External drive / NAS suggestions

[MCHR]

After doing a thorough search, I thought I'd ask opinions on external HDD units as well as NAS.

I'm looking to replace my 250GB LaCie d2 with a larger FW800 unit since I'm migrating to a new MP. The only LaCie that looks even remotely attractive is the enterprise class D2 Quadra enterprise drive

The hesitation I have is I recently had a LaCie Hard Disk which bombed out after 4 months, and I'd rather not repeat the experience. My 250GB drive is 5 years old, and quality control may not be what it once was at LaCie (?)

So, if anyone has a recommendation on an external HDD, it would be most welcome.

The second question I have is for a NAS. A 1 or 2TB unit should be fine as a shared drive for my wife's computer and mine. FTP would be a benefit, but not necessary. I've read good things about the NetGear ReadyNAS Duo as well as the Western Digital ShareSpace and Iomega StorCenter.

NAS (at home) is new to me, so any suggestions on enclosures, and drives would be a great help.

Thanks.

 

[cheesygrin]

I've just bought a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo RND2000 with two Western Digital WD20EARS 64MB cache 2TB drives and could NOT be happier.

The Netgear was pretty easy to set up, it supports more features than you can shake a stick at (including FTP, printer sharing and Time Machine backup) and it solves all my storage needs in one go. Personally, I don't see why you'd need any USB/FW drives on top of this.

I stuck my old 1TB Seagate drives into USB caddies, plugged these into the NAS and set the NAS to automatically back up onto them. It emails backup logs to me whenever it completes a job. Since the NAS is also redundant RAID1, I feel my data is pretty safe.

As far as Lacie goes, personally I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. We had some really bad experiences with their products at work a year or two back, and the support was dismal. I would also not recommend getting any large capacity Seagate hard drives - mine have been less than reliable. So far the WDs have been fine, though I've only had them a short while so far.

Here in the UK, I got a really good price on the drives from Overclockers.co.uk and a decent price on the Netgear (with a free 500GB HD) from eBuyer.com.

Hope this helps!

 

[danny_w]

I recently bought a Synology DS210j NAS for backup and media sharing. I installed 2 Samsung 2TB drives in RAID0 configuration, and I use an external 2TB USB drive to backup the media files from the NAS. I went from a USB Drobo which I had direct attached to my iMac and I wonder why I waited so long. If you want more expandability for the future the consider the DS410j (the 4 drive version); I personally could not justify the added expense up front for a possible expansion down the road that may or may not happen. I considered the ReadyNAS unit but passed because of its slow performance and because it does not support RAID0 mode (but it is still a very nice unit, just older technology). I paid $199 for the DS210j from Newegg.

 

[MCHR]

I've just bought a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo RND2000 with two Western Digital WD20EARS 64MB cache 2TB drives and could NOT be happier.

The Netgear was pretty easy to set up, it supports more features than you can shake a stick at (including FTP, printer sharing and Time Machine backup) and it solves all my storage needs in one go. Personally, I don't see why you'd need any USB/FW drives on top of this.

I stuck my old 1TB Seagate drives into USB caddies, plugged these into the NAS and set the NAS to automatically back up onto them. It emails backup logs to me whenever it completes a job. Since the NAS is also redundant RAID1, I feel my data is pretty safe.

As far as Lacie goes, personally I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. We had some really bad experiences with their products at work a year or two back, and the support was dismal. I would also not recommend getting any large capacity Seagate hard drives - mine have been less than reliable. So far the WDs have been fine, though I've only had them a short while so far.

Here in the UK, I got a really good price on the drives from Overclockers.co.uk and a decent price on the Netgear (with a free 500GB HD) from eBuyer.com.

Hope this helps!

It helps immensely. I had the same gut feeling on LaCie. Nice looking shell, poor quality internals.

The Netgear ReadyNAS looked attractive, so it's encouraging that you've had good luck with it, I may have to follow up on it.

I have two Western Digital RE4 drives coming as well as two WD Black Caviars. Any suggestions which would be better suited for the ReadyNAS? I was looking to use the RE4s in my Mac Pro as RAID 1, but if they would be a better fit in the NAS. . . . .

Oh yes, and does the ReadyNAS support Time Machine?

Thanks

 

[danny_w]

The ReadyNAS is a great unit that has been around for years, but think about your file transfer speed requirements before investing in one of these. That is why I chose the Synology unit myself. File transfers should be at least 75%-100% faster with the Synology, and potentially much more. The ReadyNAS is rated around 15-20MB/s while the Synology is rated in the neighborhood of 35-55MB/s (using gigabit ethernet of course).

 

[cheesygrin]

I have two Western Digital RE4 drives coming as well as two WD Black Caviars. Any suggestions which would be better suited for the ReadyNAS? I was looking to use the RE4s in my Mac Pro as RAID 1, but if they would be a better fit in the NAS. . . . .

Oh yes, and does the ReadyNAS support Time Machine?

Thanks

There's an offically supported HD list for the ReadyNAS here: http://www.readynas.com/?page_id=82
Doesn't look like your RE4's are on the list. You'll have to check the model numbers of your other drives against the list to see if they will work well. Other drives not listed may also work, of course, but not officially supported.

The ReadyNAS does support Time Machine backup as well, but I haven't yet used this feature, so can't say how well it works.

 

[Flash SWT]

The ReadyNAS is rated around 15-20MB/s while the Synology is rated in the neighborhood of 35-55MB/s (using gigabit ethernet of course).

Depends on the model. If we're talking only about the Duo you're probably right however some of their 4 bay and 6 bay units will easily hit 80 MB/s.

.

 

[danny_w]

Depends on the model. If we're talking only about the Duo you're probably right however some of their 4 bay and 6 bay units will easily hit 80 MB/s.

.

Yes they will but you are talking real money then. I was only going by the one being discussed (Duo RND2000). The Duo and the DS210j are about the same price so the comparison is fair.