By flexibility I mean with a DS111 or 111j or 211 or 211j you are stuck with just 2 drives. You can add some USB drives to any of the above (an eSATA enclosure with the 111, but I don't think the 211 has that option). With a full build using a uATX board, ATX board or even most mITX boards you can have anywhere from 4 up to 6 SATA devices. Most also have more than 1 PCI-e slot, so you can add RAID cards, or HBA cards for even more SATA devices. You also have much higher network speeds than the 1 and 2 disk networking products out there (some of the better 4, 5 and 6 disk products come close or can max out GbE). You also can still do more, want to host a website later? Go right ahead. Want to use it as a DVR, slap on/in a tuner card or USB tuner. Now, if you don't ever foresee needing any of that, not a problem at all. For me, I could see needing some of that functionality, especially the more than 2 drive bit, at some point down the road. My prefered method is the file server I built for actually serving files and backing things up. Down the road I am going to get a WD My Book World edition or something similar as a low power single disk UPnP/DLNA server to feed my media player(s) (I have 1 now, planning on getting another one for the basement at some point). Easier then using a USB HDD for each media player and having to keep files in synch between the two, also easier for loading up the media files and much lower power than the file server and it gives me another backup point, at least for my movies. Speed isn't much of an issue, fast ethernet speeds are plenty for even 1080p H.263 files.
I can see what your saying about the flexibility, but to be honest, I just don't want any more full computers in the house, sucking away the watts, and I'm not what you'd call a 'power user' - at least not when it comes to file storage. I just want something that is reliable, can store all my vids, pictures and music in one location, and is reachable by all. Which is why I've just ordered a Synology DS211j and 2 x 2Tb Samsung HD204UI/Z4 EcoGreen HD's It'll be wired directly into the router, so hopefully with wireless N, it should be up to the job of streaming HD movies to my room! Thank you to everyone!
I dont know if you ordered your NAS already, but i you could also check out QNAP's products, as far as i know they have web-based interfaces, which is not the best thing, however i dont know if they have some other sort of software. Cheers, Chris
Ive currently got a Readynas ultra 4 and a HP proliant Microserver. I can recomend both. Though for flexability and day to day backup i would recomend the microserver the most. Its got drive slot rails and is very quiet. alot cheaper than the Readynas. You just have to decide what OS u want on it, there are free linux one but i put server 2008 and have never looked back. http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/15351-15351-4237916-4237918-4237917-4248009.html I use remote desktop to log onto it to start torrent downloads etc, and u can just share the drives for use in window. OH, and one other thing. Be very careful what switch you are getting for the network. A decent switch makes all the difference. i changed from a cheapass no name gig switch to a GS105E noticed a hell of a difference.
TBH I don't know a lot about these, but they ring in at about £15 cheaper than the Synology DS211j after the rebate. Hmmmm, now you've made me question my purchase (which I can still cancel) I have a copy of Windows Vista Business I could probably use plus I like 4 bay and NTFS.
Stick with the Synology mate, DSM is way better than the ReadyNAS offering and if you bought the Microserver, you would have to install all sorts of software to get the same level of functionality.
TBH, if i had bought my Proliant b4 my Readynas i wouldnt have bought the nas. Basicly its just a small power saving pc. Albeit a queit one. As a long term backup file store a NAS might be better cause it would use hardware raid. Problem with this is u bang 2x2tb drives in u get 2 tb not 4. but its there if one of the disk fails. Im not sure about the raid levels on the synology but if its anything like the readynas it wont let you do JBOD. I would defo recomend a 4 bay what ever. youd be surprised how quick u can fill up drives. The plus with the proliant is that its a full fledged computer, anything u can do on the nas you can do on the proliant and more (though you may need a few programs). One last thing, I wouldnt get to enticed by the interface. You will use it once to set your nas up and the share/DNLA etc and probbly never use it again till something goes wrong or you need to add more room. if you want pics of the proliant let me know and ill post a few up.....once ive dusted it off.
that is not entirely true with Synology web interface. it offers so much, there is every reason to use it again. i access it nearly every day for download centre and file sharing. just last night, i went on there, copied a link for the newest plugin i needed Nealieboyee to install. it is just so easy, and makes remote file access a piece of cake with its file manager (or file station directly via port 7000). so buying NAS is similar to buying a router, or IMHO a smart phone. the hardware is less important than the software. only an easy to use software can allow you to get most out of your software. eg. crappy Virgin router interface Vs Linksys WRT web interface? slow Nokia N95 system Vs original iPhone OS?
I know, it's tempting to buy that, start with 2 x 2TB drives with room to add another 2 more in future. You could start with 2TB in RAID 1 then move to 6TB in RAID 5 later on. Of course you would need to have a requirement for that much storage in the first place.
Hmm. think I'll stick with the Synology DS211j. Reading some reviews the HP server seems more geared towards business stuff, and I really don't have the time or inclination to spend hours fiddling around with it. The 4 bay Synology would be nice, but I don't have the money for that. 2 x 2TB should be more than enough, and I can use my externals to keep copies of the really important stuff (photos and music)
one thing you got to be aware is that Synology doesn't do automatic backup to externals. only automatic backup from externals. so you will need to setup scheduled backup events and make sure external is turned on during that time, or do copy manually (DSM allows background copying: log in, copy, close window and forget about it)
So can I set it to monitor a certain folder on my computer in my room and auto copy as and when new files are added?
no, that requires monitoring software on the desktop. no NAS can auto-detect such thing. but Synology's backup scheduler can detect its local file change and duplicate to anywhere (external, internal elsewhere on the network)
Biggest issue you'll have going direct to the router is it is going to take forever and a day to load everything to the router wirelessly. Using 802.11n and 1tb of data (if you have that much), you are probably looking at anything from 1 1/2-6 days to load it all over depending on your actual wireless speeds (about 2-8MB/sec for 802.11n for typical 802.11n speeds). Even plugging right in to the router since it is a 10/100 you are probably still looking at a day to a day and a half to load 1tb over. Certainly not the end of the world. Streaming HD content shouldn't be a problem so long as it isn't encoded at a really high bit rate and/or you have decent signal strength and low interference so you can get half way decent speeds. 16Mbps/2MBps is probably the lower end of 802.11n you'd see if you have a fair amount of interference and/or were near the edge of reception for your wireless router. That gets you about a 16Mbps video file streaming smoothly. My SD MKV file are encoded variably from about 800Kbps up to about 2Mbps. So I'd think even 1080p is only going to be in the 3-10Mbps range.
