NAS recommendations

Qwerty?

Hi, been looking for an affordable NASsystem for my home.

I plan on putting it beside the tv & PS3 (to access movies/photos on PS3)and connecting back to the pc by cat5 cable. I had originally planned on a RAID1 setup, but thinking about it perhaps a 1x2TB NAS would be safer if every week/month I back this up to an external hardrive (as the backup could be kept at work) Just wondering how long a NAS would take to backup 2tb to an external harddrive?

I've been looking at the LinkStation Live . I can't see why the Linkstation Pro would be worth the extra money.

I'd appreciate any advice/suggestions

Razzuh

I have a d-link DNS323 and I'm very happy with it. It's a two-bay NAS so you could go RAID1 with it if you wanted. It's not the best but it's certainly the best value for money I think, nothing else in it's category I could find came even close to it on price.

I suppose an off-site backup is safer but it's a pain in the ass to be bringing around an external hard drive. Would you honestly remember to do it frequently and be bothered enough? I know I wouldn't. Do you mean to do the backup over the internet using FTP? That would be more convenient but it'll eat up your traffic allowance if you have one.

If your PC has a gigabit port (which it will if it's any way new) it will transfer files between your PC and the NAS pretty quick, it should be faster than USB 2. If your piping it straight out to a USB2 external hard drive though your speed will come crashing down to USB2, which is roughly a tenth probably. It's going to take you an age to transfer a full 2TB. I'd take a wild guess at 60 hours.

Qwerty?

Thanks for that info. The d-link DNS323 is a little pricey with adding 2 disks to the unit.

Another boards user has recommended going the Buffalo Linkstation PRO route. The Budget is tight so I'm considering the 1tb Linkstation Pro for €140 on Amazon(it seems I could swap the 1tb disk at a later stage for a bigger drive should the need arise -I was just future proofing with a 2tb drive)

I would be backing up the Linkstation to external harddrive either plugged into the USB port on the NAS or to an External connected to my PC, whichever proves faster. My PC has a Gigabit network port but I don't remember if my network cable is Cat 5 or Cat5e.

Snowbat

Qwerty? wrote: »

My PC has a Gigabit network port but I don't remember if my network cable is Cat 5 or Cat5e.

Assuming 1000BASE-T, it will run on both.

Razzuh

€140 dosen't sound bad for that. Ya you'd definitely need a different budget for 2-bay. I think my 323 with 2x1.5TB drives came in at something a bit under 350.

Anyway, I noticed I did a horrible job on the data transfer speeds above. Basically, low end NAS units like the linkstation and the 323 aren't ever going to give you anything near the potential speed that Gbit or USB allow, for various reasons. For cheaper NASs, I think over Gbit network if you're shifting 30 megabytes a second of a large file your doing well. 40 is very good. This is a handy site for benchmarking:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190

They do buffalo so you should be able to find your unit. The prive v performance graph can be interesting. Those tests are over Gbit lan, I doubt USB would get you faster. Although, if you can get the transfer going to USB direct (not through a PC) you migh get something similar, just guessing.

Qwerty?

Razzuh wrote: »

This is a handy site for benchmarking:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190

They do buffalo so you should be able to find your unit. The prive v performance graph can be interesting. Those tests are over Gbit lan, I doubt USB would get you faster. Although, if you can get the transfer going to USB direct (not through a PC) you migh get something similar, just guessing.

Thanks for the advice. That link confirms that there is a huge difference between Pro and Live models.