Best OSX NAS for streaming movies?

[alexjholland]

Hey, I currently have a 1.5Tb hard drive attached to my iMac i7, which does a great job streaming my massive collection of HD XVid movies to devices around the house such as XBoxes and PS3s (using the great program 'Playback').

I need a bigger hard drive; and would be keen to look at NAS, with a minimum of 2Tb. I'd be interested in 3 or 4 Tb if the price isn't prohibitive..

What would anyone recommend for both OSX and Windows compatibility (primarily OSX), which would do a good job of streaming films?

It's also going to be used to do photo backups from our family computer, networked upstairs..

A built-in media server, so we can keep it in NTFS format (direct connection requires FAT32, thus limiting file size to 4Gb) would be great.

Cheers

 

[RaceTripper]

I have been thinking about the same thing (but for streaming 24/96 FLAC files to my Naim UnitiQute), and have more or less settled on getting a Synology. I'm in no rush, so I haven't actually bought it yet. I already have 2x2 TB drives that I'm currently using in a FW800 RAID0 so I just need the enclosure. It's about $200.

 

[fhall1]

Search the threads here and you'll get more info, but I highly recommend Synology

 

[reebzor]

This is kind of a loaded question "Best NAS"?

It depends what you mean by "Best". There are so many things to consider when planning network storage like this. The "Best" thing for you to do is research. Figure out your exact requirements, take into consideration what your future requirements might be, and try to find something that fits the bill. You might end up convincing yourself what you should buy, then once you get it you realize it isn't going to work. That happened to me when I bought a Qnap NAS. It was great, worked well with OSX and it was fast. It just wasn't the right fit for me.

There is not one "Best NAS" out there, so no one is going to be able to answer that question for you.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Most NAS iTunes servers cannot stream videos, just music. This includes the Synology ones.

 

[fhall1]

Yes, but most NAS units include media streaming that does video....iTunes video streaming wasn't in the OP's requirements

 

[kkleo]

qnap or synology are obvious 2 choices

u can also try this to compare nas http://www.nasreview.org/compare

 

[alexjholland]

Yeah iTunes video streaming is of no interest. Whilst Apple refuse to support formats like Xvid properly, I stream using the awesome program 'Playback' by Yazsoft. iTunes media server would be good though..