Network hard drive

haziec

Hi, can anyone recommend a Network Hard Drive which is simple to set up and works literally "straight out of the box" ?

We are a large family with three laptops (all Vista) and one slow desktop XP all connected to the network.

I bought an Iomega Network HD and returned it to PC world as we could not get it to work. The software was poor and you could only use the HD with the xP machine. Luckily they gave me a refund, but that HD had very bad reviews on Amazon with similar problems.

So have any of you clever tech people got any recommendations pref. under £100 that a non tech person can use !
All our photos etc are slowing up our machines.
cheers:beer:

scheming_gypsy

you could buy one of these and put any hard drive in it

http://cpc.farnell.com/unbranded/hd-363n/enclosure-hdd-lan/dp/SB0321632?_requestid=138275

S0litaire

Or something like this:
http://cpc.farnell.com/unbranded/dualgiganas/enclosure-nas-gigabit-2x-sata-ide/dp/CS16779

Leopard

Consider putting your "slow desktop" PC into semi-retirement as a networked file and printer server, instead of buying a dedicated network hard drive.

It will work just fine if that's all you're then asking of it and you'll have none of the hardware and software problems that you can encounter (as, indeed, you already have) with a network hard drive.

You can then put the money saved towards buying a new desktop PC, from which everyone will benefit.

We did this (albeit with an old Mac, not a PC). It's been running 24/365 like that for well over a year and we've never had a single problem with ours.

You can also use it as an ordinary PC to do non-urgent things in the background, as well, when it isn't busy (for example, download a film, online, overnight, when all your laptops are switched off) which you could never do with a networked hard drive.

It's a much more problem-free and greatly more flexible solution.

donny-gal

Or even just add an extra hdd to Leopard's solution if the current one is not big enough, will be cheaper than a network drive.
DG

rnc

I would highly recommend one of these. Extremely powerful, capable of even serving up music remotely, acting as printer servers etc.

http://synology.com/enu/index.php
http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS106j/index.php

Do note though these are 'bare' boxes - you also have to buy a hard drive and plug it in (which is actually very easy to do).

Cheers

Nick

brig001

I used to do this until I got the electric bill...

PC = £150 per year
Network drive £25 per year.

I used a Snap server bought from ebay - no problems.

haziec

Thanks but none of those options are really what I want. The desktop works fine and as we have just bought the laptop for our eldest son who is doing his A levels then we couldnt afford another pc or indeed have we got the space for two.

All I want is something simple to store photos on -which I thought the Iomega was. thanks

scheming_gypsy

so what it is you want?
the ones me and S0litaire linked will do the job you want. Just add a hard drive, connect it to the network and add photos.

haziec

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

so what it is you want?
the ones me and S0litaire linked will do the job you want. Just add a hard drive, connect it to the network and add photos.

Thank you for the suggestions, the one you linked is not longer available, but anyway I want something that works straight out of the box like the Iomega is supposed to,not something i have to add a HD too. I can just about switch on a PC LOL let alone do anything to a box.
thanks anyway

scheming_gypsy

one of these would work then

http://www.pcnextday.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=1012-8326

You 'could' have the same issue as with the Iomega one but you don't need to use the software. You may need the software to connect to the drive initially to set it up on the network but once its there you'd just need to map a drive to it on the other PC's.