RAID-1 HDD enclosures and Network Media Players

[leonkehoe]

Hey,

Suggestions for a drive-less (I have two Samsung 1TB F1 drives) 3.5" RAID-1 enclosure? My budget is around the £100 mark. It will be used to store photos, music, videos and backups of personal files.

Thanks,

Leon

[jim]

For direct USB/eSATA connection to a computer?

[leonkehoe]

I want access to my media collection from all three rooms in my flat, what I've always intended to do is to buy a NAS-enabled RAID-1 enclosure and three nettops, one for each TV - is there a better (cheaper) way?

[jim]

No, that's fine. Although you may want to buy an integrated solution like WDTV, or the AC Ryan PlayOn HD that Hexus reviewed a few days ago - some of those can be far cheaper than a nettop. However, they don't always look as smart as mediaportal if you wanted to go down that route.

As for a 2 disk NAS, I think £100 is a bit optimistic. I would happily recommend a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, but it's £130. On the plus side, you should get a free 500GB drive, so flog it and you'll get £20 back, bringing the price down to £110 or so.

[leonkehoe]

I appreciate your advice snootyjim, If my budget were £150 would you suggest something different to the ReadyNAS Duo?

I've read the PlayOn HD review, can't say I'm surprised to find it falls down on user interface. Usability and prettiness is important to me which is why I'm going the nettop route with either XBMC, Windows Media Center or Media Portal running the show.

EDIT: Recent firmware update looks promising although look at that list of known bugs - yikes!

[jim]

Yeah, there's always a trade-off. Just thought I'd throw it out there in case you weren't too fussed and could save the money.

Personally, I'm quite particular about interfaces and so on, so I went for MediaPortal. Other people just want to get at their content, in which case you can do it a lot cheaper.

And no, I'd still have the same recommendation at £150.

[leonkehoe]

I'm giving some serious consideration to the WD TV Live Plus, do you have an opinion on it?

[jim]

Sorry, never used it myself. Personally, I stuck with the HTPC route as I said in the last post - I'm sure someone's used it though, they seem to be pretty popular.

[leonkehoe]

I'm considering buying two, one for the bedroom and one for the guest room and then a HTPC for the living room.

[leonkehoe]

Question for you Jim as I couldn't find a clear answer online - is the Stora a direct replacement for the ReadyNAS Duo? In which case should I buy the Stora to guarantee continued support? I also stumbled across this:

Netgear announces NeoTV 550 & 350 HD Media Players

Perhaps I should wait for a few reviews of these new players to surface before buying the WD TV Live Plus? I'm also interested in the Boxee Box that's due to be released in November.

[jim]

Sorry, no idea myself, the ReadyNAS was a one-off purchase a few months back. I just happened to know that me and a few other people had all had great experiences with that particular model.

Won't be looking at buying another for at least a couple of years now.

[Flibb]

The stora replaces an earlier range of home user NAS drives, the readynas is aimed at home/home office/business use. I would expect the readynas to be supported longer that the stora due to it being sold as a business device. The range that the stora replaces has no official vista/win7 support, it required software to installed on any computers using it (which doesent work on win7), not sure if the stora needs software. Having had a good read through the readynas and stora forums when I looked for a NAS, lots of users dumped teh stora to get a readynas, didnt see anybody going the other way.

[leonkehoe]

Really useful Fibb, I think you've made my mind up for me. Any opinions on the Network Media Players I've mentioned above?

[Flibb]

never used one, my media playing is handled by a 360 in the living room (would love the quieter slim), and a nettop in the bedroom. My PCs are set to backup data to the readynas as well, lots of info on the readynas forums / portal. havent really tweaked the nettop yet, its running win7, and I use media center to watch films. I picked up a few tips on that side of things from a wensite called the green button.

[leonkehoe]

It's arrived, it's up and running and I'm very happy with it.

Now how does one go about easily getting data on and off it? As it stands I've setup a share called Transfer with two folders:

1. Inbound
2. Outbound

and two backup jobs that either copy data to or from the USB device attached to its front port. I've gone down this route because data transfers at 750Kbit/sec from my laptop to the NAS, I suspect this is due to my router and laptop being Wireless G and perhaps the different file systems slow things down too?

You two pros must know a better way?

[jim]

Sorry, don't really understand what you're saying.

You're trying to copy files from your laptop to the NAS over wireless, but it's too slow, so now you're using an external USB drive instead?