Home NAS that supports AFP?

[TechieJustin]

Hi folks, I'm looking for a Network attached storage device that supports Apple's network file sharing (Apple Filing Protocol/AFP).
It doesn't have to be RAID, and I wouldn't mind it being 3.5" hard drive based so I can upgrade in a year or two when 200TB drives end up commonplace!

Is there one this forum prefers? I'm hoping not to break the bank but I'm not afraid to pay for an awesome product.
This would be connected via 100BT ethernet.

 

[belvdr]

You might consider NFS, since OS X supports that natively is a fairly fast protocol. This may open your options a bit.

 

[TechieJustin]

You might consider NFS, since OS X supports that natively is a fairly fast protocol. This may open your options a bit.

Ah ha...
Didn't know that. Does Snow Leopard install that by default or do I have to enable it?

 

[giannisk]

I use a Synology DS209+ which is compatible with SMB, AFP, NFS.

Also can take plugins to act as a server for some uses.
Highly recommended.

As far as NFS i read somewhere that during tests had the slowest speed between the rest, so i stayed clear.

 

[mrtrilby]

QNAP support AFS out of the box.

 

[Dhelsdon]

D-Link DNS 323

I use a D-Link DNS 323, 2 Drive bays with no size limits (SATA)
it also has AFP support, but from what I've read it's not a walk in the park getting it setup. Personally I love my NAS, it has streaming iTunes server, FTP, BitTorrent.. and many other 3rd party mods. I am not 100% sure but I've also been told it is compatible with Bonjour too..

 

[Zortrium]

NFS is generally the fastest of the three, assuming it's configured correctly. It's also natively supported by OS X. The only real downside is that it makes working with Windows significantly more annoying, but if you cared about that you'd probably be using SMB instead of AFP.

 

[belvdr]

I use a Synology DS209+ which is compatible with SMB, AFP, NFS.

Also can take plugins to act as a server for some uses.
Highly recommended.

As far as NFS i read somewhere that during tests had the slowest speed between the rest, so i stayed clear.

It could have been the device's implemenation of NFS. NFS is used heavily on Unix servers without performance issues.

NFS is generally the fastest of the three, assuming it's configured correctly. It's also natively supported by OS X. The only real downside is that it makes working with Windows significantly more annoying, but if you cared about that you'd probably be using SMB instead of AFP.

You can always install Microsoft's Services for Unix to enable NFS use.

 

[TechieJustin]

Interesting responses - thanks!

Another question - what about the filesystem on the actual drive? If my research is correct, it has to be HFS+ in order to be used with time machine. Eventually I'm going to have more than one Mac machine here so I figure I better get some sort of NAS that works with TM.

Justin

 

[TechieJustin]

NFS is generally the fastest of the three, assuming it's configured correctly. It's also natively supported by OS X. The only real downside is that it makes working with Windows significantly more annoying, but if you cared about that you'd probably be using SMB instead of AFP.

Right now I am using SMB.
(between digging cars out of the 20+ inches of snow)

I have to say OSX's SMB support is rather lousy. I like being able to browse the network for the machine I want.
At home browsing the network doesn't work with SMB, I can connect via Go -> Connect to server and type in SMB://blah
When I'm at the library, I can browse other machines - PCs and Macs.
Obviously I don't connect to other machines at the library but I can still see them.

 

[happygareth]

I also have a couple of Synology NAS drives connected to my network. They support TimeMachine out of the box and have a couple of cracking iPhone Apps. A photo one that will upload all your snaps to the NAS drive over 3G and anther that will stream your music. They also update their firmware regularly. They also provide an iTunes server if you decide to hold your music library on the NAS drive also. I highly recommend them.

 

[RandomKamikaze]

Interesting responses - thanks!

Another question - what about the filesystem on the actual drive? If my research is correct, it has to be HFS+ in order to be used with time machine. Eventually I'm going to have more than one Mac machine here so I figure I better get some sort of NAS that works with TM.

Justin

When connecting over the network drives don't have to be formatted using HFS+. Mine aren't and TM works fine. It will create a sparsebundle on the drive and use that for TM

I also have a couple of Synology NAS drives connected to my network. They support TimeMachine out of the box and have a couple of cracking iPhone Apps. A photo one that will upload all your snaps to the NAS drive over 3G and anther that will stream your music. They also update their firmware regularly. They also provide an iTunes server if you decide to hold your music library on the NAS drive also. I highly recommend them.

Second this, I use the DS409 and its great. Got all the features I need for a Home NAS and use it for TM for 2 different MacBook Pros as well as storing all music, photos and videos. Gigabit networking also means backups are quick (when used with Gigabit ethernet or Wireless N from the MBPs)

 

[TechieJustin]

When connecting over the network drives don't have to be formatted using HFS+. Mine aren't and TM works fine. It will create a sparsebundle on the drive and use that for TM

Ah ha, that makes sense because the NAS device is what handles R/W ops. When I googled I saw a few posts that said the drive had to be HFSJ. I was thinking maybe TM took special advantage of some HFSJ feature.
IMO, ext3 and NTFS are better filesystems than HFS* so it would make sense to have a NAS volume formatted to one of those.
I have a 2.5" esata, USB2 and Firewire (all in one) external drive in my bank safety deposit box. I have all my family's videos digitized on there - formatted to NTFS.

I'm on eBay looking for a used 17" iMac (CD or C2D) and a used NAS. I'm watching a few (used) Synology single drive NAS' devices. The thing is, I don't need a hard drive. Once I get the iMac I'm going to part out my Windows 7 machine with a RAID 1, and use one of those drives. 350GB should be enough for a simple NAS.