choucove said:
I guess one thing I wish to try and clarify is do you specifically need NAS (network attached storage to be accessed from several networked devices) or DAS (direct attached storage to be accessed primarily from a single device.) There are several good quality NAS devices out there, many take very little maintenance or configuration to set up, and if you're only needing 3 TB of storage space with no redundancy then you don't even need something supporting multiple bays. However, a good quality NAS with a 3 TB hard drive is going to run you more for cost then a 3 TB hard drive in a USB 3.0 hard drive enclosure. A USB 3.0 connection can give you greater throughput than a gigabit network connection, so you possibly could have greater performance there, but this is directly connected to your computer instead of the network.
I have found it very helpful to work from a couple of different computers, like when I'm rendering out an animation or long video which takes all of my system resources for hours (need a new graphics card too - someday!). I switch over to another computer to keep working on other stuff, which is where the NAS really comes in handy. It seemed like there where a dozen choices for stand-alone NASs when I first made the switch several years ago. Just so surprised that now almost everything is RAID and $$$$$! A company making a reliable, affordable PnP NAS drive could really clean up with home users and college kids, as the market is so thin. Wish I had the funding so I could do it! Thanks for the input.