Replacing home file server with NAS?

Mr. CooL ICE

My file server, which contains 2 TB of HD space in total (2x500 and 1x1000), has been defunct for a year. This is mainly due to a combination of PSU and motherboard being fried, both of which have been inherited from my old PC, and me being too broke to replace the parts.

Instead of buying a new mobo/ram/cpu and psu, I have been considering buying a NAS box like this and putting two of my file server's hard drives in there instead. However, I have never actually used a NAS before and there is only so much that I have learned by reading about them, so I don't know if it would fit my needs properly.

Since I am not 100% sure how the reduced server functionality works, would it be at all possible to set up media centre on one of my computers and have the media centre library link to the files on the NAS box? My thinking would be to eventually stream media from the NAS through my PC to the Xbox, to watch on the TV (elaborate, I know...).

Also, how do you power up/down a NAS? Would you need to close it remotely, or can you switch it off at the box itself?

To explain what I currently do; my hard drives mainly hold media files, but it does store a lot of ISOs and other random stuff. When I want to watch something, I would usually go the route of copying the file to my desktop computer and watching it there, or copy it to the laptop and watch it through the TV.

swampgas

Run a small NAS at home and happy with it - however you may not be able to just buy an enclosure and just plug your existing drives into it - they may have to be formatted.

Depending on how old your disks are, you might want to get a NAS with disks included - big disks are pretty cheap these days.

You could try getting an empty USB drive enclosure to access the existing disks (something like the ICY BOX enclosires on Komplett) so that you can transfer the data to the NAS.

FWIW, I have a WD "MyBook" 1TB which supports streaming, has a web interface, and can be remotely powered off. (But I leave it running 24/7.)

Or maybe something like this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Live-Media-Player/dp/B002LZUHMI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1290632427&sr=8-7

rolion

i had a NAS box like...like any other nas...had 4 hard drives in RAID5 and lots of documents mainly used for backup.
AND
the controller failed
AND
all data lost.

Forget NAS.

swampgas

rolion wrote: »

i had a NAS box like...like any other nas...had 4 hard drives in RAID5 and lots of documents mainly used for backup.
AND
the controller failed
AND
all data lost.

Forget NAS.

It's easy to forget that RAID is not a backup solution. All RAID protects you from is a single disk failure. Controller failure can get you. Accidentally overwriting all your files will get you. Redundancy != Backups

cezz

rolion wrote: »

i had a NAS box like...like any other nas...had 4 hard drives in RAID5 and lots of documents mainly used for backup.
AND
the controller failed
AND
all data lost.

Forget NAS.

I have D-link DNS-323. It's in fact a small Linux-based computer. Internally it uses Linux SW RAID, so when controller fails, I can still plug the drives to any Linux box and access the data. It has easy to use web interface, so you don't have to be Linux geek to use it

You can also set up periodic backup of really important data to some other remote location if you like.

Yeah, and it has DLNA and iTunes server built-in, so I can watch movies on my PS3, or listen to my music library from any computer in house..

superelliptic

swampgas wrote: »

Run a small NAS at home and happy with it - however you may not be able to just buy an enclosure and just plug your existing drives into it - they may have to be formatted.

Depending on how old your disks are, you might want to get a NAS with disks included - big disks are pretty cheap these days.

You could try getting an empty USB drive enclosure to access the existing disks (something like the ICY BOX enclosires on Komplett) so that you can transfer the data to the NAS.

FWIW, I have a WD "MyBook" 1TB which supports streaming, has a web interface, and can be remotely powered off. (But I leave it running 24/7.)

Or maybe something like this?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Live-Media-Player/dp/B002LZUHMI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1290632427&sr=8-7

I'v used these WD Live boxes, and although not a NAS, if you have movies/music/pic's on a PC on your home network, this thing will stream no problem, and can make a nice alternative. I have 3 of them (2 with my folks, and one for me) and I havnt had any problems. The interface is intuitive, it comes with a remote, and streams a decent number of video formats.

I'd buy that for a dollar!:D