NAS recommendations?

[mft]

Following lots of nudges from various sources (including here!) I'm going to invest in a basic network attached storage device for regular backups. I presume I can ethernet one of these into the back of my wireless router and back up all of the house PCs wirelessly?

Once I've got a basic backup routine sorted, I'll back that up to DVDs periodically too. Is it worth shelling out for a NAS that can RAID internally in case a disk goes down, or is this unnecessary?

Any recommendations which one to get? There is quite a choice out there, and lots of them have mixed reviews from different places.

Thanks

[Jubal]

Get Windows Home Server. If you're at all techy buy it OEM and sort yourself out a box to run it. Otherwise buy one ready built. It's a long overdue MS answer to backup, file sharing, basic media serving and remote access. Very nice.

[fade2grey]

NAS, it depends on what you need it for specifically but there are lots of good ones out there & vary massively on price relating to the features you get - Netgear ReadyNAS & buffalo terra station are both on my list.

[rsv gone!]

Have a look at www.Synology.com

I have one of theirs and it has loads of features on it including uPnP server, itunes, FTP and download service

[spants]

+1 for windows home server

[davidd]

I've got a 500Gb lacie
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1099...

Which is very good, it serves video and music to our 2 modded xboxes and various computeres scattered about and also has all our photos on it.

It contains a small twonky server which can also stream to a pinnacle thing we have in the kitchen..

D

[Podie]

Spotted a 1TB Western Digital MyBook thingy with 10/100/1000 ethernet for about £150 on Amazon...

[kiwisr]

The best ones are QNAP.

[Raify]

kiwisr said:

The best ones are QNAP.

Oh no! I've got to agree with kiwisr, the fabric of PH may tear.

I've had a Qnap for about a year, very happy with it. Great functions, nice and quiet and good support / service.

[tybalt]

http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_i...

2x500gb RAID 0 or 1

1gb ethernet

Maxtor thingy - £210

Edited by tybalt on Friday 15th February 10:10

Review here - recommended http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/100123/maxtor-shared-s...

Edited by tybalt on Friday 15th February 10:12

[Zumbruk]

http://www.freenas.org/

[Leithen]

Happy ReadyNas user here - no idea if it is better than others, bit so far it's been excellent (touch wood). Four 750Gb disks happily spinning away in a cupboard somewhere nearby.

[marctwo]

I've been looking into something similar. I'll probably get a Qnap TS-109 but it depends what you need it for. You might find this site useful for a comparison and reviews:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,co...

[Alicat]

I use a Linksys NSLU2 device. Works a treat.

Alicat

[rsv gone!]

kiwisr said:

The best ones are QNAP.

Almost.

I nearly bought a QNAP as I liked the fan-free case but the reviews I read were generally of the consensus that they couldn't quite match the Synology products.

[Podie]

Zumbruk said:

http://www.freenas.org/

You used that..? Quite fancy having a go actually (I like tinkering, me)

[Jubal]

Podie said:

Zumbruk said:

http://www.freenas.org/

You used that..? Quite fancy having a go actually (I like tinkering, me)

It's an almost product. My WHS was a freenas box prior to me getting my hands on WHS software. For the price it is incredible but there's a few clunky things about setup and configuration which would deter casual users. PC backup, pooled storage etc but that may be my lack of beard