Im with you here Capt, the Mac Mini/Plex/attached storage cant be beat. I tried a Synology DS410 but returned it shortly after. It was nice but I felt that it was just too much for what I needed. All I really needed was a solid 4 bay external enclosure with RAID and FW800. I found that in the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2. It costs about $300, can do RAID 5, and can easily serve flawless Bluray rips anywhere in my house (wired eternet connection required for high bitrate though). I haven't had any issues with it. It doesn't have much for bells and whistles but it's really easy to use and I haven't had any issues with it.
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Synology, Drobo, TC, other?
- Thread starter Rocco83
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Im with you here Capt, the Mac Mini/Plex/attached storage cant be beat. I tried a Synology DS410 but returned it shortly after. It was nice but I felt that it was just too much for what I needed. All I really needed was a solid 4 bay external enclosure with RAID and FW800. I found that in the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2. It costs about $300, can do RAID 5, and can easily serve flawless Bluray rips anywhere in my house (wired eternet connection required for high bitrate though). I haven't had any issues with it. It doesn't have much for bells and whistles but it's really easy to use and I haven't had any issues with it.
I currently use a qnap219p with two 1.5 TB drives in a raid one configuration which is backed up to an external drive.
The NAS is allocated 500 GB to act as a timemachine drive.
An option you may be intrested in is can you install a program like subsonic directly on the NAS. This would give you the ability to stream music in the house and mobile.
I currently stream all music to my mobile via subsonic. No hptc running for this just subsonic on the NAS. I then have an ATV for movie duties in the house.
Cheers phil
The NAS is allocated 500 GB to act as a timemachine drive.
An option you may be intrested in is can you install a program like subsonic directly on the NAS. This would give you the ability to stream music in the house and mobile.
I currently stream all music to my mobile via subsonic. No hptc running for this just subsonic on the NAS. I then have an ATV for movie duties in the house.
Cheers phil
I have had the Synology 411+ii for about 2 months now. I use it as a time machine back up on 4 mac's, and a media streamer for 4 Dune HD1's. I also use it to stream music files up to 24bit/196khz through a squeezebox touch.
The synology support has been outstanding, best I have ever encountered. The product is great. I can stream up to 3 Blu ray files at one time.
I am now working on setting up my itunes library to use for the ATV2. I highly recommend this product.
Regards,
David
The synology support has been outstanding, best I have ever encountered. The product is great. I can stream up to 3 Blu ray files at one time.
I am now working on setting up my itunes library to use for the ATV2. I highly recommend this product.
Regards,
David
What's the difference to the end-user (if any) between Drobo's BeyondRAID and Synology's Hybrid RAID (SHR)? I'm also looking at a NAS solution and was considering the DroboFS and the Synology DS 1511+. At the moment I'm leaning toward the Synology due to its much faster (claimed) speed.
I recommed synology, i have the DS-410 4 Bay with 2 Seagate Green Drive 2TB.
Previously i try the iOmega Store center, software bugs, slow performance, some issues with folders and file transfers, after 4 months, one HDD start to fail. They overheat to much.
Them i spend almost a month reading reviews. the final conclusion is Buy a good NAS. with 2 cooling fan units, the HDD life depends of temperature, most important make sure the NAS its compatible with the HDD that you will install on it. I read to much and i found that every NAS has some issues with specific HDD and firmware revisions. This will prevent that the HDD enter on hibernation or sleep mode. This also decrease a lot the lifetime of the HDD.
The HDD, eventually will fail some day. you can not stop that.
My decision was the synology because they had a very good and detailed HDD compatibility list. I found that the support its great, the OS is incredible. You can even try before buy it. Check the website. There is a demo access.
The environment its very powerful. you can do a lot o things in the web interfaces. Performance its amazing.
I have 1,5 TB of movies, series, FULL HD, HD, SD different codecs. I stream all my content to an apple TV 1 modified, running LINUX XBMC, with crystal HD card installed. Even i have manage to get Airplay functionality, Full HD decoding, DTS optical output and managed via Apple Remote, Iphone XBMC controller, Ipad XBMC controller and Apple Bluetooth wireless keyboard using a Linksys Bluetooth usb dongle.
i can watch FULL HD MOVIE, Blu ray rip, 40GB video file on my living room via apple tv, Time machine a Macbook air 2011 via wifi, and transferring 100GB of files using ftp and Watch another FULL HD MOVIE blu ray RIP on my iMac 27" 2011 Core i7 3.4ghz
The performance remains outstanding. The Video shows perfect, no lags, delays. the file transfer also is not affected. I have to mention that my NAS connection is only 100Mbps. Next move is buy a Netgear Pro Switch Giga Ethernet.
Before I put the 2 TB drives, i do some intensive test. I add 2 80 GB HDD to try everything.
Install only on hdd, no redundancy. load some data, create a time machine backup.
add the second hdd and implement raid 1. perfect. remove the other drive. format on different computer. install again and the rebuild its perfect.
Added two more disk, migrate to SHR format. no data loos, remove on drive again to erase the content and rebuild again the raid, all test was ok
After all the plays, restore the macbook air via the time machine backup. Also perfect.
The Synology OS is very stable. Even i try unplug the power cord. no data corruption. The alarms of SMART and other issues are very well notified.
The iPad and iPhone applications are very good also. you can access your files, photos from anywhere. Even if the NAS is power off, you can use wake on LAN feature to access the NAS.
Next feature that i have to test are the Surveillance Station. they develop and entire monitoring solution for Security cameras.
Previously i try the iOmega Store center, software bugs, slow performance, some issues with folders and file transfers, after 4 months, one HDD start to fail. They overheat to much.
Them i spend almost a month reading reviews. the final conclusion is Buy a good NAS. with 2 cooling fan units, the HDD life depends of temperature, most important make sure the NAS its compatible with the HDD that you will install on it. I read to much and i found that every NAS has some issues with specific HDD and firmware revisions. This will prevent that the HDD enter on hibernation or sleep mode. This also decrease a lot the lifetime of the HDD.
The HDD, eventually will fail some day. you can not stop that.
My decision was the synology because they had a very good and detailed HDD compatibility list. I found that the support its great, the OS is incredible. You can even try before buy it. Check the website. There is a demo access.
The environment its very powerful. you can do a lot o things in the web interfaces. Performance its amazing.
I have 1,5 TB of movies, series, FULL HD, HD, SD different codecs. I stream all my content to an apple TV 1 modified, running LINUX XBMC, with crystal HD card installed. Even i have manage to get Airplay functionality, Full HD decoding, DTS optical output and managed via Apple Remote, Iphone XBMC controller, Ipad XBMC controller and Apple Bluetooth wireless keyboard using a Linksys Bluetooth usb dongle.
i can watch FULL HD MOVIE, Blu ray rip, 40GB video file on my living room via apple tv, Time machine a Macbook air 2011 via wifi, and transferring 100GB of files using ftp and Watch another FULL HD MOVIE blu ray RIP on my iMac 27" 2011 Core i7 3.4ghz
The performance remains outstanding. The Video shows perfect, no lags, delays. the file transfer also is not affected. I have to mention that my NAS connection is only 100Mbps. Next move is buy a Netgear Pro Switch Giga Ethernet.
Before I put the 2 TB drives, i do some intensive test. I add 2 80 GB HDD to try everything.
Install only on hdd, no redundancy. load some data, create a time machine backup.
add the second hdd and implement raid 1. perfect. remove the other drive. format on different computer. install again and the rebuild its perfect.
Added two more disk, migrate to SHR format. no data loos, remove on drive again to erase the content and rebuild again the raid, all test was ok
After all the plays, restore the macbook air via the time machine backup. Also perfect.
The Synology OS is very stable. Even i try unplug the power cord. no data corruption. The alarms of SMART and other issues are very well notified.
The iPad and iPhone applications are very good also. you can access your files, photos from anywhere. Even if the NAS is power off, you can use wake on LAN feature to access the NAS.
Next feature that i have to test are the Surveillance Station. they develop and entire monitoring solution for Security cameras.
I've got a question about that ATV 1 Crystal HD hack you mentioned. I also have XBMC on my ATV 1 and have heard about this Crystal HD card you can install. I just want to make sure, you've not encountered any stuttering on your ATV with any Bluray rips. Some scenes in the Planet Earth series cause my 2.26ghz Mac Mini to stutter but thats about it. This could breath new life into my ATV 1 and I could preserve my Macbook Pro which is my current Plex machine in my bedroom when it's "off duty".
Thought I'd tell you about my solution that is a bit different than those mentioned so far. I've found it to be stable, fast, secure, and relatively inexpensive.
I have a pair of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182144
Inside each one I have 2 x 2 TB hard drives (not using the raid feature). They are connected via USB to my Mac server and show up as 4 separate drives. The they run cool and quiet.
I have one dedicated to Videos and it's twin to Videos Backup. Another is dedicated to General Files and it's twin to General Files Backup. Every night Carbon Copy Cloner (free) ensures that each backup drive is updated to match it's associated main drive.
The Videos drive streams all of my content to Apple TV, iPads, iPhones, Xbox 360, and other Macs. Never had a skip or an error in 2 years. Once I fill up the Videos pair I'll add another box. I looked into various NAS devices but found this to be the best solution for me.
Edit: I also have a Time Capsule that is dedicated to machine backups only. I manually force a time machine backup of three macs to it a couple of times a month. Works great.
I have a pair of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182144
Inside each one I have 2 x 2 TB hard drives (not using the raid feature). They are connected via USB to my Mac server and show up as 4 separate drives. The they run cool and quiet.
I have one dedicated to Videos and it's twin to Videos Backup. Another is dedicated to General Files and it's twin to General Files Backup. Every night Carbon Copy Cloner (free) ensures that each backup drive is updated to match it's associated main drive.
The Videos drive streams all of my content to Apple TV, iPads, iPhones, Xbox 360, and other Macs. Never had a skip or an error in 2 years. Once I fill up the Videos pair I'll add another box. I looked into various NAS devices but found this to be the best solution for me.
Edit: I also have a Time Capsule that is dedicated to machine backups only. I manually force a time machine backup of three macs to it a couple of times a month. Works great.
I really am very pleased with my drobo. I have no real complaints except that it does get a bit loud on occasions. Asides from that- go Drobo.
Stay away from Drobo
I have the Drobo FS and ever since I upgraded to Lion it is completely useless. Search the internet, especially Amazon reviews and you will see there are many others similarly situated. Tech support is useless. I asked if there was a new firmware coming out and Tech support says: "We don't know" Stay far away from Drobo.
I have the Drobo FS and ever since I upgraded to Lion it is completely useless. Search the internet, especially Amazon reviews and you will see there are many others similarly situated. Tech support is useless. I asked if there was a new firmware coming out and Tech support says: "We don't know" Stay far away from Drobo.