bad NAS experience: macally

[cathector]

i was looking for an NAS which i could plug into my wireless router (just the one that comes w/ AT&T DSL), and i can now confidently recommend against the Macally NSA2-S350NAS.

i'm moderately savvy, and after trying pretty much every permutation of file system and raid configuration, the thing still gets errors while playing back MP3s. - useless!

finally tonight i RTFMed,
and found these tell-tale items in Macally's own FAQ:

Q: How come there’re error message during uploading music files to the NAS?
A: If this problem occurs, please try uploading music files in small group, preferably 50 files at a time,
this way will ensure that the NAS has enough time to build its database successfully.
Q: Why do I get a “corrupted file” message when accessing the files from the NAS?
A: Due to your network traffic, the files saved to the NAS directly from the desktop application might be
corrupted. Depending on your network traffic and the size of the files, it’s recommended that
sometimes you save the files from the application to your local hard drive first and then transfer them
to the NAS.
Q: Why is my video playing from the NAS choppy, paused and scrambled sometimes?
A: This can happen when the network is too busy or more than 5 users are using the NAS heavily.

 

[rozar]

wow thats not good lol

have you ever tried freenas? Its easy to install and configure

www.freenas.org

use an old PC, add a couple of drives for storage and your all set.

 

[cathector]

no, hadn't heard of it, but i'll consider it.
i don't have a spare system lying around (and am sort of hoping to get rid of as many desktop machines as possible in my life) but i'll keep an eye out.
makes sense that that might work.

 

[chunkymonster]

have you ever tried freenas? Its easy to install and configure

+1 for FreeNAS. Super easy. Super solid.

FreeNAS, it just works!

 

[malveaux]

Heya,

Another +1 for FreeNAS. It's stupid easy to use and install. Fantastic that you can put it on any machine too. And it works with WiFi setups. It's actually nice to able to take any old box, case, whatever, and just make sure it has the base components needed to run a computer, and then throw in FreeNAS and you're set. If you're only wanting to have harddisks on a NAS somewhere, there are other means to do it, but the easiest way is to just have a computer with a network card and some hard drives and to use something like FreeNAS. The only thing even easier is to just get eSATA drives and share them on the network and "map them" with other computers. But that is just as expensive and ultimately not as user friendly for everyone.

Cheers,