Recommend NAS & setup

[jhkaplan]

I'm a bit of a newbie with setting up a NAS, so I apologize if this is a question that has been asked a million times.


I recently installed a 128GB SSD in my MBP. It really just doesn't give me enough room to store all of my music & movies like my old HDD did. I was thinking the solution might be to buy a NAS.

I'd like to have a hard drive attached to my Airport Extreme that I can store all of my files on, and it automatically mounts when I'm connected to my home network, and will seamlessly work w/ itunes.

When I'm on the road, I'd still like to be able to mount it on my desktop (from an outside network), and proceed as if i'm still attached to my home network. So anywhere I have internet access, I can access my music & movies from my home NAS.

Is this possible? Can it be done easily and cheaply? Can anyone recommend a NAS to purchase or a solution? I want to hack this together cheaply, so I don't really want to spend more than $115 or so.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Dalton63841]

If you just want to make your AirDisk available remotely, its pretty simple.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6894936

You don't even need to remember your external IP if you set up a dyndns.com service.

 

[jhkaplan]

If you just want to make your AirDisk available remotely, its pretty simple.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6894936

You don't even need to remember your external IP if you set up a dyndns.com service.

So I can plug in an external hdd or NAS to my AEBS and access it from the outside? Do I have to VPN in to make it as if I'm at my home network, so the drives mount?

 

[balamw]

So I can plug in an external hdd or NAS to my AEBS and access it from the outside? Do I have to VPN in to make it as if I'm at my home network, so the drives mount?

External USB HDD, not NAS in this case. You would not have to VPN in, but anyone who could guess/hack/crack your username/password could also access your AirDisk.

B

 

[jhkaplan]

External USB HDD, not NAS in this case. You would not have to VPN in, but anyone who could guess/hack/crack your username/password could also access your AirDisk.

B

Cool thanks. Would this mount the drive on my desktop as if I were inside my home network? If I were to use a NAS instead of a external HDD, would this work in the same way? I like the transfer speed and redundancy of NAS.

 

[jhkaplan]

Would this work better?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00429N16A/ref=s9_simh_gw_p23_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1MJV6Q3B6NZZN55RTAH9&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

 

[balamw]

Would this mount the drive on my desktop as if I were inside my home network?

Should do, yes.

If I were to use a NAS instead of a external HDD, would this work in the same way? I like the transfer speed and redundancy of NAS.

Would this work better?

First: The single drive NAS you linked to does not provide any added redundancy compared to a single drive attached to your router. It should be faster than a Time Capsule or AirDisk off Airport Extreme, but won't saturate a Gigabit link if that's what you're after. You would need at least a 2 drive NAS to get redundancy like the "My Book World Edition II" or "ShareSpace" (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/network/networkstorage/) to get redundancy.

The nice thing about using the router is that it's easy to expose the drive to the outside world. If you use a NAS behind the router you will need to enable port forwarding or as you had previously indicated provide some kind of VPN access to get behind your firewall, so the setup becomes more complicated, but at the same time is more secure.

B

 

[jhkaplan]

Should do, yes.





First: The single drive NAS you linked to does not provide any added redundancy compared to a single drive attached to your router. It should be faster than a Time Capsule or AirDisk off Airport Extreme, but won't saturate a Gigabit link if that's what you're after. You would need at least a 2 drive NAS to get redundancy like the "My Book World Edition II" or "ShareSpace" (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/network/networkstorage/) to get redundancy.

The nice thing about using the router is that it's easy to expose the drive to the outside world. If you use a NAS behind the router you will need to enable port forwarding or as you had previously indicated provide some kind of VPN access to get behind your firewall, so the setup becomes more complicated, but at the same time is more secure.

B

Hi,

Thanks for your help. I was able to access the airdisk from an outside network; actually pretty easy. I just go to finder>>go>>connect to server, and input my public IP and user/pass. Works like a charm.

A few questions though if you don't mind offering some more help:

1. How do I access this from Win7?

2. Would this work the same if I bought a NAS? I need more storage and faster transfer (than usb) would be nice. Would a NAS connected to the AEBS via ethernet work the same way or would I have to do something more to access it the same way as the HDD?

Thank you for your help! I'm a bit of a newb when it comes to this type of networking.

Thanks,

Josh

 

[balamw]

1. How do I access this from Win7?

Assuming you setup Windows sharing \\pu.bl.ic.ip\sharename

2. Would this work the same if I bought a NAS? I need more storage and faster transfer (than usb) would be nice. Would a NAS connected to the AEBS via ethernet work the same way or would I have to do something more to access it the same way as the HDD?

I already addressed this in my last response.

If you use a NAS behind the router you will need to enable port forwarding or as you had previously indicated provide some kind of VPN access to get behind your firewall, so the setup becomes more complicated, but at the same time is more secure.

EDIT: Some NAS support UPnP to auto-configure the firewall like this Buffalo http://buffalonas.com/WebAccess_Quickstart.html

My guess is that even the AirDisk over USB will saturate your WAN link, so you are looking for better performance only when you are at home. You'll need to spend more than what you were looking at with your single disk WD NAS to really make a huge difference.

B