NAS - External Hard Drive

jimbling

hey, Im looking to buy an external hard drive with network capabilities. I was thinking of getting the western digital one on komplett, which seems good value. It has some flaws though, you can't connect it directly too a computer via usb and it seems to have a pretty limited printer list.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=322600

I also came across this on ebay. Seems ridiculously cheap, anyone know anything about it?

http://cgi.ebay.ie/BRAND-NEW-External-USB-Network-400GB-NAS-Hard-Drive_W0QQitemZ300055742592QQihZ020QQcategoryZ16178QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


Other than that, what do ye think are the best brands in this market?? anyone got a suggestion for any other NAS hard drives. Where can I find good value?

wheresmybeaver

jimbling wrote:

hey, Im looking to buy an external hard drive with network capabilities. I was thinking of getting the western digital one on komplett, which seems good value. It has some flaws though, you can't connect it directly too a computer via usb and it seems to have a pretty limited printer list.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=322600

Yeah would definitely recommend that WD network drive. It took a while to transfer my existing files onto the WD from my old external drive, but after that it works flawlessly. Sits in the corner, wirelessly doles out all my video, music and larger files, and not a peep out of it!

Having said that, I haven't used any other network drives, but my experience of this one has been 100% satisfactory so far.

jimbling

cheers for the info. ill have a think about it. Anyone else any suggestions?

humaxf1

Hi jimbling...

Just to give you an idea, I bought one of these http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=97390&criteria=drive%20enclosure&doy=12m12 and a 250GB drive in Peats, worked out at €165.

The drive on ebay...for an extra €37 you get an extra 150GB. Looks pretty good value to me.

On the WD drive, I dont have any experience of it. On reading the blurb on komplett, one off putting point is that, by the sounds of it, you have to load some software on each PC to connect to the drive as a single drive letter?!?! Maybe beaver can confirm this.

Where as with my yoke, I simply create folders from a web interface (IP of the NAS). Then I map a drive \\"NAS IP"\"folder share name". Quite simple.

ob

I have a previous version of this. You have to buy a hard disk for it seperately, which does make it expensive, but it's an excellant NAS.
Synology even released new firmware with extra features for my model, even though it was replaced with newer models.

jester77

Not sure what your budget is, but I've a 1TB Buffalo terrastation which costs around €600. Nice and compact and works well, not as quiet as I was hoping for though!

Johnniep

Hey humaxf1,

Just wondering, can you access this over the internet or just on your LAN?

wheresmybeaver

humaxf1 wrote:

On the WD drive, I dont have any experience of it. On reading the blurb on komplett, one off putting point is that, by the sounds of it, you have to load some software on each PC to connect to the drive as a single drive letter?!?! Maybe beaver can confirm this.

yeah I should mention that it comes with a little utility for PC and Mac for searching for Netcenters on the network. Don't bother installing it though, you don't need it in order to keep the same drive letter on each computer. Netcenter appears as a normal network drive. The utility also brings XP computers out of screensaver mode every 10 minutes or so, as well as making the Windows Media Player fullscreen controlbar appear every 10 minutes or so when streaming video content. Very bloody annoying until I figured out that it was this WDNetcenter utility causing it!

humaxf1

hi johnniep,

Yes, I can access the drive over the internet. It has a built-in FTP server. I use filezilla.

olearydc

Hi


Just from my own experience

The first thing I bought was a NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central - NAS server , You supply any old IDE…not bad, they use their own file format which could cause problems…but worked fine for me and still does, uses the network so always on, bit slow but grand and cheap

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3V6Q&CategorySelectedId=11157&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11157


Then I got a 250 GB drive...Western Digital 250GB MyBook Essential USB2 ….Brilliant USB drive, does what it says and is very quiet …powers off when PC goes off …10 out of 10

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=40VP&CategorySelectedId=11157&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11157

Then the best and most expensive is Buffalo 250GB LinkStation Pro 10/100/1000 which again like the Netgear is a NAS storage Device but is a lot faster and the setup is great,,I use this for FTP, just pointed port 21 towards the IP address of this NAS and its inbuilt OS and FTP looked after everything…works like a charm…not as fast as USB but a lot faster then the Netgear
Recommend this one also

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=44R5&CategorySelectedId=11157&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11157