To NAS or not to NAS

[Turnip-76]

Im sure that this has been talked about on many threads, but when you search for 'NAS' you get so many hits its difficult to know where to start reading!

Im new to ATV but have found it to be excellent so far... As mentioned in other posts I have, over the last few years, built up a fairly large MP4 movie collection (through transcoding everything I own on DVD!) - this has allowed me to merrily watch films on my iPod all over the place.

This has been great, but the issue now is that the films, while perfect for ipod, and easy going on storage (between 250 & 500 MB each) they are no where fit for purpose for ATV (and my 40" TV)

Im learning (quickly) thanks to this forum all the different ways to re-transcode my DVD collection to suitable standards, but this has thrown up another thinking point... storage

I know that if I want to go 'disc free' at home (ie bung all the DVDs in the loft) I will need a good few TB of storage, I have 3TB external already available in two USB caddies that happily sit on the back on the iMac - but Im interested in the possibility of using NAS to de clutter my desk...

Ive read quite a few reviews about various NAS devices, they all seem to have their 'fans' and 'haters' - and none of the kit appears to be priced in the "I'll buy it and see how it goes..." range.

Id like to end up with at least 4, but probably 8TB of external memory...

So whats the collective view? NAS, or USB caddies?

Thanks (in advance) again for your help on this....

 

[blevins321]

I wrote a review of a Synology DS411J 4-Bay NAS a couple months ago. I love the thing. HERE is the thread. I got it for the exact purposes that you did. It has the ability to stream straight to your TV/PS3, etc... without a computer being necessary.

Edit: The 4-bays usually employ drive redundancy. So even though you put 8TB of drives into it, you'll end up with 5.5TB available space after the single drive redundancy and formatting loss. You'll be protected from one of the drives inside dying.

 

[Turnip-76]

I wrote a review of a Synology DS411J 4-Bay NAS a couple months ago. I love the thing. HERE is the thread. I got it for the exact purposes that you did. It has the ability to stream straight to your TV/PS3, etc... without a computer being necessary.

Edit: The 4-bays usually employ drive redundancy. So even though you put 8TB of drives into it, you'll end up with 5.5TB available space after the single drive redundancy and formatting loss. You'll be protected from one of the drives inside dying.

Yours is one of the ones I have already read...and partly the reason I have become interested in the NAS route