OSX and NAS

[Cabbit]

Hi all i just got a mac mini 1.66 and i love it to bits but the punny harddrive cant cope with all my files. I was looking a a couple NAS enclosures witch i will use 2x Seagate 750's with to begin with.

D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure
Netgear SC101 Storage Central

Here lies the problem, will these work with osx and will they show up as a harddrive and not require mounting everytime like when i file share with my old imac. I would like my Movies and Itunes folder to be situated on these disks so that any computer on my network and hopefully soon a iTV can access.

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't think there are *any* NASes that do not need to be mounted through SMB/CIFS or something like that, are there? They're on the network, so don't they need to be mounted by the local OS by definition, just as if they were drives on a fileserver?

 

[Flynnstone]

A NAS may be complex and slow.
What I've done on my mini is use Firewire drives.
My understanding is using a fast firewire drive is faster than the on board drive. You could put those drives in Firewire enclosures. I use PHR-100AF enclosures and I have a Firewire 800 to my Power Mac.

A NAS on 100MB ethernet is considerably slower than Firewire 400. Gigabit ethernet ... I don't know.

I don't think there are *any* NASes that do not need to be mounted through SMB/CIFS or something like that, are there? They're on the network, so don't they need to be mounted by the local OS by definition, just as if they were drives on a fileserver?

I remember a company I was at using Snap drive (I think). It could be mounted via appletalk on ethernet. Wasn't real fast, but good for many computers to one drive (file server).
One computer to one drive, I recommend using Firewire.

 

[Cabbit]

firewire is out of the question, NAS or Gigabit NAS is my only option shareing the itunes and movies over 8 computers and 5 diffrent devices. it has to be able to auto mount and show up as a harddrive. in windows and linux NAS drives show up the same as a local harddrive.

D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure is Gigibit Ethernet.

 

[ccantrell]

I just did a lot of research on home/smb NAS solutions and my top 3 choices were:

Thecus http://www.thecus.com
Infranet Soltions http://www.infrant.com
Synology http://www.synology.com

I went with the Thecus solutions because it supported:

• 5 Drive Bays
• eSata - gives you the option to NAS and local connect
• Gigabit
• AFP, CIFS and FTP

Infranet and Synology looked a little more mature in their firmware. With the Thecus, I was able to populate with 5x500GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration, giving me 2TB of storage

If you are in the market for a NAS solution, I recommend http://www.eaegis.com/
They have excellent prices and are very knowledgeable in this space. Ask for John.

 

[kbonnel]

I have a Infrant ReadyNAS 600, and I love it. Very simple to use, and feature packed. (The X-Raid feature is great, as it allows you to eaisly grow your raid 5 when you need more space).

Kimo