So does anyone NAS?

[YesDear]

My photos have finally reached a critical mass that I have purchased a NAS Network Attached Storage. I want a central spot to save and share photos, videos, etc.

The one I purchased is expandable to 8tbs so I figure it will last a while. Once everything is on there, I will be able to access from anywhere. I have not gotten yet.

Just wondering if anyone else uses one at home?

 

[ssanders79]

Which one did you buy?

I have an old laptop that I use to networked storage and I am not sure what I would do without it. I use it mostly for storing movies and tv show that I stream to my apple tv.

I am looking to upgrade my wireless router and see that they now have routers with USB ports to connect an external HDD! I've yet to really research this feature to see if it will replace a NAS device, but I hope it will as this will allow any external drive to be hooked up.

 

[photo_chick]

I have a NAS and I set it up with the thought that I'd use it to pull files from. But it's simply too slow for my taste for that purpose. It mainly serves as an additional backup for everyone in the house and to stream the music library from now. I got a couple of 1TB EHD's that I take to the machine I need them at.

 

[YesDear]

I have ordered a Netgear Readynas NV+. I am also looking for a main storage place for the images. I figure I will do the basic editing etc on the laptop them store them on the nas.

 

[coloneldebugger]

I've used one for a few years now and have been very happy with it. It is/was my main backup source for all my photo/video/music type stuff.

"Was" only because one of the hard drives failed a month or so ago and I haven't replaced it yet. I didn't lose anything because of the redundant storage method it used. I took it offline until I replace and upgrade the drives to something more roomy.

Now just backing up to a separate hard drive mounted in my tower.

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

We just installed a NAS at work so I will get a chance to evaluate one without costing me any $$$

 

[AlbertZeroK]

We use Windows Home Servers at the office and at job sites, love the integration and backup. Think I'll put one in at the house.

 

[cosmos]

My photos have finally reached a critical mass that I have purchased a NAS Network Attached Storage. I want a central spot to save and share photos, videos, etc.

The one I purchased is expandable to 8tbs so I figure it will last a while. Once everything is on there, I will be able to access from anywhere. I have not gotten yet.

Just wondering if anyone else uses one at home?

I use a Netgear NAS and Microsoft's SyncToy software as my backup solution. When I want to backup my local workstation hard drives I use SyncToy to synchronize the contents with the NAS. It has worked fairly well for the last couple of years. Always available and online.

I also use Zenfolio as an off-site backup. In addition to the backup it's a pretty good photo sharing and viewing website.

 

[phalynx]

I have the ReadyNAS NV + and the ReadyNAS Ultra 6. All loaded with 2TB drives and I absolutely love it. I can have one automatically backup to the other. I can expand on the fly and it is fast.....

 

[Groucho]

I just use an extra XP PC and share folders. I've tried a few *nix-based solutions that use SAMba to manage the shares (which most/all of the little standalone NAS boxes do) and found throughput to be notably slower than running native Windows.

This also lets me run a more advanced streaming server than the NAS boxes have. I have a lot of video in funky formats so I have to use something like PS3 Media Server or TVersity to handle them... plus to transcode and stream HD stuff, you need a decent amount of processing power, which you're not likely to get with a NAS box.

I mainly use it for storage of things that don't require particularly fast speeds - MP3s and videos primarily. Flipping through photos is too slow IMHO across a 100m network, and I don't have a gigabit switch yet, so I keep the photos on wherever I'm going to view them. (Generally, right on my main PC, or I keep 1920x1080-size versions directly on my PS3's hard drive, which is much, much faster than pulling them off a streaming server. On the PS3 is probably the best view to view photos in the house; certainly the best way to show them to others.)

If you go with a NAS box, one that you can put your own drives in easily is definitely the way to go. A week or so ago, NewEgg had the great Samsung 2tb 5400rpm drive on sale for $80 - very cheap and an ideal NAS drive.