Which NAS

goingonholiday_2

Thinking of getting a NAS drive, we have 3 laptops in our household so looking for a single drive (drive included) easy to set-up NAS drive for storing documents, itunes, photos etc. Would like to be able to plug a printer in to make it wireless and whist I don't have a need to stream video to the TV etc. I'd like it be have that option for future.

Read some reviews and those that come in at a reasonable price (ideally looking to pay up to £150 for 1 - 2tb) seem to be criticized for being very slow.

Can anyone recommend???

Thanks

tombruton87

would you be prepared to build a home server or do you want somthing that is plug and play

sillygoose

I have THIS one and its been excellent to use.

It did seem slow initially, but this was not due to the NAS but my network, file sizes have grown a lot over the years and a 10/100mb connection is a real bottleneck and thats all my old Router could do.

This NAS has a 1000mb (gigabit) port, so has my computer so in the end I changed my router to one with all gigabit ports. That set it free and its now extrememly fast. This will also apply to any NAS drive.

I have mine set to go to sleep if not used for a couple of hours but it wakes up when first accessed in about 7 seconds. Its also connected to power via a small UPS power supply to protect it.

Its now used as the default location for most our data and its great to be able to access files without starting up a computer and is virtually maintenance free and quiet running, a server really would be overkill, yet another PC to look after!

This one comes without drives so you can add what you like easily, you can go for a bit slower and lower power (heat shortens lives) drives or hotter top performance drives.

I used 2 x Samsung 2TB Spinpoint HD204UI drives, they offer good performance due to platter layout but are only 5400rpm drives and run at a lower power. I have them configured in RAID1 so I 'only' have 2TB but it is mirrored across the 2 drives offering protection should one drive die. It could be configured for 4TB without backup. They cost about £85 each currently.

You could of course use 1TB (or less) in either RAID1 or as 2TB non RAID, in non RAID configuration access speed is boosted as both drives are read/write at the same time. Depends on if your good with backups and don't need the RAID backup or how much data you keep knocking around.

EDIT: just read your requirement again, you mention single drive so don't want RAID, this NAS is still good choice, if you put in a couple of cheap 500mb drives it would create a 1TB drive but by accessing both drives at the same time would give excellent performance. You would then have the option to upgrade or reconfigure later. Fitting drives takes seconds, remove lid and just drop in!

WhiteChristmas

I, too, have the DLink with mirrored 2TB drives. It's lovely.

debitcardmayhem

goingonholiday wrote: »

Thinking of getting a NAS drive, we have 3 laptops in our household so looking for a single drive (drive included) easy to set-up NAS drive for storing documents, itunes, photos etc. Would like to be able to plug a printer in to make it wireless and whist I don't have a need to stream video to the TV etc. I'd like it be have that option for future.

Read some reviews and those that come in at a reasonable price (ideally looking to pay up to £150 for 1 - 2tb) seem to be criticized for being very slow.

Can anyone recommend???

Thanks

One thing to bear in mind in terms of criticism about speed, if you are you using the laptops wirelessly then it's going to be slow anyway

goingonholiday_2

Thanks for all your replies. I was thinking more plug 'n play but it sounds easy to install drives if I buy an enclosure! Is it really that easy, do the drives not need some sort of software on them? If you buy a drive and install it in the enclosure is it then ready to use?

Thanks

sillygoose

goingonholiday wrote: »

Thanks for all your replies. I was thinking more plug 'n play but it sounds easy to install drives if I buy an enclosure! Is it really that easy, do the drives not need some sort of software on them? If you buy a drive and install it in the enclosure is it then ready to use?

Thanks

When setup, the d-link will format the drives to its own format, they can be blank, formatted it doesn't care, the setup routine (on the CD) will walk you through formatting them. The d-link also has most the streaming and multimedia functions in it to, I don't need them but its there if you do.

you mentioned sharing a printer.. the d-link has a USB port that can be used for a printer, allowing the printer to be shared by any computers on the network.

Control of the NAS is done by using your web browser, pointed at the address of the NAS gives access to its menu's so you can admin it from any computer.

goingonholiday_2

sillygoose wrote: »

When setup, the d-link will format the drives to its own format, they can be blank, formatted it doesn't care, the setup routine (on the CD) will walk you through formatting them. The d-link also has most the streaming and multimedia functions in it to, I don't need them but its there if you do.

you mentioned sharing a printer.. the d-link has a USB port that can be used for a printer, allowing the printer to be shared by any computers on the network.

Control of the NAS is done by using your web browser, pointed at the address of the NAS gives access to its menu's so you can admin it from any computer.

Sounds fairly straight forward, think I'll look at the enclosure option. Thanks for the help.