Network storage (Buffalo) at home, any bargains out there?

Leopard

Daniel B,

No "shares", no IP addresses, no FAT32 file systems with file-size restrictions, no IP addressing, no connection problems, no problems of any sort.

I just connected the £70 (delivered) Toshiba USB2 hard drive to a Mac, reformatted it in HFS+ Journaled (which is what Macs use), partitioned it and powered it down. Disconnected it, plugged it into the USB2 slot of the Apple Airport Extreme wireless router, powered it up and all its partitions became available to every authorised Mac connected to the system and appear on their desktops with a single click (well, a single double-click!).

Then you can simply drag-and-drop files, to it and from it, on the desktop of any networked Mac, wired or wireless. You can even access it, securely, via Apple and the Internet, with an authorised Mac from anywhere on the planet. (But I haven't yet set that up!).

That's what happens when one company makes all the hardware and all the software: it's completely integrated and sorted out, so it works, securely, straight out of the box, with total synergy and simplicity.

It's why I like Apple.

The point I'm making, though is that you could probably do something just as handy and cheap with PCs, by plugging a simple USB2 hard drive into a router that supports them. It would just take a lot more configuration and working out how to do it. But the Windows guys on here would help you through it.

Marty_J

The Apple Airport Extreme works with Macs and PCs, so if Daniel wanted to go down that route, it's certainly doable.

dave111

check freenas if you have a spare pc

yaustar

Site that reviews NAS drives: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/85/93/

FreeNas is an OS primary designed for data storage and boosts some decent features.

bluboy

Marty_J wrote: »

The Apple Airport Extreme works with Macs and PCs, so if Daniel wanted to go down that route, it's certainly doable.

Wouldn't the Belkin N+ do a similar job to the Airport Extreme but for half the price?!
Provides basic NAS functionality and comes with the Belkin Lifetime Warranty (which I can personally vouch for)

edit - also available in ADSL version

trets77

i have a buffalo NAS which i primarily use as my I Tunes storage .

on my old windows Laptop it used constantly "freeze up" making adding CD's your library a nightmare . you would be forced to start task manager , and end the process , as well as reboot the NAS .

with my Macbook it is not so bad , but it takes a fair while to get a CD to the library , but it does always upload in one try . it just seems to get hung up every now and then.

Syncing your Ipod ect to a Buffalo NAS held I Tunes library is also troublesome .the Sync process gets stuck if you try to sink more than 4 albums at a time . which is okay if you add a CD every now and then , but meant i had to sync a 250 album playlist to my ipod 4 albums at a time .

overall i wish had got a simple external hard drive Via USB ,.

Marty_J

bluboy wrote: »

Wouldn't the Belkin N+ do a similar job to the Airport Extreme but for half the price?!
Provides basic NAS functionality and comes with the Belkin Lifetime Warranty (which I can personally vouch for)

edit - also available in ADSL version

It would certainly do a "similar" job in many respects, yes.