I need an external backup/storage drive and figure for an extra £30 or so I may as well get a NAS drive to connect to my router so I can access it from my macbook as well as the pc, and stream music to the xbox360.

There seems to be a massive difference in price between different models/makes with fairly similar spec.

This one has all the features but is it a case of buy cheap buy twice with these things?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1000GB-1TB-Network-Nas-Lan-Server-External-USB-Drive_W0QQitemZ300332431303QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_HardDrives_RL?hash=item45ed3537c7&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12%7C66%3A2%7C39%3A1%7C72%3A1690%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50#ht_2247wt_1167

I know it'll need to run on FAT32 so the apple can access it but I might partition it 50:50 so I can fit movies on the NTFS partition.

havent any experience of that model, but having bought cheap external cases in the past I have had mixed results – some good, some bad…for £88 I would question what drive it has in there – I have personal preferences as to what drives I use and now only buy one brand

do you have an old PC lying around? if so, why not consider using freeNAS and building yourself a NAS box – no harder to configure than what you are considering buying and potentially alot cheaper too and expandabe as and when you want to add an extra drive

If you're using it over the network it will be accessed via cifs or smb so it doesn't matter what the underlying file format is, the Mac will still be able to access it (eg. so you can use NTFS to enable files > 4GB to be stored).

As for price, some will have gigabit ethernet ports, some only 100mbit. Some have USB for direct connection, others will have FireWire etc.

do you have an old PC lying around? if so, why not consider using freeNAS and building yourself a NAS box – no harder to configure than what you are considering buying and potentially alot cheaper too and expandabe as and when you want to add an extra drive

And a lot more power hungry!

What about this?

Netgear ReadyNAS

It has a single 1TB disk so no options for Raid.

I bought an Icybox from Novatech, put in two 1TB Samsung disks and then mirrored them. It cost a little more than £88 but is properly protected and is gigabit.

Thanks for this 🙂

Retro83 – I had no idea apples could access NTFS if it's over a network so that's that problem solved!

I looked at freeNAS and I do have an old desktop but it has a 500w psu and sounds like a vulcan taking off so I don't really want it running all the time, plus it takes an age to boot up and turns our spare room into an oven!

The only feature I'd really like is a usb print server, although an itunes server and bittorrent client would be nice.

I'd want it to be reliable but I can stream music to my xbox from my macbook using connect360 so the extra advantages of a NAS drive would be lost on me if it costs £150+

Shakey – I'll have a look into the Icybox. Gigabit would be better but I'm not sure about needing raid. Although I might change my mind if I lose all my photos after a crash!

Can't remember the cost (and it was a few years back anyway) but I use a buffalo linkstation at home which has a gigabit switch, print server, FTP etc and 2 USB ports so you can run additional USB drives off it if the urge grabs you.

Simple to use and been solid since I bought it. Is a media server too.

F

Don't risk your data on one single big disk, go for RAID

I have a Lacie NAS disk, and it's downright appalling. Its media server won't talk to iTunes, and because it insists on rebuilding its media library every 5 minutes (a 'feature' that according to lacie can't be turned off), it's woefully slow, and probably won't last very long as its forever thrashing away over 1TB of data. It has a supposedly useful function of backing up through its own USB, but what actually happens is the data has to go through it, down the ethernet to the PC controlling it, then back again.

So whatever make you go for, avoid Lacie!