Network Attached Storage Drives

[Stuart M]

Anyone out there got a NAS Drive? I'm thinking of purchasing a HP Media Vault when they appear but was wondering if anyone's had experience with Iomega, Buffalo or Western Digital products.

With 2 laptops, a desktop at the moment and a Macbook on the way , our house could do with some large-scale centralised data storage. And a working print server (i.e. not a Belkin one... ) would be nice too.

[WittyBird]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

{snip}

If you want to PM me your email address and what you're looking to do, this is one of the area's I specialise in. Maybe I could come up with a decent budgeted solution for you.

I could also email you links to relevant info and perhaps, depending on the situation get you some FOC calls from the big boys

[Lee Bartholomew]

Iv'e used a lacie nas drive before and had no probs with it.

The do a 500gb model (LaCie 500GB Ethernet Disk Mini 10/100 & USB2 7200rpm 8MB drive external NAS Hard Drive. 'd2 model')

They sell it on ebuyer for £244 Inc vat http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/101220

[plankton]

interested in a do it yourself alternative ? Somewhat less restrictive and potentially cheaper than the retail models.

try www.freenas.org , its still under development but .68 seems stable enough to use for valuable stuff (backed up of course).

I have one running with an old amd k6 and 4 400GB ide (on a cheap pci 133 card) software options for basic raid and raid 5 (unstable).The hardware could do with a bit more horsepower but it works.

no idea whether it talks 'Apple'

and it doesn't do print server

[Dreadful Scathe]

i have a manual print server - it takes a usb from the printer and usbs to 4 pcs - you press the button to change pc to printer connection. Genius mainly got it because i couldnt get the mac to find the printer on the pc over the network

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

i have a manual print server - it takes a usb from the printer and usbs to 4 pcs - you press the button to change pc to printer connection. Genius mainly got it because i couldnt get the mac to find the printer on the pc over the network

..which would be a nice solution if we were talking about a room full of desktops, not 3 laptops. Being able to take the computer around the house/out into the garden is quite liberating - PITA if we have to connect them up everytime we want to print something.

[Lee Bartholomew]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

..which would be a nice solution if we were talking about a room full of desktops, not 3 laptops. Being able to take the computer around the house/out into the garden is quite liberating - PITA if we have to connect them up everytime we want to print something.

I think you can get wirless NAS drives now aswell but I personally wouldn't touch one.