Hi. A small fledgling business, 2 laptops but hopes(!) of growth to 3-4 of us. We now need a central ‘filing’ system, so am guessing that a external drive plugged into the router would make sense, and then we access from a single source wirelessly.

If so, any recos pls? Recently asked for router recos and went for the Billion which has been great so far, so thanks for that. We’re running Windows 7 if it makes a difference, and file sizes of our docs typically 1-15mb.

Cheers

A Buffalo linkstation with 2 big drives and RAID1 should see you right.

You could consider this, if you’re looking to expand and might need the features? You’d still need to add more storage at some point though…
http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini/server/

Ah, I’ve just been through this, having suffered my second (and last) sudden Time Capsule death.

I’m not a techy but I spent a day or two on Google etc sorting out what I needed, and I ended up with a Synology Diskstation DS212j. It’s an empty box (+software) that you have to put hard drives in, so I also bought a couple of HDDs to go in there. Can’t remember what they were now.

The outcome of all this is a 4,000 GB file/music/media storage thing that I can access over the network at home, and over the internet while I’m away, on my laptop, iPhone or iPad. So it’s like my own little cloud (except it’s quite big, and with no monthly fee).

It also dishes up my music at home and my films and photos if I wanted it to.

I didn’t know this when I ordered it, but apparently it gets good reviews in What HiFi and other places.

For someone who normally doesn’t touch anything that hasn’t been touched by the hand of Jobs, this was quite a milestone for me, and it has opened my eyes somewhat to the fun that can be had when you go off the Apple piste.

I’d look for something with a few spare bays and RAID capabilities.

You’ll still need to do backups as well, though.

Buffalo are cheapish, simple to config and suitable for SMB’s …

Just what you need.

Bit of a long shot, but are you after any servers/switches/firewalls to start off your infrastructure?

Got 3 x HP DL380s, 1 x Watchguard Firewall, and 3 x Cisco 2950 (24-port) switches to find a new home.

1 x SBS 2003 OEM license (20 users!), and 2 x Server 2003 licenses for the above hardware.

Just had a major upgrade some new toys delivered at work, and need to get rid of the old stuff.

I’ve got a Synology DS411J. 4bay Nas with RAID5…. it was about £250 as an empty box.

Took me all of about 10 minutes to set-up, and I now access my 3tb iTunes library wirelessly from my Macbook. It also backs-up wirelessly every hour. It’s perfect because I don’t have to concern myself with what it’s doing, or how its doing it…… I can just forget it’s there

The reviews of NAS units are all pretty mixed, but this one gets consistently good reviews. My friend bought a cheapo Buffallo one, and it was bob.

Anyway, my two cents

I have a QNAP, and am most impressed with it.

It also acts as a:

printserver
web server
runs my Logitech Squeezeboxes

and it can do much more…

clicky

Second the synology, I have been very pleased with mine, and as said above, you rarely see a poor review of one.

Apologies for the hijack but,

xiphon > what generation are the Proliants?

We’re always looking for kit for the lab at work, as it has a budget of two pounds fifty and a bag of Maltesers. If you’re not looking for a tremendously large sum for them, ping me an email and I’ll have a word with the guy who runs it.

wwaswas – Member
I’d look for something with a few spare bays and RAID capabilities.

You’ll still need to do backups as well, though

Backing up to the same physical box even if you are using different drives is not a good idea. If you get burgled you could lose everything.

Backing up to the same physical box even if you are using different drives is not a good idea.

True, but it’s a better idea than not doing it at all.

Qnap or Synology. As others have said you must do backups. Online/offsite is a good idea in case of theft/fire but depending on your business and data you might prefer to do backups to another portable drive (or pair) and have a procedure for taking them offsite alternately.

How about this and a couple of 1tb drives running ubuntu server or windows home server etc

http://www.ebuyer.com/281915-hp-proliant-turion-ii-n40l-microserver-100-cashback-658553-421

i have the previous version and it runs great as a media server and file server

I would have recommended my LaCie networkspace2 as its been rock solid for 2 years, but as soon as I introduced Sonos and multiple users to it it’s been a nightmare so get anything else. Synology and qnap get consistently good reviews.

Synology is on my shopping list…

Cougar – I have your email addy, so I’ll shoot you one over 🙂

can anyone answer why a nas drive is better than just having a spare (Cheap) PC on the network with a larger hardrive installed?

seems like a much cheaper approach than the NAS option?

NAS = often very lower power consumption, easy to use management GUI, RAID built-in (plug the drives in, click a button).

You *could* use a PC, especially with FreeNAS on it.

FWIW, we have *recycled* an old server (Dell SC1425) into a backup NAS, running FreeNAS – 2 x 2TB SATA (RAID1), and OS installed on a 4GB USB stick.

furry muff. just losing the plot here i think.

bit like the whole apple tv, on demand issues, spent ages searcing for a neat solution…

i have basically just cleaned out an old pc, stuck it behind my tv (wired in), and now use it for everything (including network storage)

AIUI a NAS is a PC, just heavily stripped out and running a dedicated OS. No reason not use an old PC. I use an old XBox. That said I find dropbox much more useful. All my files live on both my laptop and desktop and are backed up and available online.

If you can get your hands on an Intel Nano/Atom board as a base unit, they make excellent NAS systems.

and another vote for Synology Diskstation.

+1 QNAP

I have a 412, its a bay unit (2x500GB + 2x1TB).
if you are really paranoid you can configure it to upload key files to the magical interfloppy cloud.

thanks all – provided me with food for thought.

If I can – we’re pretty IT illiterate, and our IT demands are very simple. The need for this NAS or similar, is for both of us to share the same folders/docs ie. one central storage system. Within it, the docs are typically ppt/word/pdfs, and all pretty small and simple.

With that in mind, I’m hesitant to go for anything that seems complicated but can imagine that eg. remote access might occasionally be useful. Is it a case that it’ll be pretty simple to go for the more sophisticated offering, that’ll not run out of space or capability if we grow a wee bit?

And ideally, if anyone was happy to advise a little via email, I could give details of us/what we have, and be delighted to have a recommendation, and maybe a tad of guidance!

Thanks

is for both of us to share the same folders/docs ie. one central storage system. Within it, the docs are typically ppt/word/pdfs, and all pretty small and simple.

Dropbox or googledocs may provide a simpler solution for you, tbh.

Before getting my Synology DS411J I looked into building my own NAS/RAID box thingie. Amongst others I was looking at a system called unRaid.

My conclusion was that for 250 notes I could get a synology unit that did exactly what I wanted out of the box, without me having to invest time and effort into getting a home made solution to work.

I’m sure that for some it would be a piece of cake, but I’d probably f*ck-it-up in some expensive and complicated way.

I’m relatively tech savvy, so I was tempted – but decided that it was more trouble than it was worth in the end.

How about Office365 or Google Apps?

(Serious suggestion btw)

while we are on the topic and there are some knowledgeable people about….I want to set up a nas for home use linking desktop, laptop, ps3 and smartphones. I already have a couple of external usb drives I use for storage and back from the desktop up that I would like to make permanently available and able to run as a media server.

is there a cost effective way of doing this either through a stand alone box or a cheap nas with usb expansion ports? not got much to spend on this so can’t really afford to buy new storage and would like to use what I’ve got.

I’m okay plugging things in and playing around a bit but have no experience of networks so am looking for as close to plug and play as I can get.

cheers Rio

You could use transplant the disks from the external drives into a NAS. They’ll just be regular hard drives and a little converter interface inside a fancy box. That won’t give you RAID1 though unless you mount two identical disks.

In your case though I think I’d be tempted to leave the ‘backup’ drive in its caddy. If it’s permanently mounted next to the original, you don’t have any backups if anything happens to the box (fire, controller failure, burglary etc). If you use the USB drive, you can then store it elsewhere; ideally at a friend’s house or something, but even the next room gives you more safety than mounting it in the case.

So after advice above (thanks), and a bit of Googling, how’s about this:

Synology DS212J 2 Bay NAS Enclosure

plus

Seagate ST2000DL003 Barracuda Green 3.5-inch 2TB SATA 6 Gb/s Drive

Nothing else required to get up and running?!

Synology here, very happy with it – it does all that you ask for and more. As others have said an offsite backup is always best for a company..

I have the DS210j and i bought it with the discs installed.. try to do it this way if i were you – then really all you do is plug and play..

otherwise you need to check with the list on synology to check that the discs are compatible…(i just couldnt be arsed doing that) true – a very easy job..

is for both of us to share the same folders/docs ie. one central storage system. Within it, the docs are typically ppt/word/pdfs, and all pretty small and simple.

Dropbox or googledocs may provide a simpler solution for you, tbh. +1

Dropbox will easily do everything you need. Set up one account each then share a folder. You’ll get a local copy on each others computers and a back-up on-line. It means you can work away from the office, too.

I’ve got 18Gb of free storage (I think new accounts are 2Gb) or there are pay options.

Just ordered my Synology, went for the single bay option as I’ll probably back it up with an external drive that can be kept in a separate location.

So, £116 plus another £80 for a WD Caviar Green hdd.

Will set it up wired to begin with but I’m planning on adding a usb dongle and running the connection to the router wireless.

Anyone have any experience of this, did it work well?

Leave it wired would be my recommendation.

a) what are you gaining? It doesn’t have to be physically located anywhere specific, and

b) wireless is like a tenth of the speed of wired.

I’d much rather have it wired, as your point ‘b’

We’re running out of space where the cable router is (behind the TV), so my options are ethernet cables (difficult to hide) wireless or powerline.

I have 2 homeplugs running flawlessly at the moment but will need to introduce a third to include the NAS, don’t have high hopes of this working trouble free from what I’ve read before (albeit a fair while ago).