Dear fellow bit-techers, I am looking for a NAS to purchase as a christmas present. However I am a bit lost as there are just soooo~ many options out there. He uses an iMac and will be buying a MacBook Pro, so he wants a NAS that has an inbuilt iTunes Server or something like that so he can use it with all his Apple devices. It should also be compatible to Time Machine. A case for more than one HDD he can upgrade along the way would be preferred, however there's no way I or the family can afford to get him a NAS and all the HDDs at the same time. Price I'd say reasonable. If there is a reason why one costs more than the other it's fine with me if the extra features are useful. Thanks guys.
I would stay away from Western Digital, the 1.5TB one I had failed inside a year. Right now I have a Synology DS209 and I'm very happy with it. It's more expensive than most, but the feature set makes up for it in my opinion. Depending on the model you can get up to 4 drives; plus it has DDNS, FTP, web interface, built in torrent client, gigabit, smartphone apps, iTunes server, DLNA, print server, etc.
I also have a Synology DS209 that I am very happy with for itunes and other media serving videos, photos etc. It holds up to 2 disks. The Synology DS209 has now been replaced by the DS211, but it is a bit pricey at £200+ with no disks. Have a look at the Synology DS210j @ £142 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/syno...cam-support-gigabit-lan-x3-usb-ports-(no-hdd) or its new replacement the DS211j @ £159 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/syno...er-inc-x1-ip-cam-support-gbit-lan-x3-usb-port Both of the above are 2 bay models. If looking to save money could buy a 1 bay model for about £30 to £40 cheaper and drop in a 2 TB hard disk like the DS110j. If you want to read more about NAS boxes have a look at http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/ for articles and a forum. I also found the synology forum useful http://forum.synology.com/enu/ edit:sorry about using £ not Euros - just noticed you from Germany.
So long as he doesn't need blinding speed, my Thecus N3200pro has been reliable and good in all respects. Can do RAID0,1,5 and JBOD. iTunes server, torrent server... all the usual stuff, and good price. Well deserved reputation. It doesn't come with disks though.
I second the Synology choices - after several years of using the cheaper Buffalo Linkstation NAS boxes I switched to a DS210j back in the summer and transfer rates, general responsiveness, everything really is much improved! The software and features on it are great - all Synology NAS boxes use the same software so even the basic models have loads of features. As you friend is a Mac user he will find the Time Machine support very handy - I use that with mine and it just constantly backs the Mac up across the network. The 210j / 211j has slots for two drives, which you can use as a mirror array or additional storage. It's a good'un! QNAP also come highly recommended, but I've no experience of those...
third Synology all synology NAS boxes use the same DSM, so main features are the same. you will get (in terms of apple related stuff) itunes server, timemachine, apple talk zone (not sure) Bonjour printer broadcast. with excellent compatibility with Mac system because underneath DSM is actually a stripped down version of Linux. the 2 bay Ds210j looks good and should be within your price range. my Ds410j is an excellent bit of kit. one thing to be aware of is itunes server behaves like a shared library, so to actually sync a device, you will still need to have your music on your computer. i was pretty disappointed by that.
