Check the compatibility of WD drives in a NAS very closely. I bought a QNAP drive and they then recommended the WD black caviar and I bought 2. The first failed after a few months losing everything. I then checked the QNAP site and they were raising concerns about all WD drives in a NAS on the basis of a large no. Of failures they had been requested to help with through the customer support.

I use a netgear 8 port gigabit switch (GS108??) in my apartment in brasil and it is really good.

Jeff - thanks for your comments.  I will look up WD disk compatibility on Netgear site

Bob

Best stay away from WD.

WD is known not to support Linux OS which is used by virtually all NAS, can recommend Samsung EcoGreen though.

-

Aleg

I have a Synology NAS, and the WD Caviar Green drives are on Synology's list of acceptable drives so I went with them.  My NAS is nice and quiet but I did not do comparisons with other drives.  There seems to be a lot of negative emotion about Caviar Green drives but who knows

Bart

The WD disks are also on the Ready NaAS Duo V2 list of recommended drives and good to hear yours are quiet.

Bob

I use WD Caviar Green drives in my Synology DS212j.  They are quiet and cool.  Buy with confidence.

I also use an Airport Extreme piggybacked onto a BT Homehub - it acts as a switch and does the wireless duties. Much more reliable UPnP discovery for my NDX than using the HomeHub alone. (disable wireless on the Homehub).

I have used many WD Caviar green drives with great success, they run nice and cool and seem reliable, I've had a 1tb in my Humax Foxsat Pvr for a long time now and it still runs nice and quiet.

If you are close to a well known national computer store retailer you can get the WD drive for £77 if you do a buy and collect, a friend of mine got one for his Cocktail Audio X10 on the weekend and was very pleased with its speed and quietness.

Richard

Thw WDs have a different layout for the sectors or something odd and really struggle in NASes. Even if they work you can expect things to be real slow. I had nothing but trouble, until I worked it out.

Seagate all the way now.

The WD Green Caviar drives are quiet, cool and efficient but not the fastest BUT you're not looking for read/write speed in a NAS data drive (the network speed will be the bottleneck so 5400 or 7200 rpm makes no dfference unless using it as a system drive).

My experience suggests that the Seagate Barracuda drives are preferred by server/NAS suppliers as drives to bundle their devices with.  They are noiser, run hotter, and use more energy than the Green Caviar drives but maybe they are more reliable in the long run (esp. in 24/7 use cases)? I've got no reason to suspect the Green Caviar drives to be unreliabkle BTW.

i have ended up with three Barracudas and bought one Green Caviar drive.  Had no problems with any of them but had none for more than two years.

If you are concerned about noise/heat/efficiency then the Green Caviar might be best.  If you don't care too much about any of those things then maybe the Barracuda - just be warned that they may be noisier and hotter (mainly, I think, because they run faster).

Cheers

Ian

Read write speed on my nas was crippled by one wd. I cannot remember exactly what the reason was and perhaps its not a problem now, but certainly when i first got my qnap, that wd ballsd it right up. At the time best i could get was around 9MB/s down, once it was out that speed quadroupled.

2 x 

Seagate ST2000DL003 Barracuda Green 3.5-inch 2TB SATA 6 Gb/s Drive (64MB Buffer,5900RPM)

in my

QNAP TS-219P II Turbo 512MB Network Attached Storage

Quiet and compatible

Unitiqute, hdx, apple time capsule and printer all connected to BT home hub. 

HDX and Qute via a 

NETGEAR GS608 8-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch - simple , cheap

Looks like the Seagate Barracuda may be the better bet then especially as they will not be in the same room as the UnitiQute or NDX/282/200.

ANy thoughts on suitable switches and whether it is worth using an Airport Extreme Base Station and/or Airport Express?

Thanks

Bob

I use Apple products for my home wifi network and am really happy with them.  I have a very tall home (4 occupied levels) and use an Airport Extreme at my router and a Time Capsule 2 floors above.  This gives me very good wifi coverage throughout my home, with no loss of speed as can happen with a standard 'wifi range extender.'

I disable wifi on my cable modem as it's not needed.

I've had no need for a switch, as everything I need to use plugs into the Airport Extreme -- my NAS and my uServe.

I use an Airport Express into my UQ and it seems to be more stable for streaming than using the UQ wirelessly. 

An extreme is a but pricey if all you need is a switch. Many switches available for as little as a tenner.

More routers can be made into a switch as well if you have an old one knocking around

Hi, why not consider

1) use your homehub as an Internet router for your LAN. Best try and make this the DHCP server as well, so disable in Apple express.

2)take a path lead from the BT homehub to a small cheap switch, like a netgear etc.

3)plug airport express and NAS, mac/PC etc into switch. If you have DHCP trouble disable in homehub and make this DHCP server.

4)remote end bridge another airport express into your Naim network player.. Or allow your Naim to wirelessly connect directly.

For optimum hidef, change the above to

4) remote end bridge another airport express into another small switch. Plug your NAS and Naim into switch. (assume upnp server is on NAS or plug that into switch as well).

You are sorted. 

The reason the apple wireless products work well is that they are designed to support multicast out of the box. This is a type TCP/IP used by upnp and AirPlay. With other  products it can  a lottery unless you know what to check for.

Simon

Sorry about triple posting - not sure how that happened!

Hi Simon

Thanks for your comments but I think I am getting out of my depth technically.  Do the following comments make sense or have I completely misunderstood you? 

Thanks

Bob

Hi, why not consider

1) use your homehub as an Internet router for your LAN. Best try and make this the DHCP server as well, so disable in Apple express.

Would it be better to connect an Airport Extreme direct to BT Homehub and “downgrade” latter to just a modem (or replace with simple modem)? The Extreme could then take on the duties of a switch although limited number of Ethernet ports.  An expensive option though but maybe a simple one for non-techies like me.

2)take a path lead from the BT homehub to a small cheap switch, like a netgear etc.

Understood

3)plug airport express and NAS, mac/PC etc into switch. If you have DHCP trouble disable in homehub and make this DHCP server.

I think I understand – BT Homehub does general router duties and Airport Express provides dedicated wireless/Ethernet feed to Unitiqute (and also NDX when I acquire one)

4)remote end bridge another airport express into your Naim network player.. Or allow your Naim to wirelessly connect directly.

Not sure I understand “remote end bridge”? Do you mean plug in AE to  mains and then connect to Qute with Ethernet patch cable? I assume this should give better connection if standard wireless network not sufficiently strong – is that right?

For optimum hidef, change the above to

4) remote end bridge another airport express into another small switch. Plug your NAS and Naim into switch. (assume upnp server is on NAS or plug that into switch as well).

The NAS will be upstairs near computer (or even in loft) whereas Qute is downstairs in lounge and NDX will be with main hifi in another room so difficult to achieve without a lot of Cat5e/6. If I use Ethernet cable would I not just omit switch and plug Qute directly into NAS or Airport Express.  I can see I would need a switch if also want to connect an NDX

However, if/when I replace wifi with an Ethernet network I assume no need for Airport Express as could just plug all cables into a switch which in turn connects to the router? Am I correct?

You are sorted. 

The reason the apple wireless products work well is that they are designed to support multicast out of the box. This is a type TCP/IP used by upnp and AirPlay. With other  products it can  a lottery unless you know what to check for.

Understood

Simon

Bob,

1) you need wifi if you want wireless control points like Nstream,irrespective of how your connect your NDX to the NAS such as via a switch.

2) ideally you should have your NAS physically connected to the upnp server (if seperate from NAS) and also the NDX. If you seperate out using wifi or mains Ethernet adapters, the chances are you will struggle with hidef, and network performance will vary. (not to mention the RF noise the latter can create everywhere)

3) if you need to have your NAS / upnp server remote to the NDX,  connect the NAS to a switch that connects it to  your ripping PC/mac, wifi access point (like express) and Internet router. Yoy need to keep the load on the wifi  as low as possible, so the NDX can use the wifi with minimum disruption.

4) to make wifi bridge ( ie gluing two switches together across a wifi link) then you can use two airport express / or extreme, but the former would be fine.

5) the airport extreme is possibly not really suitable as a physical switch. From what I can see it has only two ports, and you are best having ar least 4 or 8, for flexibility.

Simon

Simon

Thanks again for a helpful post. Now for setting things up.  Netgear GS108 switch now bought along with CAT6 patch cables. I have decided o return the Netgear Ready NAS Duo V2 as there seem to be problems with some internal drive compatibility, especially WD, and I have now ordered Synology DS212j and WD 2TB Caviar Green drive.  I will try without AEs initially but if wifi not strong enough will either add them or try and get an ethernet wired link

Bob

Regarding Western Digital drives, the problems described may be connected with the use of "Desktop" drives in a RAID configuration.

See:    http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1397/~/difference-between-desktop-edition-and-raid-%28enterprise%29-edition-drives.

"When an error is found on a desktop edition hard drive, the drive will enter into a deep recovery cycle to attempt to repair the error, recover the data from the problematic area, and then reallocate a dedicated area to replace the problematic area. This process can take up to 2 minutes depending on the severity of the issue. Most RAID controllers allow a very short amount of time for a hard drive to recover from an error. If a hard drive takes too long to complete this process, the drive will be dropped from the RAID array. Most RAID controllers allow from 7 to 15 seconds for error recovery before dropping a hard drive from an array. Western Digital does not recommend installing desktop edition hard drives in an enterprise environment (on a RAID controller)."  

The WD drives intended for RAID use have a  "TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery)" value of 7 seconds.

Presumably when a NAS is sold complete with drives, it has the correct (more expensive) drives installed...