- Joined
- Jan 7, 2008
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- Your Mac's Specs
- 16Gb Mac Mini 2018, 15" MacBook Pro 2012 1 TB SSD
Every 4 months or so I decide I need an NAS and dutifully begin to research. Each time I reach a point of overload and indecision, lock-up and decide to forget the whole idea.
Part of the problem is I have no experience with NAS or NAS like setup other than using a Timecapsule (I also had a WD external HD hooked by USB to the Timecapsule for a while--but eventually abandoned it).
Second, I tend not to buy items that don't have a substantial number of reviews on Amazon (my vendor of choice) and especialy if the 1 star reviews are significantly higher than 10% of total reviews.
That brings me to three, which is all of the NAS devices I have looked at either have almost no reviews or have greater than 20% 1 star reviews, which makes it difficult for me to pull the trigger on them.
In my research I saw a reccomendation to just connect a RAID external HD to a computer that was always running, and use enable drive sharing. That piqued my interest because I use a Mac Mini as a home theater and it is always on. So that brings me to my questions:
1) Would this be a suitable alternative to an NAS?
2) If so, how do I go about setting it up?
3) Reccomendation on NAS vs RAID (specific equipment included)?
4) I was looking at the OWC 4 TB RAID -- good choice?
5) If RAID is the way to go, RAID 0, 1, 5 ????
My goal for this is file sharing, in particular shared iTunes, iPhoto and Video Libraries. Don't plan on using it for back up. I use individual Seagate portables with Time Machine for each computer.
Thanks for any input or help.
Part of the problem is I have no experience with NAS or NAS like setup other than using a Timecapsule (I also had a WD external HD hooked by USB to the Timecapsule for a while--but eventually abandoned it).
Second, I tend not to buy items that don't have a substantial number of reviews on Amazon (my vendor of choice) and especialy if the 1 star reviews are significantly higher than 10% of total reviews.
That brings me to three, which is all of the NAS devices I have looked at either have almost no reviews or have greater than 20% 1 star reviews, which makes it difficult for me to pull the trigger on them.
In my research I saw a reccomendation to just connect a RAID external HD to a computer that was always running, and use enable drive sharing. That piqued my interest because I use a Mac Mini as a home theater and it is always on. So that brings me to my questions:
1) Would this be a suitable alternative to an NAS?
2) If so, how do I go about setting it up?
3) Reccomendation on NAS vs RAID (specific equipment included)?
4) I was looking at the OWC 4 TB RAID -- good choice?
5) If RAID is the way to go, RAID 0, 1, 5 ????
My goal for this is file sharing, in particular shared iTunes, iPhoto and Video Libraries. Don't plan on using it for back up. I use individual Seagate portables with Time Machine for each computer.
Thanks for any input or help.