NAS drive for backup and Sonos

I have a macbook pro and I'm looking to get Sonos (wireless streamer for music). I'm looking for a NAS drive that I can use as a backup for my mac and also partition to hold lossless music files. The NAS will always be on.

I was advised to go for Firewire 800, 1TB or more - but would appreciate any advice on a good NAS drive. Apple have a 1TB refurbished timecapsule for £200 but I'm guessing I can get better (albeit wired ) for less eg Ready NAS Duo, Linksys, LaCie, Iomega ...

Any suggestions ? Do these do anything more than the timecapsule? Am I better sticking with Apple?

Has anyone else been able to run Sonos well from timecapsule as I quite like the idea a wireless NAS?

Many thanks

Apple's networking products are generally overpriced and under featured. The Time Capsule works fine as an extension of Time Machine, but it's not to be confused with a real NAS.

I use a D-Link DNS-323 with two 500GB WD hard drives in mirrored mode. It works well and has an iTunes server. Relatively inexpensive too.

Another thing to consider is that all hard drives have a mean-time before failure (MTBF). If you're running the drive 24/7/365, it's likely to fail faster than one that's only used intermittently. So, I would highly recommend a multi-drive NAS that supports mirroring.

Many thanks for the reply - all new to me ,so this is very helpful and much appreciated. I suspected TimeCapsule wasn't the best option and will look for a NAS that supports mirroring.

Does anyone have any experience with running Sonos from a NAS which is also used for backing up?