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  • Cat 6 wiring and a NAS drive – is this how it works?
  • cb
    Full Member

    We’re having some work done meaning a few ceilings will be down soon. I thought it might be an idea to install some cat6 cabling and a NAS drive. Following on from another recent thread – is the following route the way to do it?

    Cat 6 cables from as many points in the house as is sensible to reach while works underway. These cables arrive at a central point where an unmanaged switch is located. The BT infinity router is plugged into the switch. Where would the NAS drive go – into the switch or into the router?

    Also – can a NAS be accessed by both Android and Apple? I want the NAS to be accessible remotely as well. NAS for storing of music, films and files.

    Thanks

    Rubber_Buccaneer
    Full Member

    Where would the NAS drive go – into the switch or into the router

    Either

    can a NAS be accessed by both Android and Apple?

    There are apps that will let you access the NAS. Some NAS manufacturers have their own apps to make this easy (or not, check reviews)

    NAS to be accessible remotely

    Some certainly can but your upload speed may be an issue. Have you considered cloud storage?

    cb
    Full Member

    I have considered cloud and its the monthly on-going costs that put me off. I do make use of the Google free limits for photo back ups etc but a pay once solution appeals.

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    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    I suspect they’ve improved but when I tried running a NAS for shared files/music etc some years back it was a lumpy experience, particularly with file permissions on the Mac.

    Someone shared some files with me from a (new) Synology Diskstation recently and it looked like a much better experience but cloud storage has got massively cheaper as well.

    At the moment I use –
    Dropbox and Google Drive for our ‘files’ (everything except music, photo’s and videos). Pretty sure I’m not paying for any of it. Drive seems less reliable (doesn’t always autostart when boot the computer, or crashes – whatever – sometimes I find it’s not running). Those sync files in multiple places so always working on a local file and deals with being disconnected.

    Media – the Mac is always switched on (though all powersaving features enabled) to share in the house. Backed up to a USB hard drive every month or so and a second one less often.

    I’m pretty sure Apple devices/software still don’t play nice with a NAS. The iTunes and Photos libraries are designed to be opened from a single machine so whilst you can stick them on a remote drive other machines won’t access them nicely and if the drive is disconnected it will kick up.

    50Gb of storage for apple Photos is only 80p a month, 250Gb #2.50. 1TB of Dropbox is #80 a year. A synology NAS looks to be at least #200 plus disks

    mynamesnotbob
    Free Member

    Yes you have the idea correct, just route all to one place and plug all in to that.

    I would put the NAS in the switch, as trying to avoid the homehub will be better as it struggles shifting large amounts of data around, and a decent switch is better IMO. My Homehub is sitting in the garage in it’s box as it was woeful.

    I would also consider a managed switch that will allow port aggregation, if you are running a NAS that supports it and you are running multiple HD streams. It will allow a far fast link.

    NAS’s work really well with Mac/Linux/Windows etc. I have a Sinology 412+ and an 1815+ with lots of data being shared. 3 Macs, 3 PC’s, 4 amps, and multiple mobile clients. All media is stored central (films, music etc) and you keep it there. iTunes will happily use data from a share. You just keep the actual library file local, but thats tiny.

    I’ve used multiple NAS’s and they all work well with Mac, there were some older NAS’s that had a very old and insecure authentication system, but that all has been phased out and wouldn’t be a problem if you are buying new.

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    QNAP and Synology are who I would buy from.
    You can put it anywhere on your network.
    As mynamesnotbob says – I would get a large switch and then not use any of the extra connections in the router at all.

    Any decent video box will be able to access the drives directly, or you can use servers installed on the NAS. I use Minimserver for UPnP music for example.

    jb72
    Free Member

    Up to you – but I’d run Cat5e. 6 is horrible to work with.

    rossburton
    Free Member

    Use a reasonable switch (my desk has a Netgear DS308 switch under it, metal case, 8 gigabit ports, 20 quid) as the central point, and pretend that the HomeHub is just actually a modem over ethernet. No point routing traffic through the switch and to the homehub to the NAS.

    Personally I like the Synology NAS units: they’re on the pricy end but my original DS209 is still going strong (first released 2009) with a couple of WD Red disks in. If you’re just looking for a home use then their basic stuff is perfectly sufficient.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    Up to you – but I’d run Cat5e. 6 is horrible to work with.

    … and more expensive, and pointless.

    somouk
    Free Member

    Agree with the Cat 5e comment, much easier to get around bends.

    I’ve got a Synology and it does everything you say you want including having apps available for iOS and Android for music, video and files both in the house and on the go.

    cb
    Full Member

    Is this likely to be largely “plug and play” for a non IT bod like me? Or am I biting off more than than I can chew?

    Point taken on the cabling – cat 5e it is!

    Do any NAs drives come with HD or do I have to buy the HDs in addition to the unit?

    mynamesnotbob
    Free Member

    Is this likely to be largely “plug and play” for a non IT bod like me? Or am I biting off more than than I can chew?

    Point taken on the cabling – cat 5e it is!

    Do any NAs drives come with HD or do I have to buy the HDs in addition to the unit?

    For basic use yes, as with all things if you want to do fancy shnizz it gets more complicated. There are videos for all basic use cases all over the place as well as the guides.

    Drives being included depends on what you buy. Generally cheaper to buy the drives and chassis individually, and you get better drives. Look on amazon and they will often show different configs

    See here:

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS216-Desktop-Attached-Enclosure/dp/B01AIOTU6C?ie=UTF8&keywords=synology%20nas&qid=1460549889&ref_=sr_1_5&sr=8-5

    And you can click through the options

    cranberry
    Free Member

    NAS to be accessible remotely

    Yes – you need to configure the router, but a good NAS might well help you with this.

    My experience is with Qnap – they have a bunch of PC/Mac based tools for backing up computers and a bunch of apps for phones for remotely accessing data held on the NAS.

    Remember – Always have a backup of the data on the NAS somewhere else, otherwise, losing the NAS means losing everything.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    As Cranberry says above but with one extra. It doesn’t properly exist as digital stuff until it is in 3 places. NAS, back-up disk and Blu-Ray in our set-up.

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    Rubber_Buccaneer – Member

    Where would the NAS drive go – into the switch or into the router

    Either
    [/quote]

    Maybe or maybe not. If you want Gigabit speed when transferring files around your own network, you’ll want a Gigabit switch and plug the NAS and any other Gigabit capable devices into that. The router is likely a 100Mb switch. If the router is Gigabit though, then it doesn’t matter.

    50Gb of storage for apple Photos is only 80p a month, 250Gb #2.50. 1TB of Dropbox is #80 a year. A synology NAS looks to be at least #200 plus disks

    Office 365 subscription is £80 a year and gets you full Office plus 1TB storage.

    But on the comparison with a NAS, well the NAS isn’t an annual fee (unless you burn out discs each year). It’s local quick storage and if you want to stream around the network it will be faster and more reliable than streaming off the cloud (and far less costly if you don’t have unlimited broadband).

    I use OneDrive as online backup of things I want to keep, and my OneDrive folders are synced to my Synology NAS for local backup in case I can’t get to the cloud. The NAS is also regularly backed up to a big USB drive. Additionally I have a pile of music and video on the NAS with local back ups. I don’t generally need that lot in the cloud. Synology provide apps to stream off it or you can use other apps like Plex for video etc. Plus they do a private cloud package so you can use the NAS as the cloud store, but I don’t like that. I prefer big names doing the cloud store as that’s spread out all over the world across servers rather than a single point of failure. There’s a bit question over security there of course 😉

    The NAS is also being used as mail and web server plus a few other things.

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