07-23-2011, 01:11 PM

Since I know we have some NAS experts here, i'm just curious what's the advantage of a NAS device vs connecting an external drive to the Airport and sharing it that way?

07-23-2011, 04:55 PM

I am curious about throughput comparisons I was told NAS would be faster but never
seen figures as to how much.

07-25-2011, 11:21 AM

NAS will most certainly be faster. You've got a nice little bottleneck at the USB port.

Theoretical max of gige 125 MB/s
Theoretical max of USB 2.0 40MB/s

Generally USB 2.0's a bit closer to 32MB/s, which is why FW tends to be faster in the field.

07-25-2011, 11:31 AM

A NAS is able to be set up in a RAID configuration for secure backup. Also it can be accessed and interfaced with on your network without being plugged into a computer. An external HD does not have the same security or feature set of a NAS. I'm liking this unit for the money lately:

Amazon.com: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS211J (White): Electronics

07-27-2011, 09:20 PM

Having just purchase (last week) that exact NAS DS211J and also using the my 1TB airport for the past year...I can tell you that the NAS is alot faster (I'm still setting everything up, DLNA, FTP, Web.) DS211J is good enough for home use and for the price, you can't go wrong.

07-31-2011, 01:07 PM

This is a good discussion and is very helpful information regarding NAS.
I am a newbie when it comes to RAID and NAS technology.

I was thinking of using a External RAID 1 Drive (2 Drive Array) mostly as a NAS File Server perhaps to also serve up some Media content. Of course it would be my intention to backup this RAID Drive completely.
My thoughts were that this setup would provide Hard Drive Failure Redundancy for my files so that I should be able to access them all the time.

Would the above setup be a good use for RAID 1 Technology?

Any comments would be appreciated.

DavidH

08-08-2011, 06:54 PM

Originally Posted by ByzantineRemnant

A NAS is able to be set up in a RAID configuration for secure backup. Also it can be accessed and interfaced with on your network without being plugged into a computer. An external HD does not have the same security or feature set of a NAS. I'm liking this unit for the money lately:

Amazon.com: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS211J (White): Electronics

Thanks for the suggestion, I just ordered that one.

Never even occurred to me that a NAS can also function as a DLNA server which makes sharing to my LCD TV super easy and I don't have to hack my Mac to make it work any more.

08-08-2011, 07:06 PM

One potential advantage of the Airport and external drive route could be the ease of replacing the drive should that become necessary. I had a NAS for a while and discovered, when something died inside, that it was impossible to open the unit and replace the drive. The return procedure was such a pain that I finally chucked the unit and went back to bare drives and enclosures.

Originally Posted by schweb

Never even occurred to me that a NAS can also function as a DLNA server which makes sharing to my LCD TV super easy and I don't have to hack my Mac to make it work any more.

What were you using to do this. I am setting something similar up. I have tried two different things one does not seem to work and the other seems to want to run as root.

08-08-2011, 07:18 PM

We use Servio right now for DLNA.

As for drives, this unit is designed for interchangeable drives. We'll actually put in two and run it as RAID in case one dies.

08-08-2011, 08:17 PM

Let me just mention something. RAID is a fault-tolerance methodology. It does not substitute a backup solution. RAIDed data is lost on a somewhat regular basis.

08-08-2011, 08:52 PM

I looked at the Synology NAS boxes real hard and ended at the top of my list. At $130 though, I finally decided to check out and think I am going to move to RAID1 devices. Bought this one from OWC. Also bought one of these.

Both are connected via eSATA to my Win7 box which has been converted from an HTPC to a ripper/converter iTunes/DLNA server. I did have to buy a So, I've got a backup of my media sitting there in the RAID1, plus easy backup to a 3rd drive for off site storage.

And my new MBA, with a 256GB drive and 220GB free space has an iTunes library that's 1.2TB in size.

About the only negative I have thus far with the Maximus is that once it goes to sleep, it takes almost a minute to wake up upon access.

08-08-2011, 08:59 PM

Originally Posted by Dysfunction

Let me just mention something. RAID is a fault-tolerance methodology. It does not substitute a backup solution. RAIDed data is lost on a somewhat regular basis.

Yep, that's why besides Time Machine I also have a primary backup at Backblaze.

10-29-2012, 07:01 PM

Happy to help Schweb, you've always been very helpful!

Originally Posted by schweb

Thanks for the suggestion, I just ordered that one.

Never even occurred to me that a NAS can also function as a DLNA server which makes sharing to my LCD TV super easy and I don't have to hack my Mac to make it work any more.