central storage help

[lcouri]

I have a 'machouse'. I use an airport extreme as the base station, and I have an old airport express that is unused. I wanted to have a central storage option for all the computers to access media, photos and do backups to. A computer store listened to my request and then suggested a NAS ... they sold me this: http://ain.mediasonic.ca/store/product_info.php?products_id=257

After saving up and purchasing more drives (total of 4 @ 2TB each) I have found out that I do not have a NAS, this is a 4 bay enclosure (set to RAID 10). How can I set this up to use as I wish. I have the AE if that helps ...


Thanks!

 

[SDAVE]

I just set this baby up with 2x3TB drives and Windows Home Server 2011

The 3TB is RAID 1, always mirrored in case of data loss.

I just leave iTunes running on it and my whole house or anyone on my home network with an iOS device can access movies, music, etc or even upload things to iTunes from their laptops.

Works greart. I have 1 airport express and 1 Apple TV 3. Working wonderfully all on an N network.

You have to know a bit about building computers to set this up, but I think it's better than getting a Mac Mini (which is quite expensive and doesn't have much internal storage space).

If you don't care about building a mini server, then you can do a Mac Mini. Just buy a used one and use a external drives to share your media via iTunes.

I'm very happy with this setup, got the HP server on sale for $179. Total setup with hard drives and upgraded memory/ssd (60GB boot drive) cost me about $500.

The thing is very quiet and doesn't bother anyone and feeds the whole house with media. It's been getting rave reviews online, if you see it on sale, grab it.