External Hard Drive: USB or NAS?

[MacFanUK]

I'm looking at getting an external storage solution and could do with some advice.

I want something that can hold 2 drives minimum and I've narrowed it down to 2 pretty different options.

First, we have the IcyBox NAS4220 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Icy-Box-IB-NAS4220-B-2x35-SATA-HDD-RAID-0-1-Span-%28NRAID%29-JBOD-1Gb-LAN-plus-2xUSB-7-Servers-inone) which is £105(ish) but as well as being a NAS hard drive, it has an itunes server, FTP server, Bittorrent server, etc all built in.

Second, we have the IcyBox IB-3218StU (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Icy-BoxIB-3218StU-B-Black-Aluminum-35-SATA-Enclosure-to-USB-20-11-Trayless-JBOD) which isn't a NAS (only USB), but it does have JBOD (which the NAS does also) so I can access both hard drives seperately through a single USB cable.

What are the transfer speeds like on a NAS (typically)?

I'm trying to decide whether or not I will use the Nas features (mainly accessing it on more than one computer) which I may do, but I'm under the impression I can share any drive anyway, regardless of whether it's connected to a router or a Mac? I guess the only real difference is the I wouldn't have to let my computer on with a NAS.

Anyway, which would you go for?

[rgarjr]

Well if you're really into downloading/seeding bittorrents then its a no brainer.

[gatepc]

I don't know which one I would go for maybe the NAS? though you may want to think about building your own NAS it also makes a fun project! :) at any rate about transfer speeds.... If your NAS has a 10/100/1000 network card and your router/computer supports those speeds then it should theoretically be faster then even Firewire 800. but if you only have 10/100 connections then expect slower then usb speeds

[MacFanUK]

Well if you're really into downloading/seeding bittorrents then its a no brainer.

Very rarely download torrents to be honest and even when I do, I only download 2MB-20MB files that would be free anyway.

I don't know which one I would go for maybe the NAS? though you may want to think about building your own NAS it also makes a fun project! :) at any rate about transfer speeds.... If your NAS has a 10/100/1000 network card and your router/computer supports those speeds then it should theoretically be faster then even Firewire 800. but if you only have 10/100 connections then expect slower then usb speeds

I did read that it is 10/100/1000 but I don't know if my router is that speed.

[itickings]

What are the transfer speeds like on a NAS (typically)?

Typically? Slow, but fast enough to stream mp3:s and video files from to one or possibly two computers.

Most cheap NAS are vastly underpowered for the task, a computer sharing an USB drive is generally much much faster. If you go for a cheap NAS, do it for the convenience/features, not because you expect stellar performance.