Network Attached Storage (1 Viewer)

[DonRoeber]

I'm thinking about adding some network attached storage at home, primarily for MP3 storage. I don't want to build and administer a computer for a simple job like this. I've been happy with Netgear products in the past, and I see that they have two NAS devices, of 8gb and 20gb in size. Both are kinda small for their price, so I was wondering if anyone has any experience with these units, and if their hard drives were swappable. A few minutes of poking on Usenet reveals that they just contain simple IDE drives, but I don't know if there is any machine specific data on the disk that needs to be there. Anyone have any ideas, suggestions, or information?
Thanks guys.
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Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 bits of randomness...

 

[Darren Lewis]

I think Promise make a NAS solution that allows you to add your own drives.
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My HT My DVD Collection

 

[Jeff_smart]

Computer parts are really cheap nowadays, i recommend you to buy one of those super small (1 bay) PC cases and build a small file server computer, its not hard at all to administer. Its quiet, and it can fit almost anywhere. Put 2-3 20 giggers in it, and your file server is all set!
I have that setup at home.
Jeff

 

[DonRoeber]

The promise hardware looks interesting, but it doesn't hvae AppleTalk support (or AppeShareIP). Kinda important in our house, since we've got two Macs. I've since found the Quantum Snap servers. They're nice, and if I see one for the right price on ebay, I'll probably get it.
As far as running a computer to do filesharing goes, its really just too much work. I administrate a bunch of systems all day, and I really don't want to have to do it at home either. There is something to be said for network appliances.
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Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 bits of randomness...

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

How about buying an 80GB hard drive or two with a firewire interface? Doesn't get much simpler than that to add storage, just plug it in and go. Should be simplicity itself on a mac and not much harder on a Windows box; you just need to install a cheap Firewire PCI card in the Windows box if you don't already have a firewire interface.
Since firewire is capable of 400 mbit transfer speeds, it will even be very fast - and you can daisy-chain 63 of them! I think 5040 gigabytes will last you a while.

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/Kimmo

 

[DonRoeber]

Kimmo,
I already have some firewire hard disks. The problem with them is they're system bound. Inorder to use the data on them, the system that they're connected to has to be up and running. I'm adding some other network appliaces to my home nework (namely an Audiotron network MP3 player), so I don't want to depend on systems being up, just the nework attached storage. All of the systems in the house are laptops.
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Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 bits of randomness...

 

[Chris Wittry]

Don,
I know you've already stated twice that you don't want to administrate systems, but I've been running 2 file servers for 3 years now in my house. I've got a P133 and P233, both running Win2k (previously Win98). Neither has massive amounts of memory, just huge hard drives. I use one for MP3's and the other for all other files. All in all, I don't even pay attention to them. I've had to reboot them maybe half a dozen times since I've set them up. It's really easy and cheap. Just my opinion.

 

[RicP]

Don:
STAY AWAY FROM THE QUANTUM SNAP SERVERS
They are God Awful. My Company had 3 up until a month or so ago and they were dreadful. They are slow, a hassle to manage, they crash, and are essentially useless unless you run them in a RAID config, thereby eliminating 30% of your available disk space.
Also, the Appletalk support is not very good. if you're going to use them with Macs, you may be very disappointed.
Just a word of advice.
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Ric Perrott - My DVD's