I currently have a laptop that is full-to-bursting with years of photos and also gets used to stream video via an XBox. The laptop needs a rest, so I’m looking for a NAS to handle the video streaming (on one drive) and also act as a large-capacity backup (on a 2nd drive). I found some earlier threads that recommended the Synology Disk Station, which seems to meet those requirements well. I’ll probably start with 2x1Tb and go from there. Any others to consider?

On another front, I’d like a surround sound system. Ideally, something that can play 5.1 surround sound from the Xbox and from the NAS, as well as acting as a decent living-room music player. I really don’t want another DVD/Bluray player with it, I’d rather invest in a better media streaming option than buy a disc player that I’ll never use. Any recommendations? Am I asking too much?!

STW AV club

Love it

I got one of these recently. Haven’t been using it long but it seems pretty good. 2 x 2TB disks mirrored, I use it to stream to some media software on a Mac/AppleTV setup.

We’ve watched HD movies without issue and it’s currently running through a 100Mb/sec switch (it’ll run at 1Gb/sec). You can carve it up into smaller volumes if you want to split out media from a backup target.

+1 on the WD Mybook.

Ran one now for about a year with no issues.

Use it as a share for all Pc’s in house, itunes library holder, and streaming video to a WD TVlive box thingy.

Just sits quietly in the loft and does its thing.