Looking for Mac-friendly NAS with RAID

I'm looking to buy a NAS RAID box, and want it to be as Mac compatible as it can be. So far, the leading candidates I can see are Buffalo and NetGear. The features that are attractive to me on these are that they have Time Machine backups, iTunes server, and good administration of the box from the Mac.

Hoping to hear from people running these, or other NAS boxes, and how they relate to the Mac. And please include what models you are using.

Oh, and the ability to use 3 Tb drives would be nice...

 

OP here...

The boxes that I have been looking at are mostly two drive boxes, which I would use as mirrored drives. This is one reason I would love to have a box that supports 3 Tb drives.

I am not against the idea of a Raid 5 box, would love to have one, but probably cannot afford one and also the drives to fill it, at the moment. If you know of a good one that is cheap, I would love to hear about it.

This is meant to be a Time Machine backup for several Macs and also run a local media server, but internet 'cloud' access for files would be a big plus.

I have thought about getting a Mac Mini server and just attaching a non-NAS RAID to that, but the cost of that package is more than I was looking for. If that would be the best way to go though, I can work with that...


My main criteria are:

Large, redundant storage. 2 drive mirror (Raid 1) good, Raid 5 or 6 better... ;-)

Mac friendly administration tools.

Time Machine backups and iTumes server. Any additional Mac based services supported would be nice. Ability to work with the one local PC and any visiting PCs also would be nice.

Good security.

Preferably a quiet running box.

 

Cool, I had previously looked at the Synology web page, and they did not strike me as being particularly Mac friendly. In looking again, based on the comments here, now they do look pretty good for Mac services.

So Synology is definitely in the running. The Synology ds211j looks to be the closest to my needs, and it works with 3 Tb drives! Cool...

I have also heard good things about the NetGear ReadyNAS line, mostly for good Mac support and the active user community, but no on here has mentioned them.

And the Buffalo LinkStation Pro line has also received some good comments elsewhere for their Mac services. But they seem to be kind of a low-end solution....

But Synology is looking pretty good.