Have an old 1TB portable HDD for backing up pics and music. Running out of space and thinking of a NAS type option to back things up and also as a central repository for my photos and music. The latter I am hoping I can then play over my Sonos Play 1 so if anyone does similar with a Sonos device and confirms it can be done then that would be handy as google results say yes but I am not seeing an obvious way on the Controller app to access NAS files

Looking to spend about £150 max and see WD do a 4GB cloud NAS in budget. To those using Cloud Storage is it suitable for streaming your music collection? I guess the main Pro is that in theory you can access your files anywhere anytime but then the Con side of that is you need a working internet connection.

Thanks
Simon

 

I would look at the longer term Simon - digital formats will be around for a while, and file sizes will get bigger as resolutions increase on photos and video, therefore taking up more and more space.

Unless you need to transport your media around with you, then I would kick the portable disk to the kerb. Buy a proper NAS appliance, dont cut the corners buy as big a unit as you can afford to buy and run. You dont need a disk in every carrier, so when you need more space just slot in another disk, or RAID them up if you want the performance gains.

I can only speak from owning QNAP NAS devices, that there are a range of applications that enable you to run a DLNA server or other media straming services over your storage from the same appliance, which should be compatible with whater streaming system you use.

Regarding cloud storage, I dont fully trust it - which is slighly ironic as I work as an enterprise security architect on cloud platforms! I run my own private cloud from home for the benefit of myself and my family. Just in the process of expanding it to 32Tb RAW

 

Im in a similar situation but I am looking to a NAS rather than cloud based. Are the QNAP NAS drives a bit overkill for the average home user wanting to back up photos and music etc?

 

Not sure what you mean by back up in the context of your post. I have one NAS which is the primary source of all my media, it is always on, accessible to my LAN and from the internet.

If take a photo on my phone, it uploads to to my NAS. If I download anything, it gets redirected to my NAS, so it becomes the storage hub for files, regardless of format, and irrespective of which device I am using.

It would be normal to have the NAS as the primary storage for your media, and back it up to alternative devices - this may be a usb or esata disk for example. In my case I back up nightly to another NAS using Rsync.

Another option is to buy a low power small form-factor machine, something like a HP microserver is a good option.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/server/hp-...ive/1143024760

Spin up one of the free distributions freeNAS / OpenFiler etc and build out your own NAS appliance.

 

It depends if you are OK with the risk of having everything stored in one place i.e. your home or are going to go through the hassle of taking offsite backups.

I wanted to do the same as you TT but couldn't accept having everything at home where if the house got burgled or burnt down everything would be gone.

I went with Microsoft's Onedrive with 2 step authentication enabled and a secure password set, OK i've only got 40gb free with my Microsoft account but it does for the essentials I want backed up and extra storage looks very cheap. I have it installed on all my devices and everything synced locally so if anything happens to Onedrive at Microsofts end I still have multiple local copiesall synced without me needing to manually backup. With fibre optic broadband uploading to the cloud is fast and for me I decided this was the safest option. The 2 step authentication was what swung it on the security front as I have an app installed on my phone, whenever a new device tries to access my Onedrive account it immediately prompts via the app to allow or dissallow it and it can't be accessed if I don't accept it via the app. I know there will be hackers who can probably circumnavigate it or will be at least trying to get into Microsoft but the that's no more of a risk than a home based internet accessible nas which won't be any more secure.

Everything on your PC can be redirected to folders within Onedrive so folders such as my documents, photos, music etc etc can all just go automatically to within Onedrive and gets synced straight away as soon as any file changes occur.

As of yet for me I haven't yet found a better solution.

 

I have a Synology NAS with a couple of 3TB drives in it. Works beautifully with Sonos and comes with everything you need to make it easily and (fairly) securely accessible over the web.

 

eBuyer are flogging a more up-to-date MicroServer for not much more, see a hundred and ten quid microserver with cashback.

Cheers,

mb

 

Thanks for the input. Regarding cloud I was confusing the WD MyCloud products which are actually physical disk storage sold as your personal cloud.

Have been looking around and QNap do seem to offer more bang for your buck and focus less on aesthetics compared to Synology. Specifically the 453 pro. Its more than I was originally looking to spend and maybe a bit overkill for current requirements but better to spend a bit more now than have to rebuy from scratch in the future.

 

One of the functions I have heard about with the QNap QTS Software is you can remotely backup to another QNap owners NAS and vice versa thus giving you an offsite backup of essential files. Of course that means you need to know someone else running one and who has enough free storage but I do and prefer that idea than dumping to the cloud where its out of my control.