Hello

I have a couple of questions about NAS storage.

1. I want to get a NAS device for home for storing all my shared stuff on. Has anyone got any recommendations ??? Preferably want 1Tb minimum, with the option of being able to expand. Doesnt really need to be RAID protected as I have a 320Gb disk in a PC that I can replicate to for important stuff.

2. I have a friend who does alot of VJing and is moving more and more into Video production. He currently uses a Macbook and a Macbook Pro for on-the-road use (with things like Arkaos, iPhoto, etc) and a Mac at home for editing. He is going to be using Final Cut Pro soon for video so there will be alot of data. Currently he uses a 500Gb firewire disk but its not fast enough to stream large videos live on a gig.

I have suggested he looks at some sort of NAS, with RAID protection as alot of the stuff is not backed up (thats another story). So what are the options for something with maybe 2-3Tb to start with, but with an option to grow, that runs on gigabit networking ? I suggested to him he needs 2 devices, one as a standby on gigs in case the first one fails completely.

As much as I would like to tell him to buy a Netapp filer I dont think its within budget....

Thanks in advance !!

Dave

 

If it is video work then he needs to look at these products

Global Distribution - G-Technology | G-TECH / G-RAID2

and

Global Distribution - Promise Technology | NS4300 NAS

 

Firewire should be perfectly fast enough for this purpose, (if it wasn't, you wouldn't be able to capture hours of HD video from a camcorder etc via firewire). Unless this is a Mac specific problem, (I can do this fine on my PC) I suspect it's more likely to be down to the speed of the drive he is using.

You don't mention budget. I'm using a Synology CS407e which does the job very nicely. Currently got 1TB of storage in there, but still have 2 bays free for expansion

 

Ian

I think its an old Firewire drive (not sure of HDD spec but will prob be Firewire 400). He gets videos hanging and freezing using Arkaos which is not ideal with live VJing !!!!

I looked at the Thecus N3200 as that seems quite highly rated.

Dave

 

Trouble with those external units is that they tend to be low power consumption, and so slow (usually 5400rpm or less). Firewire 400 should be fast enough, certainly for normal definition video so I'd guess the drive is the bottleneck.