Recommended NAS. Seagate BlackArmor?

[truz]

I'm looking to purchase a NAS device. I have been looking at the Seagate BlackArmor NAS 220 (Raid1). I'm looking to store my iPhoto album on this external along with my iTunes music and movies. I also wanted to use Time Machine over WiFi.

I also want to be able to connect my XBOX 360 for streaming movies/music/pictures to my living room as well as my AppleTV in my bedroom.

I was planning to use 1 of the 2 USB ports for my Printer and the Second USB port for an additional 500GB drive to backup my Photos incase both drives fail with raid1.

Anyone using the Seagate BlackArmor NAS? or would you recommend another NAS device?

 

[ashman70]

I would not consider Seagate as a major player in the NAS market, but thats just my opinion. I own three NAS's, a Netgear Readynas, a Thecus and a Qnap, by far the Qnap is the fastest in terms of performance of copying files to and from it over the LAN. In terms of features the Thecus and Qnap offer similiar features, which is quite a lot. On cost, the QNap is the most expensive but you can pick up a 2bay model for around $400 ish I am pretty sure, which might be more money then you are willing to spend, but since you didn't mention budget I'm mentioning it. Since a NAS is likely something you are going to keep for awhile, even possible upgrade the drives when larger ones come out down the road, I think it makes good sense to invest in good quality unit, that offers the features and performance you want, and not to cut corners, if you have to save for awhile to get the one you really want, do it. My Thecus and Readynas are four bay units, my Qnap is a six bay unit, they have all worked flawlessly for the past two years or more and all offer hotswap drives, gigabit ethernet, printer sharing via USB and whole host of other features. Check out qnap at www.qnap.com

 

[MAGNUStm]

I bought a Synology DS111 several months ago and have extremely satisfied with it's performance. I use it exactly for what you describe in your post. It also has additional features such as native iPhone/iPad apps that allow you to stream your media to your iDevice.

Synology Link

My personal favorite features are the built in bittorrent client and power usage. On it averages about 17wts. If the HDD is hibernating I believe it's around 7wts.

 

[truz]

After looking into both units (Qnap & Synology) It seems the Synology is the quality I'm looking for at a price I'm willing to pay. Qnap seems quite amazing but more then I'm willing to spend at this point. I'm currently using a 500GB lacie portable drive.

Question: Does Synology allow you to password protect/create users for the NAS? I have a few kids on the wireless network and I don't want them to have access to my drive.

What hard drives would you recommend? (1-2TB x2)

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Disk...PQGI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308589126&sr=8-1

This is the DS211J. Not sure what the difference is in the DS211J $199 vs DS211 $299

 

[blevins321]

Question: Does Synology allow you to password protect/create users for the NAS? I have a few kids on the wireless network and I don't want them to have access to my drive.

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Disk...PQGI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308589126&sr=8-1

This is the DS211J. Not sure what the difference is in the DS211J $199 vs DS211 $299

Yes, you can create users. In fact, you have to. By default there is an admin user that is created during the initial operating system load, with a password attached. You can keep just this user, or for a bit of flexibility use this one and create a Time Machine user with a quota to be able to limit the max size of the TM backup.

I like the WD Green drives myself. (Here). They're energy efficient and pretty quiet. No need to max out the RPM speed in the unit as the RAID overhead removes the benefit of the extra RPMs.

The difference between the 211j and 211 is the RAM and Processor speed. J: 128RAM and 1.2 Processor vs 211: 256RAM and 1.6 Processor. All the extra gives you will be an increased read and write speed. All the programs/features are accessible in both versions.

 

[MAGNUStm]

Question: Does Synology allow you to password protect/create users for the NAS? I have a few kids on the wireless network and I don't want them to have access to my drive.

What hard drives would you recommend? (1-2TB x2)

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Disk...PQGI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308589126&sr=8-1

As blevins explained, you can create users with restrictions to folders/subfolders... I also use a WD Greendrive. I probably should have bought a 2bay NAS but as this was my first purchase I wasnt sure what I was getting myself into. I bought the DS111 and have a 2TB drive in it. As of right now it's more than enough for my current needs. Keep in mind that you can also plug an external hdd to expand the memory regardless if you bays.

This is the DS211J. Not sure what the difference is in the DS211J $199 vs DS211 $299

Comparison link here.