How to choose a NAS drive?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › How to choose a NAS drive?

kUD

27 posts

Geek

#31814 31-Mar-2009 13:52

Hi folks - I hope I'm in the right forum for this question; wasn't sure whether here, Home Theatre or LAN was best - let me know if I should re-post elsewhere....

I want to store media content (video & audio) centrally on a network drive so that I can initially use it on more than one pc - but eventually to be able to serve it to TV screens (via built in DLNA or some sort of media extender) and/or amps/speakers in different rooms over a network.

My question is what factors do I need to consider when spec'ing up which NAS to buy?

Firstly - Is it necessary to design the whole system (screens, wiring, amps, software, etc.) first, or can I do it piecemeal as I currently plan to, getting the NAS first, then deciding on what video or audio kit to go for?

Secondly , can you provide any advice on NAS requirements to consider. I'm thinking of the following:
a) Speed - what sort of read speed would be the minimum required - say to stream video content to 2 separate locations simulatneously?
b) number of disks - I'm assuming at least 2, so thet I can have some back-up capability. Is there any benefit to going to more?
c) included media server software - is this a major selling point? Presumably not an issue when playing content on a PC, but what about if I want to connect to a screen without switching a PC on (e.g. Samsung seriews 7 have a network input)?
d) power management. What options are typically available so that the NAS is not chewing through KWH whilst not being used, but yet is available on standby so that if its in another room I don't have to physically switch it on every time I need content from it?

Let me know if there are any other requirements that you'd consider important, and which NAS you'd recommend.

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek

#205354 5-Apr-2009 07:22

If you haven't discovered it already this site has a whole bunch of reviews and NAS speed charts.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

kUD

27 posts

Geek

#205548 6-Apr-2009 14:39

Thanks Hashbrown. This is a great site. Lots of FAQs and 'How to..' tutuorials as well as product reviews and pricing. I'll read up and report back on my findings. Cheers.

garvani

1873 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#205552 6-Apr-2009 15:05

Have a read on here too theres already been several discussions on NAS for excatly what your planning on doing. Theres no need to build your system around your nas, as long as you have good cabling then you you will be fine.

Answering your questions:

a) Most home nas boxes thoroughput is pretty average, you would be better going to a small buisness nas box if your planning on streaming HD to a few devices at the same time. I have a dlink home nas, dns-323 which works pretty well, has a gigabit lan port and i can easily stream 1080p mkv's off it to my pc/ps3.

b) Depends on how much you value your data!??! i have two drives in my nas, but don't have raid setup, im greedy and would prefer storage space to redundancy.

c) The built in DLNA on samsung tvs is rubbish, its not worth the extra $$ over the lessor screens. Your really going to want a DLNA client of some sort. I use my pc and ps3 as clients. My dns-323 is hackable so i can have the default dlna server or i can put mediatomb on there, ive only got a couple of dlna errors but thats been because of the ps3. I would do research on the the dlna server software of said device.

d) Most boxes come with power management, ive set mine to 10 minutes inactivity, after that it will switch off the hard drives. Access the device and it comes to life again..

I did a bit of research and ended up on the dlink nas boxes, i didnt want to spend $1000+ on just the hardware, but wanted good thorughput etc, its hackable so you can do much more with them than most, and its a reasonably reliable brand with decent warranty. All in all im very happy with it, havnt had any problems but im sure you will find people that probably have, like most devices!

My .10c...