Ok people talk to me about NAS

I've been sufficing with a 500GB external HDD for some time now but the plug in to Xbox, watch movie, unplug, plug in to laptop, update media, unplug, plug back in to xbox, watch tv show, unplug, plug in to laptop, add new music, update ipod, unplug, plug back in to Xbox is driving me a little mental.

It's also now full - which could point to me downloading more than i have time to watch rather than it actually being too small!

However i think a NAS enclosure would solve all my problems.

Am i right in thinking all i'd need to do plug a NAS into my wireless router and then the Xbox would see it and i could stream the media, the laptop would see it so i could download straight to the NAS, the iPad could see it for...um...i'm not sure, smart phones would see it to update their media library?

If my knowledge hasn't failed me I got a sales email pushing a ZyXEL NSA-320 - NAS - Serial ATA-300 - RAID 0, 1, JBOD - Gigabit Ethernet as well as cheap 2TB Western Digital HDD

Would i just buy both those things, put one inthe other plug them in and job done?

Are there cheaper/better alternatives out there?

Potentially already made up?

Help

ok so what the hell is this thing?

Western Digital My Book Live Netwrok Harddrive - 3TB

Looks like an external HDD but is actually NAS?

You could always go for something ready made up too.

http://www.ebuyer.com/245542-wd-my-book-live-2tb-1x-2tb-nas-drive-wdbacg0020hch-eesn

ok so what the hell is this thing?

Western Digital My Book Live Netwrok Harddrive - 3TB

Looks like an external HDD but is actually NAS?

A single HD NAS does look just like an external HD, only it has a network socket

I asked the same question a little while ago and found I couldn't stretch the budget to the NAS suggested so I've just bought

http://www.zyxel.com/uk/en/products_services/nsa325.shtml?t=p with WD 2TB Red Drive, I think is the slightly better version of the 320 (it has one USD 3.0 port!)

Ignoring the possibiliy of upgrading/enlarging the HDD's what advantages are there to buying something like the ZyXel rather than an all in one off the shelf Western Digital/Buffalo Linkstation solution?

For home use I'd get one of these and put 4 hard drives in it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS411j-4-bay-Enclosure-Installed/dp/B003GTYSV4

Ignoring the possibiliy of upgrading/enlarging the HDD's what advantages are there to buying something like the ZyXel rather than an all in one off the shelf Western Digital/Buffalo Linkstation solution?

The NAS box may be able to run more on the server side of things (itunes server/ftp/squeezebox/dnla/etc etc.) as it'll probably have better hardware in it. But aside from the fact you can change the disks, then for general media serving in a home environment I'd say there's little to no difference really. They're both Network Attached Storage.

Biggest advantage of a 2+ disk box would be mirroring the data with two drives so you have at least some redundancy built into the system.

Took a punt and bought a western digital my book live 3tb for £145

Instantly wished I'd gone down the enclosure route so I could plug the existing USB hard drive in to it as a bit of a back up

I've just installed the Zyxel box - very pleased with it so far. Seems to do what I wanted it to do and lot more.

I've just installed the Zyxel box - very pleased with it so far. Seems to do what I wanted it to do and lot more.

I'm interested to know what you think of the media server on this NAS - i've got an old Linkstation, bought before i had any DLNA clients. Now i've got a Sony TV, Sony Home theatre, PS3 and Wifi enabled stereo. The all seem to have differing levels of compatibility with the NAS.

Do you know if the media server is something proprietry to Zyxel, or something like Twonky - which seems to be considered fairly good.

Have you tried streaming to a T or Stereo?

Sorry for all the questions

It runs twonky and has a lot of other options as well. It's only got one disk at the moment but is able to stream HD content over the network (mixed giga/megabit). It currently backs up to attached USB hard drives.

Thanks for that.

Can I be nosey and ask where you bought from?

Thanks for that.

Can I be nosey and ask where you bought from?

Ebuyer. http://www.ebuyer.com/339369-zyxel-nsa325-2-bay-power-plus-nas-appliance-diskless-1-6ghz-cpu-up-nsa325-eu01f

And a WD RED 2TB drive. (They did do a cheaper one the nSA320 (£59.99) which hasn't a USB 3.0 socket which now appears to be more expensive at £104!!!!)

Ebuyer. http://www.ebuyer.co...up-nsa325-eu01f

And a WD RED 2TB drive. (They did do a cheaper one the nSA320 (£59.99) which hasn't a USB 3.0 socket which now appears to be more expensive at £104!!!!)

¡muchas gracias

Wouldn't bother with the WD RED over any other drive.

The cost is far higher than the other drives and the firmware change isn't going to have enough of an effect to justify that IMHO.

Not that much - higher £8 over the Green drive for the 2TB drive and £10 for the 3TB (prices from ebuyer).

Not that much - higher £8 over the Green drive for the 2TB drive and £10 for the 3TB (prices from ebuyer).

Is that all these days.

Not so long ago, sellers were charging around a 75% markup on the 4TB drive over other manufacturers drives of the same capacity.

Fundamentally there is only so much that the changes are worth.

If it's £10, then sure it's worth it for the warranty, but at the older pricing it wasn't worth it.

Edited 2 April, 201313 yr by cheezemonkhai