Looking to add a NAS drive onto the network at home. While I'm at it I thought I'd look for a RAID 1 version so we've got inherent backup too.
Anyone got experiences of the QNAP (probably TS-210 Turbo) or one of the smaller Thecus ones? Thecus do a neat 2.5" drive version which looks pretty cute.
Mostly for data storage but I suppose most will come with iTunes server/media streaming etc. these days anyway.
Ta.
This http://cranberry.dyndns.info/thumbnails.php?album=13 is running on a Qnap219p, which I can heartily recommend.
I've had it for the best part of a year, and the software/support seems really good.
Got one of the larger ones at work and it seems pretty good. Might be a touch too big for your needs though. I think we have it set for RAID 7 with a lot of 2 TB disks.
Short answer - very happy with my QNAP.
I had a lower cost NAS and it was OK but lacked features, speed and support so after some research ended up blowing my budget on a QNAP TS239ProII, mainly to get the fastest network transfer speeds I could afford.
Great bit of kit, really stable, fast and full of features, should you need them. Easy RAID configuration, on-the-fly expansion and easy backup via USB. Loads of built in server capability too.
RAID 1 - is worth having but don't rely on this for backup. It'll protect against drive failure only, not deletion, corruption or over-writing. I recommend you get an external USB drive for backups as well. Having suffered both drive failure and massive data loss at seperate times before, I now backup over USB regularly (QNAP will do this automatically as soon as a drive is connected, or can be set to do certain folders on a button push), then back that USB drive up again to another removeable drive every now and again.
do I need to back up the back up and do I need to back up that back up or am I ok with a back up?
Yeah, most things are backed up onto a portable HDD too, and the little 'uns photos when she was growing up are burnt onto a number of DVDs and given to the family to look after in case of major fire etc.!
Just sick of being on laptop and realising my work files are on the PC. Sob, lifes hard. 
Might just invest in a QNAP. It's nearly Christmas after all and it'll be more fun than a new jumper/slippers...
do I need to back up the back up and do I need to back up that back up or am I ok with a back up?
I'd back that up too if I were you, you can never be too careful!
After SyncToy threw a massive wobbler on me and 'deleted' 40,000 files from both source and destination during a backup job, I now backup my backup. Fortuantely, I recovered them all with a Linux Live CD but now, an extra 1TB drive for £50 = peace of mind.
breatheeasy - that was exactly my problem. Work on the desktop, head downstairs and want to check a file. Doh! Shared folders are OK but nowhere near as a NAS.
It now serves files to my desktop for work, the laptops for fun and holds all the photos, music, video. Our TV is DNLA enabled so the NAS also streams media direct to the TV, so I ripped all my bike movies onto it, and can watch torrents direct from the NAS without a computer, as well as streaming music all round the house.
It took some setting up to get working but now makes things much easier.
Nice one Gravity-Slave - looks like it ticks all the geek boxes in me. Might even talk myself into a Sonos box one day for sounds around the house!
In terms of TV streaming - any more boxes required or is it literally dropping a, say, ethernet cable into the TV and all controlled by the tv remote. Or is that all too simples and for the future?!
The TV bit is a bit of a bonus/accident in our setup. The Mrs. picked a shiny Samsung (she was paying) so I went with it. It happened to be 'internet ready' so I hooked up to the router with a cable (WiFi modules also available) and can get YouTube and weather on it.
I had Twonky enabled on the NAS and lo and behold, the NAS shows up as a source on the TV! The TV remote can be used to navigate content including pause and skip on video, straight off the NAS.
Sonos should hook up in a similar way and find your music library, I think. I use a Mac mini for media/web server duties and airport express for multi-room.
Regarding QNAP models, I went with the 239 purely for the faster write speed - the 219 looks more than capable for home:
http://qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=122
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