Some advice in purchasing a NAS

Hello guys,
Im looking to purchase a NAS. I need to get remote access to it from the web, download torrents from the net while having the lowest power consumption possible, watch movies from it, connect my usb printer to it.

I was looking at the buffalo linkstation pro duo. its priced at $180 including shipping but without the drives. I just bought 2x1tb seagate barracuda drives. Should i go for the linkstation or are there other NAS with better specs at lower price?

 

Look up HP DC5100 computers on Ebay, you can get them for under $100 shipped.

Yes, they are a bit larger than a nas box but use about the same power at idle and it gives you a complete computer that can handle dynamic dns, file downloads, file server, torrents, file compression and anything else you want it to do (add a card and they can handle HD streaming). They also transfer files at 3 times the speed of almost any NAS under $500 and were meant to be workstations so their build quality is pretty good. They have 2 sata, 2 ide, 4ram slots, a few pci and pci-e slots, including one 16x, and gigabit ethernet. Drive slots are one 5.25 ext, two 3.5int. I added an extra sata card in it for extra ports. They come with XP, but they run Linux and win7 perfectly.

I ran one of these for about 3 years until I built the mini server in my signature, which lowered the wattage to the same as a nas box.

 

A Netbook! You can easily install all the apps you'd need/want that no NAS can ever give you.

I have a DNS323 at home, with 2T of space. I've seen the light, a netbook is much better than NAS.

You want Torrent? install uTorrent. Sure some NAS are adding torrent functionality, but their Torrent app isnt as good as the more famous ones (uTorrent, etc).

You want FTP? install Filezilla. Some NAS FTP server does not support full standard FTP protocol. DLINK for instance dont support timestamp preservation.

Print Server? Fax Server? Web Server? Video Recorder? etc. All these you can achieve with a Netbook. NAS cant!

You want to stream video to a TV? Why not plug the netbook directly to your TV! And yes, a Netbook can still stream video.

Netbook's built-in battery pack doubles as UPS. You wont have to buy another $100 UPS.

Some NAS uses proprietary Disk Format, if your NAS dies, you will be forced to BUY the same NAS to get your data back. With Netbook, your files are stored in standard FAT32/NTFS, plugging in that HD on another machine will be enough to recover data. If you need data backup to an external 2.5" HD, you can install backup applications.

Lastly, if you have a Tablet, no need for wireless Keyboard mouse, you can control the netbook with VNC/RemoteDesktop from your couch in-house or from a hotel bathtub halfway around the world. You can even add apps remotely too.

2.5" HD may appear "less robust/reliable" than the big brother 3.5"HDs... Yet, I still have a 20GB HD from 2001 that still works today. In 2-3 years time, you WILL be forced to buy new HD as your keeps growing..

Netbook is better. The added power consumption will cost you additional $5 in electricity - small price to pay for the added versatility.

 

Notebooks and netbooks work, if everything fits, otherwise you end up with a notebook plus external storage.

In many cases these days, that would mean USB 2 since only a few have an express port, which granted, would be about as fast as the Dlink NAS and most other cheap NAS that top out around 30MBps. These can barely handle 1080p streaming, if much gets in the way, they will buffer. Even if you have a express port, you still need an external box and card and you are limited in drive numbers with this method.


From a power perspective, netbooks are almost no more efficient than a modern notebook (and even desktops). Go look at the difference in idle wattage of an C2d or I5 compared to an Atom, it's nothing. The rest of the components are the same, except screen, which netbooks use cheap less efficient screens, but at idle that doesn't really matter. Remember many netbooks use older, less efficient chipsets.

Compared to a desktop, yes there can be savings, but the difference is a lot less than many people think. The desktop I recommended before is an old P4, one of the more power hungry ones, and yet, at idle, it would sit at 35 watts. A lot of which was the drives. My new mini server uses only a single drive and sits at about 25 watts. That's netbook territory and the same or less than the D-Link nas. Granted at full load it uses a LOT more, but when it comes to tasks, it cuts through them a lot faster and returns to idle, while anything else would be still working. On low power tasks it stays low enough to not make a significant difference.

The ups in a notebook/netbook is great, but in most cases people would be using older ones, which often means a dead battery.


Netbook/notebooks both have the same pros and cons
+ built in battery backup, small size, low wattage, capable of anything, built in screen and keyboard, re-useable as a notebook/netbook in a pinch
- small storage, need for external storage (not as self contained), not as low power as you might think, bad batteries, more expensive upgrades/repairs, possibly slow transfer, not always built for long term high load (video compression)

Nas
+ small size, low wattage
- limited capability, not as low power as you think, no backup, (more than likely) slow transfer, incapable of anything requiring a powerful cpu.

Old desktop
+ lower wattage than expected (drives use a lot of power), capable of doing anything, fast transfer speed, cheap upgrades, cheap repairs, easily upgraded, re-useable as a desktop in a pinch, cheap/free
- slightly larger (use an sff), not as cool

 

So in that case, instead of upgrading to a nas, if i remove the ati 5770 in my pc, i will have the inbuilt gpu of my pc. my motherboard is a mini atx gigabyte ga eg41nf-us2h. It is a low end board. Will be be better than a dedicated nas?

 

Well... Based on above posts, both Leslie and I would not recommend NAS...

If small size is your #1 deciding factor, then go for NAS.
if you think a Netbook + 1 USB HD is small enough, then go for Netbook.
but if size is not a factor, and you have spare desktop, then go for it.
ie, if a desktop or netbook is already with you there is no need to spend for a NAS

 

Depends on your NAS needs.
As Jsteng said, if the others fit your needs, fine.

However, the one thing that always happens with things like this is people later always wish it had that one extra feature. With an actual computer there, you can offload the burden from your desktop. With a NAS you are stuck.

For example, my file server sends data fast enough (100MBps), I can use the networked drive as a local drive. It's as fast as some of the last IDE drives. Slow compared to my ssd, but fast enough for most data operations.

The other things it handles is remote access, torrents, backups, large file downloads, webcam streaming, video compression, drive imaging, I even used a virtual machine on it and use Linux, which I access from VNC and SSH to build Android roms. Now some of that can be done with a NAS, the hacked D-Link can do torrents and slow video compression, but it's transfer speeds STINK! and it can't do half the rest of what I posted. No matter what you do, you will find other things you could use it for, the question is, will it be capable.

Three times I set out to replace my file server with a sexy little shoebox size NAS box and every time I realized that I couldn't do it without losing some capability. In the end, I built a newer, smaller, file server to replace it, and while it cost me the same amount as a NAS, I got a much more powerful system and one relatively the same size and of power draw. Take a look at the link in my signature to see it. With some of the newer setups, you can actually build a system the same size as a NAS box, so why limit yourself?

As for your parts, my first file server was real small, left over p3 900 that I added a sata card to. It was as fast as a NAS (slow), but just as efficient, and it was free. Use what you have. Other than size and looks, you will be much happier. Stick it in a closet or your basement and you won't have to look at it, or toss the whole thing into a nice mini Lian Li or something and show it off. Like you said, remove the ATI card and use built in video (or buy an old 8meg rage card off Ebay), put on an old copy of Windows or Linux and have at it.