both about the same price (£400) and appear to have similar features.

Both have at least 4 bays with RAID etc. Seem to have reasonable reviews. Would be interested to hear from anyone using either.

Jack

quote:

I've got the Infrant NV+ 4 bay unit - runs Raid X as they call it and currently has 3 drive bays in use. No probs with it (cue hard drive failure as i type...)

Just something to note. Two days later after typing this i got an email from my NAS drive to say one of the disks had failed. I ordered two new drives (one spare) hot swapped the drive and 3 hrs later as is back as it should be. No messing around and very simple to add in the replacement drive.

James

Naim were using Netgear ReadyNAS Duo's at the show. Most other manufacturers appeared to be using the same model, although there were exceptions. The ReadyNAS Duo is available for around £300 inc one 1TB disc.

Almost all the modern NAS drives appear to be SATA. I think this is partly because of the throughput rate and also with the far larger capacities available through SATA. Certainly all the media centre NMTs, IcyBox, Dune, iomega and WD etc are all SATA.

I bought a Qnap TS-409 Turbo NAS a couple of months ago, on the recommendation of the chaps in my old IT department. It can take 4 drives & I've put in two 1TB WD ones to start with.

It certainly seems to work well and the couple of times I've contacted their technical helpline they've been very helpful.

I confess I didn't spend enough time working out how best to use it before dumping all my music and photo files onto it. I now realise I should have run the drives as mirrors, not as one big drive. Anyone know if it's possible to do this now (given I've only used up a small part of one disk) without having to move everything off again?

Tony

Sorry not sure about the RAID config, perhaps another call to their support people?

Are you running SqueezeCentre on the QNAP?

Jack

You should be able to change the settings from JBOD to Raid 1-5 which should do what you want. Raid 1 is a simple mirrored drive.

I second the Infrant NV+, now called Netgear ReadyNAS NV+. A little expensive but good performance. 4 drive slots means plenty of storage if you want. In a month or so Netgear will let you setup automatic backup to an external data-center. This is a welcome feature for music fans having spent time on ripping their music.

I bought a Naimuniti and am quite satisfied with it. Now I consider to buy a NAS. My main concern is noise, as I will use a network cable and not WLAN. Can anybody say something about the noise, mostly generated by the fan. I consider to buy either a Netgear Ready NAS Duo or a QNAP Pro

Thanks

Am thinking about the ReadyNAS duo or Buffalo Terastation

quote:

Originally posted by gmischol:
I bought a Naimuniti and am quite satisfied with it. Now I consider to buy a NAS. My main concern is noise, as I will use a network cable and not WLAN. Can anybody say something about the noise, mostly generated by the fan. I consider to buy either a Netgear Ready NAS Duo or a QNAP Pro

I had one of the 4 bay QNAP's when I had the Linn DS. It was noisy enough that I would not have wanted it in the listening room. Can you locate it in another room? If not you might check out the RipNas which uses laptop drives and a case that acts as a heat sink and does not require fans. I have not heard it, but I notice Linn is recommending it for use with their DS series. It's main drawback is it is more expensive than most of the other NAS out there.

Bob