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thepominlaw

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 29, 2010
61
1
Would appreciate some advice from someone that owns or has used a Synology DS212J NAS or indeed any other NAS.

I have never used a NAS before and am looking for a device that can perform some or all of the following duties on my home network.

• I use a referenced itunes & iphoto library, I would like to move all my files over to the NAS then point the library at the new file location to free up some space on my base imacs buldging hard drive.
• Setup a shared folder / drive for my son to save his homework files on the NAS (he is currently on the same LAN in the house).
• Setup a shared folder / drive for my father and brother to backup their photos (over the internet different location)
• Run my wifes basic crafting website from the NAS as opposed to paying a company to host it.
• Access my files remotely rather than paying for a Sugarsync subscription (which is about to expire)

Any advice would be appreciated, as I am not sure a NAS is the right choice for me. I was looking at buying a DS212J as I have 2 spare 2Tb hard drives, if it will meet my needs. Otherwise I may just buy the Icydock Dual FW800 enclosure to use the drives for timemachine.
 

macPip

macrumors newbie
Apr 1, 2008
4
0
Synology NAS is great

Until recently I was using a Synology DS110j single drive NAS with 4 1.5TB USB drives attached to store my Movie & TV files for my Plex media server. I have since moved to using my oldest 1.8Ghz C2D Mac Mini as a server when I upgraded my workstation to to a Quad i7 hackintosh.

The Synology is incredibly reliable, efficient and there were regular software updates that continually improved the experience. It works very well, and the only reason I moved to the Mini was that it could run Plex Media Server and share the drives and a lot of other stuff all in one box.

The Synology can do a bunch of other stuff too though, its reliable and it's cost effective. It will be joining my network again when I attach my backup drives.
 

Panch0

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2010
684
9
Virginia
All of the Synology devices use the same software and are quite full featured. A synology NAS will allow you to do all of the things you mention; however, I personally don't like using NAS for iTunes Library. I had my iTunes media on a Synology NAS for about a year, then decided it was just so much easier to use a direct attached external drive instead. The problem with iTunes & NAS is that when your computer shuts down or suspends, it doesn't remount the network share by the time iTunes tries to launch. This results in iTunes thinking that none of your media is available. Easily fixed by mounting the share then relaunching iTunes, but annoying if you are trying to keep it always on - like to serve an AppleTV...

I'm not sure if iPhoto has similar issues or not.
 

blueroom

macrumors 603
Feb 15, 2009
6,381
26
Toronto, Canada
I use a DS212j and it's a great NAS. It'll work for what you're trying to do but running files from it will be slower than a local drive.
 

ggosson

macrumors newbie
Jul 6, 2010
11
4
I have a DS413j and I am really happy with it. I think it will do the bulk of the stuff you have on your list but I worry about running the website. I think it will run the website just fine, as long as it is a relatively limited site, but quite often port 80 is blocked by your broadband providers. I run several web based setups from home and I always have had to run them on alternate port numbers due to port 80 (and even 8080) being blocked.
 
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