Western Digital 4TB NAS
 

Thinking of buying one of these

Scan.co.uk: WDA4NC40000E - 4Tb Western Digital WDA4NC40000 ShareSpace Network Storage

Anyone had any experience with it??

It will be used for storage and streaming of DVD ISO's, MP3 collection, photos etc

I will also transfer my I-Tunes library to it, and possibly set my Macbook to backup to this disk using Time Machine (will this work?)

Cheers

:)

STOP IT! You caused me to get my ATV back out of it's box and then realise I should really get a NAS to store my media on (currently on my xbox's HD) and now you post this up, tempting me yet again! :D

Can't say I've had experience of the device mentioned though. I was considering a Time Capsule, but not convinced 2TB would be enough, and it's not from what I can tell, easily upgradable, whereas this thing would be.

I've done a little bit of research and qnap (think that's the name) seems to pop up quite a bit as a good maker of NAS devices.

Having a look at the specs of that box it does look quite nice. It'll act as an iTunes server, which is a bonus.

I'm trying to find out what protocols it supports. Looks like it supports FTP and HTTP, and I'd like to think it supports SBM as well.

In regards to Time Machine, if it supports AFP out of the box then it should be a case of mounting the drive via AFP and Time Machine should see it. If not then there are articles on how to get TM to work with not AFP drives (basically enable the option for unsupported drives via terminal, then muck about with sparse image file and a folder structure and then put the sparse image file onto the drive)

Let me look around and see if I can find out a definitive list of protocol support for this device.

** edit **

Found a manual for it here. Seems protocol supported are: HTTP, HTTPS, CIFS/SMB, NFS, FTP. So no AFP support, no biggie though, this details how to set it up for a network share, so we could use SMB. Also read this update to the prior article if you are on Snow Leopard.

Here is another, slightly more comprehensive guide to set it up. The rules per the additional post to the other thread still apply if you are using Snow Leopard.

pffffftttttt................only 4 TB. my mp3 collection is bigger than that ;)

EFA ;)

Markus

I considered a Time Capsule, for a few minutes, but it's very expensive - over £300 for 2TB with no expansion options.

Funny you should mention Qnap as I've been looking at one after I posted.

I've found this one which does support AFP and SMB

dabs.com - QNAP 4-Bay Turbo SATA NAS Enclosure (TS-410)

This should be okay to use with Time Machine shouldn't it?

£317 without any drives isn't cheap but 1TB drives hardly cost the earth any more.

Seriously tempted :)

Not a bad price. Was looking at their, umm TS-219 model, which is a two bay unit.

As it does AFP it should be fine out of the box with TM. Worst case, the info provided above would allow you to get TM working on it.

I'm with you on the TC, it's nice, but not exactly expandable and a bit pricey.

The only thing I'd suggest checking for is what the max capacity is that the device will support. I know I was looking at some netgear/dlink stuff and they were two bay, but the max capacity was 2TB, which is ok, but not great.

It also does feck loads of other things too, including being a web and mysql server. Not too surprising as it's running linux on it. *if* you do get it, then I'd love to know what is providing AFP services on it, my guess would be netatalk which is a good thing, very nice AFP server for unix.

I'd have to buy it and get it delivered without the wife knowing

:D :D :D

It's only 4tb in raid 0 with 1tb disks (no redundancy).

Better to get 4 x 2tb disks and raid5 them (6tb)

RAID 0 wouldn't be an option for me, the whole purpose of buying a NAS for me is redundancy.

I considered using 2TB disks but not all devices support them and also it drives the cost up a lot.

A quad-bay NAS is fairly expensive without disks so I wouldn't want to then add the cost of 4 2TB disks.

3TB is more than enough for my needs, I also have the option of upgrading the disks once higher capacity drives come down in price.

:)

Don't suppose anyone has a link to a nice and simple RAID guide (I know what it stands for and roughly what it does), or just tell me what the best RAID type would be for a NAS that would be used to primarily store music and video files (Music, TV, and Movies ripped from owned DVDs/CDs)

Markus have a look at this

RAID - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This will tell you everything you need to know.

Personally, with 4 disks I would always suggest RAID 5.
It comes down to personal preference and what your main goals are, if you want maximum storage then RAID 0 is your man but you obviously have no redundancy.

if you want greater write performance then I'd suggest RAID 1, but if you're simply storing movies, music etc then like me you'd be better with RAID 5.

Thanks, I'll have a read.

* reading *

A quick question. Let's say I got a four bay NAS. I want a total of 4TB of storage on it, what size drives would I be looking at? Four 2TB drives?

I like the look of that, i'm seriously running out of space on my PC & external drive so this could be the perfect solution :)

Markus, if you don't want to use any RAID at all then 4 1TB disks would give you 4TB of storage.

If you wanted to go for RAID 5, then as they only do 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB disks, you 'd have to go for either 3 2TB disks or 4 1.5TB disks. Giving you 4TB and 4.5TB usable storage space respectively.

The advantage of using 3 2TB disks is that you can obviously add another disk later on to increase storage. But the 2TB disks are considerably more expensive than 1.5TB disks at the moment

Markus

Using RAID 5 with 4 disks you lose 1 quarter of the total capacity for the parity information.

So with 4 1TB disks you'd have 3TB total capacity.
If you were to put 4 1.5TB disks in you'd get 4.5TB of storage with the extra 1.5TB used for the parity.

Or, you could get 4 2TB disks and configure RAID 1+0 (or some people prefer to call it RAID 0+1)

This effectively uses 2 2TB disks as a stripe, giving you 4TB of storage and the entire stripe is mirrored on the other 2TB disks.

Not sure if these home NAS devices support RAID6 (RAID DP) which uses double parity and needs 2 spare disks for the parity information (effectively what NetApp devices use), you'd probably need a 5 bay device to use that though.

The possibilities are endless.

:)

Agreed, but then you're back in the position of potential data loss, I suppose if what you store on your NAS is replaceable, if it is then simply configure JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) which utilizes the full capacity of the drives.

As I'm storing years of photos, videos of the kids, my entire DVD collection and my entire music collection I need to put a system in which can protect me against data loss.

Saying that, I have a couple of portable USB drives in my safe, 1 contains backups of my pictures, the other for the videos etc - it's just remembering to get them out and update them.

:)

Hanley, you appear to know what you are talking about in this arena... so I have a couple of questions of you don't mind... if you are storing all your music / dvd's on a NAS how are you streaming this data to your hi-fi / tv? I'm about to launch into setting all this up at home and want to have all my stuff on a box but access it from the lounge / bedrooms / study etc.. I know this is possible, but what is the best way to do it?

Shaggy

I'm sort of running 2 setups at the moment.

I've got a Popcorn A-110 media streamer in my living room which connects to my TV via HDMI, it's connected to my network via homeplugs. The Popcorn is one of the best media streamers around and will play almost any format.

You can download what's called a jukebox which basically shows you cover images of all your DVD's, when you select it you;re presented with a full synopsis, cast info etc and you can select to play the DVD.

If you look at the following link it shows you the interface you see on your TV

My Lil Movie Jukebox

I chose this setup because my kids were constantly putting their grubby little fingers over their discs and some become unplayable.

You can also stream pictures and music to the Popcorn but the movie streaming is where it really kicks ass!!!

At the moment I just have a desktop PC in my garage with around 4TB of storage and this needs to be on to allow the streaming which is why I'm looking to put them on a NAS as it doesn't use as much power.

I also bought an AppleTV recently which syncs with your iTunes and plays your music and plays your movies etc...if you have a Mac then it also syncs with iPhoto so you can view Events, Faces etc...it even plays music from your iTunes library while you're viewing slideshows of your pics.

With a lot of help from Markus I also installed the patchstick which allowed the installation of X-Box Media Centre to allow streaming of movies outside of your iTunes library.

If you don't own a Mac then I would definately recommend you look at the Popcorn, if you do then buy a piece of software called MovieCollector, it costs around $50 and is fantastic at organizing your collection, this is the program that downloads all the cover art, synopsis and actor information etc.

Hope that all makes sense

:)


*** edit ***

If you're thinking of a Popcorn or just generally about forms of media streamers then this is a great forum, full of very knowledgeable people who will give you all the help you need

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/

You'll struggle to get hold of popcorn hour a110 now as they've stopped making them (well they did when i was looking), i opted for the ACRyan Playon HD alot cheaper and does the same thing a the popcorn. I'm sure big_sinky will agree with me its a good machine :thumb: just another alternative for a media player

I use this to stream from pc upstairs and i also fitted a 1.5tb internal drive in it.

The Popcorn A-110 has been replaced by the Popcorn C200

:)

Just been reading the specs and I agree the PlayonHD will pretty much match the Popcorn.

Only thing it won't do, a biggy in my opinion, is cover art. I like to browse through the DVD collection by the cover and selecting them that way.

If you could install My Lil Movie Jukebox or Yet Another Movie Jukebox or something similar like you can on the Popcorn then it would be even better.

:)

Cool, thanks guys for your help so far. Having just looked at the ACRyan website, it seems that the Yet Another Movie Jukebox is being incorporated. It sounds like you run this on the PC when you rip the movie and it adds the details to the PlayonHD automatically - I guess a firmware update is in order for that. I think takes one problem out of the equation, since I do like that idea and do just that with CD's currently in iTunes etc.

These little boxes look just like what I'm after... so I guess the next question is what are you using to rip DVD's and what format are they stored in for the best?

I'm thinking of re-ripping all my CD's to FLAC anyway to play in and around the house, and having an MP3 copy for iTunes and my iPods - any ideas on FLAC rippers or FLAC to MP3 converters? - all preferably free of course.

I've already got a small (1tb) NAS I managed to acquire to rip everything to so that should keep me happy for a while - I'll worry about more space and redundancy later when funds are such and everything else is up and running as I want it. So is there anything else I need or need to know?

I was thinking about the Logitech Squeezebox for any places where there will only be music needed and there is no TV - any ideas and opinions on these? I would like the players to have the ability to play either different music in different rooms or the same music throughout the house at the same time, am I asking too much of these all-in-one media streamers? Would I need a combination on the PlayonHD for example and a Squeezebox?

Thanks again for you help with this.. it's a mine field starting out especially when it means shelling out a load of cash.... only to find you went wrong in the first place...

YAMJ should be coming along in the next firmware as said above.

My dad has a popcorn and the unit gets so hot with the internal hdd compared to the ACRyan.

m hoping they're going to release a firmware to get True HD as they did with the DTA MA.also it added Bluray ISO support :D

Well if YAMJ support is going to be added then that's a real bonus as it makes a big difference.

My Popcorn also gets itself pretty hot if left on for a while.

:)

Is there a tutorial for putting yamj on the popcorn? my dad wants it on his

I personally think My Lil Movie Jukebox is better as, using Movie Collector, it's better at covert art, descriptions etc - although the newer version of YAMJ may be just as good but I haven't tried it.

Here's a tutorial for My Lil Movie Jukebox, you can also download it from here

My Lil Movie Jukebox for The Popcorn Hour

or here's a link to a tutorial for YAMJ

YAMJ Step-by-Step setup for Dummies - I need some guinea pigs to test and advise

:)

thank you , hanley :thumb:

No worries mate, let me know if you need any help

:)

Are these any good? Drobo

It looks okay....but it's screaming out for a Gigabit LAN...it's just a fancy locally attached USB / Firewire drive.

:)