NAS Advice

[stotty11]

Hi all

I am after a little advice, I want a NAS device that is Raid 5 and am struggling. I have narrowed it down to a choice of two, the Buffalo Terastation Live or Synology Cube Station CS407e. Both of these devices are at the limit of my budget. I would like to use it in my home network that I also run a media center on, what does everyone think of these devices, which would you recommend, what are the pros and cons of each.

Its driving me mad.

Thanks in advance

Stotty11

[richieuk]

Hey mate, Computer Shopper did a review of NAS and Stoage devices this month... i'll take a look for you

Sorry mate, only 3 devices reviewed that work on Raid5. none in your price-range....

for £250 theres a Buffalo Linkstation Mini 1TB NAS device but sorks on Raids 1 and 0 only.

However, the Synology is top of its class in these reviews, but the cost of the product by Synology blows away your budget... its the Disk Station DS508 for £568sans drives and is untouchable for Large file speeds.

The Best buy award is given to a Thecus N3200 1500GB at £464, noting good performance, features and value. But its a little over your budget.

If you have RAID 0 or 1 available instead *i don't know how these things work* They reccommend as a budget buy a Raidsonic IcyBox IB-NAS4220-B double SATA300 enclosures for just £98 (plus the drives you put in it).

[circuitmonkey]

I'd definitely recommend having a look on smallnetbuilder.com

I personally have a single drive Synology NAS (ds106j, getting a bit old now) and the thing is just great, especially with the new web interface.

Have a look at the results for the 100 and 1000 MB raid 5 read and write results, read the reviews and that should help make up your mind

For my next NAS drive I was thinking of RAID 5 but was thinking of building my own.

[stotty11]

Hi richieuk and circuitmonkey

Thanks a lot for your advice I'm pretty set on a Raid 5 device as I already have a single drive NAS on my network and am a little worried about backing up data or the lack of!! I know you could do this with a Raid 1 device but I belive that it is quite slow and wanted the Raid 5 due to the speed and ease of swapping faulty drives.
I'm just going to look on smallnetbuilder.com to see there recommendations.

[stotty11]

Has anyone got any thoughts if UPnP or DLNA is better?

[circuitmonkey]

Well that all depends on what networked AV playback devices your looking to work with. When you know, have a gander at the manufactures site for compatibility.

[jamiesalter]

I wouldn't go for the Buffalo, had one of their first terastation models and although it was cheap, raid 5 and had lots of storage (a terabyte no less!!!) its performance was pretty rubbish and its features average. That said there were terastation hacks which allowed you to have more control. They may be available for the live. URL here: http://www.terastation.org/wiki/Main_Page

Try not to skimp too much on your first NAS as you'll end up regretting not spending that extra 100 or so if you're using it alot.