What setup do i need

Hi all

i am currently looking to place 2 3 tb drives from each desktop pc to a external.

The idea is to move these drives from the desktops they are currently in to a central point, and place all the files on the central device, this way both machines can access the files on it, this will prevent incorrect or not up to date versions of the files being on the machines. i also want to be able to stream media from this, and be able to back on using it

i currently want to place 2 x 3tb drives in it but want the option for additional drives in the future, possibility 2 more 3 tb drives

what device is best suited for this, and any one got any recommendations

price limit of £300

 

Check out QNAP TS-412 and Synology DS411 SLIM.

These are 4 bay NASes but it might make sense to buy a 2 bay unit now and a second one later when it's actually needed. At that time you will probably buy a faster unit or a similar one but for less money. Also having two separate NASes with separate motherboards, controllers and PSUs makes it safer.

It doesn't make any difference if you place your HDDs in one or sic NASes as far as end-users are concerned.

 

Thanks, so if i got a 2 bay nas now, and another 2 bay when needed, would i be able to link these nas together to become one ?

 

No- not to become one but I don't think you would want to.

You have several options to setup the drives and volumes on them- would you like all drives to become one volume? (as in 3TB drive + 3TB drive + 2TB + 2TB= 10TB volume).
If you don't want that there's nothing lost with two NASes.

With two 2 bay NASes you could end up with two volumes (6TB one and 4TB one or two 5TB ones using the same capacity of the drives as in the example above).

 

Perfect, that sounds like what i want, a large single volume, for files movies etc and then one to back up that volume but just the images and documents

 

If you want two bay NASes still turn to QNAP and Synology as (expensive) leaders. There are quite a few 2 disk NASes in their respective offers.
Also a cheaper alternative- a Zyxel NSA320 for £60 or NSA325 for £90.

This website is a good source of comparative benchmarks.