External Hard Drive: USB or NAS?

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 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 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 said:

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

Click to expand...

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

gatepc said:

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

Click to expand...

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