Storage - To NAS or Not

[Tog]

Reconsidering storage options as my WD Mybook is filling up faster than a bear with burgers and was wondering where to go next :-{

 

WD >MBp > Cyrus DAC XP > 2 X smartpowers > Monitor Audio RX6

 

2 IMACs + speakers (wireless) around the cave / shared library

 

a) Larger firewire drive?

b) RAID (drobo ? LACie)

c) NAS - Thecus, Drobo FS ?

 

The NAS would provide ease of use / redundancy

The RAID would be simple / safe

The Firewire drive woyuld be cheap

 

Traditionally NAS have not always played well with MACs but I hear Thecus are good. The Drobo sounds like a good idea but the FS is expensive ...

 

So many choices and I hibernate in four months ...

 

 

Yours, spoilt for choice, tog

 

[iamimdoc]

In the PC world, I have had good success with a product from IOCELL that lets you network the drive OR use as a USB drive and go back and forth.

 

It is basically a box that you insert a SATA drive into.

You format the drive

 

Each PC on the network loads some software that allows each machine to access the drive.

 

My wifes MAC uses it also.

 

I have 3 device and have and ZERO problems in 2 years.

 

I also stream HD movies from one of the drives to a WDTV player - works fine

 

One can ALSO take the drive off line and use it as a USB drive - very nice for transferring stuff to another system, etc. Possibly ther best feature besides reliability

 

One can "link" a bunch of the drives together and create what appears to be 1 giant drive.

 

I don't care about RAID arrays as it is not pertinent to what I do and listening to music is important but not mission critical. They would be great backups that could be moved eslewhere and used easily as needed, however. Hence, I don't know if RAID works well or not

 

The technology is actually called NDAS and is not true NAS. I don't know what the exact differencs are and whether it makes a difference or not in this type application. I do know that the NDAS protects the drives from being accessed externally over the internet which I think is good but I can see why it might not be also.

 

Device are quiet and cheap - about $50

 

Performance is more than adeaquate for movies and music - not sure about absolute performance numbers

 

My 2c