NAS for Dummies

[Lemur]

Hey gang,

So my bro gave me a little media player (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=320) for Christmas, and the kids are loving it. Very nice tech, I have to say, plays Xvid (http://www.xvid.org/) and MKV (http://www.matroska.org/) files without a blink, which is more than I can say for the average media boxen.

Only thing is it has no local storage, unless you plug in a thumb drive or so forth. So I've been running it off shares on my main PC, which means my entire media library is available at the flick of a thumb. The downside to this arrangement is that my PC is now always on, which is not great from a power consumption/mileage perspective.

So I've been thinking about going NAS (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews). Thoughts? There's cheapo solutions such as this (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=280), or more hardcore solutions such as this (http://www.netgear.com/home/products/storage/high-performance/RNDP200U.aspx). A friend offered to give me the parts for a junky PC, but that leaves me with a relatively high power drain for a 24/7 appliance.

Anybody using a NAS setup at home? Any experiences to share, recommendations? Thoughts, criticisms, alternatives, scenarios for me to ponder?

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/home_network_storage.jpg

-edit-

P.S.: Yes, I have cut the cable cord. No more pay TV for the lemur. So it's either coming in through the DVD player or the media boxen. To quote Mel Gibson, they can take our lives, but they cannot ... take ... our FREEDOM!

[naut]

Others probably know a lot more than I do, but the NAS that is always sold out at the hardware shop I use is the Synology DS211 Standard Series (http://www.kitguru.net/site-news/highlights/zardon/synology-ds211-nas-review-the-ultimate-budget-nas/). They stock it, but it goes like a pie unattended on a windowsill.

[Lemur]

Yeah, I see there are three big names in small NAS that I've never heard of before: Synology (http://www.synology.com/us/index.php), Buffalo Technology (http://www.buffalotech.com/) and Qnap (http://www.qnap.com/).

Anybody have any real-life experience with these brands?

[Xiahou]

Lemur, look into Netflix streaming if you haven't already. You can get it for less than $10/mo and it has a pretty good selection of movies and shows. Definitely a much better value than cable.

I bought a Buffalo router after my old Linksys WRT54G finally gave up the ghost. I've been very happy with it. I also know of a local school district that uses Buffalo NAS as a cheap backup solution- afaik, they've been happy with it.

Can your WD TV Live Plus stream DVD ISO files?

[Lemur]

Can your WD TV Live Plus stream DVD ISO files?
It can stream VOB files, haven't tried it with an ISO just yet. Nexflix is a good idea, and compatible with the WD Live boxen. Good suggestion!

[miotas]

My parents have had one of those media players for a while now, I don't think it can stream though so it might be an older model. They just use an external hard drive, copy their videos to it then plug it into the media player. I don't know much about NAS, no doubt it would be more convenient, but a hard drive is far cheaper from the looks of it.

[Lemur]

Lemur, look into Netflix streaming if you haven't already.
So I'm looking. Roughly $8 a month for all-I-can-eat streaming. What's the downside? Any Orgahs have experience with this? Are there bandwidth caps? If my kids watch several gigs' worth of films, am I then banned from downloading Jersey Shore 5: The Thickening?

[Xiahou]

Nope.
I average about 80gigs of streaming Netflix a month and have heard nary a peep. Just so long as your ISP doesn't have bandwidth caps. I think bandwidth is cheaper for Netflix than the postage is on mailing the DVDs, so they would much prefer people use streaming than their DVD mailings.