[Freddy]

Anyone know anything about these : NetGear Stora ?

Just thinking about getting some external storage.  These can hook up to a router.  So I could grab stuff when I am away from home - which is useful to me sometimes believe it or not.  But the main thing is freeing up my HD's and storing things like photos and downloads.

Cheers 

[Data]

Snowcrash on my forum has a network drive, he likes it, only comment was it’s not quite as fast as a USB drive, something to do with network protocol but still good.

Might be worth asking him about them Freddy, well if you get stuck or whatever.

[Freddy]

Thanks.  I'm not so fussed about the speed as it's only for storage.  I will think on it, it seems pretty good to me, I think I will try and find some reviews.

[Freddy]

Hmm, mixed reviews.  I did find another type which did some really cool stuff like host websites too but that would set me back £250.

In the end I couldn't really see the point.  Might be useful in a home network I guess but I only have the one PC here.

Far cheaper for me is to buy one of those 1TB Samsung Spinpoint  F3 dirves for £50 and bung it in my PC and just manually back stuff up when I like.  If I want remote access then I can just rig my local server up to accept incoming connections and write some code to allow uploads, browsing and things like that.

The other thing these NAS drives can do (some of them) is act as a DLNA server, which is basically a mixed media server so you can stream video, music etc to any devices on the network, like an XBox, PS3 and some BD drives.  Since Windows Media Player can do DLNA or in other words act as a media server I already have the kit.

Conclusion - I saved a bundle 

[Data]

Bang for buck those Samsung Spinpoint drives seem the way to go at the moment, think we’ve mentioned them before, fine choice 

My mate has his PS3 rigged up to his NAS, I think that’s why he got it, it seems to work ok but like you Freddy I have no need for one right now though they seem to have quite a lot of features and possibilities. 

[Freddy]

Yes I agree they seem like excellent drives and we have mentioned them before - it was you that highlighted them when Mavairab was asking about hard drives.

I have no real need for NAS, but when I have some money to throw away (wouldn't that be nice) I might get one.  For £250 though you could probably get a reasonably good PC that would do streaming fine and also act as a server.  The advantage of the NAS drives is they use up very little power especially compared to a PC though....

[Carl2]

  I have two of the spinpoints which I used in raid 0, I'm guessing thay are about 500 Gb.  Quick when hooked in raid 0, about 250 Mb read.  Switched to SSD.   
  Can't say much about them since I only used them for a very short time, boot time remained the same and I went to the SSD. 
  1 computer, I've thought of two, I've thought of three, but 1.  Times when I need one computer to get another running.  I bought one computer to get to the internet to buy a computer.

Best of luck
Carl2

[Freddy]

I bought one computer to get to the internet to buy a computer.

Haha that's funny - a sign of our times perhaps ?

[Carl2]

  Glad you found some humor in that.  I looked at the link you put in, seems to do everything for you.  I also checked newegg, a 1 Tb hard drive starts at $64.00, the spinpoint 1 Tb is $74  customer choice award.  If 1 pound = 1.35 dollar the Net gear Stor is $107 and about double the price of the $64 HD.
  You're in a different class, 80 Gb would be plenty for me. 
Carl2 

[DaveMorton]

Darn you, Carl! You just cost me $64.99!

Oh well. What can I say. Now maybe I'll finally break down, and re-organize my data. Fun fun!

[Freddy]

@Carl, yeah that NAS drive is pretty neat, but I was put off by the mixed reviews.  There's a better one from Synology that I would probably prefer :

http://www.dabs.com/products/synology-ds210j-2-bay-nas-server-dlna-sata-usb-6KS4.html

But yes, media streaming, massive storage, automatic backups and a web server are what interested me most about these devices.

[Art]

Very nice Freddy but keep in mind that the price indicated does NOT include any drives!

A friend of mine just crossed over to the dark side (LOL) and bought an Apple iMac which he absolutely loves.
He can perform a total system backup from his home network to a 1 TB storage device...oh yes...WIRELESSLY!

How rude is that!?

[Freddy]

Yep no drives on that one,....so add another £100 to the price    You get what you pay for it seems !

That's rude

[DaveMorton]

YAY!!! My 1TB drive arrived today! Now to {GASP!} shut down, and install it. ^ ^ (this computer hasn't been turned off in almost 6 months)

[Freddy]

Congratulations