General NAS questions

[midgetspy]

Hey guys,

I've been looking around at different NAS boxes and I have a few questions for you guys who have more experience with them. First, some background:

I live by myself, and have 1 computer with a 320GB RAID 0+1 array. It is never turned off or sleeping, it's always running. Also on my network I have a PS3 and an XBMC Xbox (an xbox modded to be a media center). I will probably have an XBox 360 at some point too. I want to get a new storage device to store all my media on so that it's accessible from my PC, PS3 (under linux), and xbox. This will be used 100% internally in my home network.

So my first question is this: what is the advantage to having a NAS device over simply buying an external USB HDD, plugging it into my computer, and sharing it with Windows file sharing? USB HD's are way cheaper (500GB for $100), but I'd lose the RAID capability.

My second question is probably pretty dumb, but I just want to make sure: Can all NAS boxes be accessed through Windows file sharing? Is that just implied by the fact that it's a NAS device or can some of them only be accessed through FTP or something? I only ask because I've seen some that don't mention it in the description, and I'm not sure if it's because it's assumed or because they don't support it.

And lastly I'm looking for advice on which NAS to buy. I want the following features:
- supports RAID 0 with SATA drives
- Gigabit ethernet
- accessible through Windows file sharing (see above)
- 1TB+

So far the D-link DNS-323 is at the top of my list, do you guys have any other make/model suggestions?

Thanks,

Nic

 

[odoketa]

> what is the advantage to having a NAS device
> over simply buying an external USB HDD

If the computer is always on, I don't really see a difference. The thing is, if you can find a way to turn the computer off (by building, for example, any servers you run into the NAS), you could save quite a bit of electricity ( = money).

 

[g-paw]

Agree with odoketa, with one computer just get an hdd. The NAS is really meant to be part of a network. Given your budget can handle a NAS I would get 2 hdd, one internal for back up and the 2nd an external. That gives you 3 copies of your data and less that $200 if you stay under 500GB. Suggest you buy a case and put the external together yourself. You pick the drive and if you ever run into a problem, easy to just take the driver out and install internally if you ever run into trouble.