NAS for Dummies

[Lemur]

Hey gang,

So my bro gave me a little media player for Christmas, and the kids are loving it. Very nice tech, I have to say, plays Xvid and MKV 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. Thoughts? There's cheapo solutions such as this, or more hardcore solutions such as this. 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?



-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!