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Network Attached Storage for MacOSX & XP

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BabyJeffy

BabyJeffy

Programmer
Sep 10, 2003
4,189
GB
Hello fellow Mac users...

I am currently looking for some network attached storage devices to use on our local home network. We have several Macs (running OSX 10.4.x) and several Windows machines (32bit XP SP2) - so I'm after something that both platforms will be able to access. I'm keen to support RAID level 1 (mirrored) as well (there is no pleasing me it seems).

I've taken a peek into the Apple Store and it doesn't appear like they do anything of the sort (which is a shame).

I was interested in the Netgear SC101 devices (good price and a brand I use a lot) - but they do not support Macs (and there is no news of this changing in the near future).

Does anyoone have a suggestion or a recommendation that would be appropriate for a home network (wired to the hub, shared over WiFi)?

Thanks guys,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch
[/tt]

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Cick on the Firewire tab to get to outboard storage systems (many are dual firewire usb). I've been buying all drives and memory from them for years with no problems.

They usually bundle backup software for both mac and windows.

You can call them on their toll free if necessary. They're very knowledgable but you'll wait on hold for a while.



Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4
 
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Thanks for the swift reply, jmgalvin (I did check their site on the off-chance they had something) - but I'm looking for a [!]Network[/!] Attached Storage device (one that plugs into the network directly and doesn't require a PC to serve the data).

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch
[/tt]

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The new Airport extreme allows you to share any usb attached drive.


Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."
 
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Mike - I think you missed the main point of the post:
...I'm looking for a Network Attached Storage device (one that plugs into the network directly and doesn't require a PC to serve the data).
Click to expand...

Thanks for playing.

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch
[/tt]

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Jeff, MacUser ran a review on NAS devices a few months ago. I did dig the link out for someone in Onpnt.

I'm also looking for something along these lines for the near(ish) future. Had a quick look at Lacie's site as they do a Network attached BigDisk for a reasonable price - when I looked they also had one in the bargain basement at the time.

There is also a LinkSys device that lets you hook up any USB2 drive to an ethernet/wireless network. The US market had a router/gateway with it built in but it never came to the UK. But the separate unit is available. I think this is basically what the new Airport Extreme Base Stations do.



<honk>*:O)</honk>

Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire
 
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Unfortunately, the web version of Macuser (.co.uk) requires either a paid membership or a code from a magazine subscription to access the reviews.

Jeffry - you might check the reports on xlr8yourmac ( - the Buffalo Linkstation Pro 250GB mentioned is available from ebuyer at a reasonable price (£121 inc vat).

lex

soi la, soi carré
 
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Jeff,

I didn't miss the point - my point was that by using the new airport extreme you can attach any usb disk drive and share it out...

Mike

"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters."
 
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USB is NOT a networking standard, and is definitely NOT ETHERNET!!
 
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Umm, but what you have is a box, in this case the airport extreme base station (or previously mentioned Linksys box) that acts as an interface between the USB drive and the ethernet network.

No HDD is actually ethernet based, they all rely on some kind of interface technology, EIDE, SATA, SCSI, USB, Firewire etc.

<honk>*:O)</honk>

Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire
 
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Another NAS choice is the LaCie Ethernet Disk mini. Has a USB port in case you want to use it direct, rather than just as NAS.
There's a review of it here:
which refers to a review of the earlier version of the device here:
Therefore, if the new version sounds suitable for your needs (ability to add other drives, media server), make sure that the one you buy is the v2 version.

FWIW, I'm leaning towards getting one of these to hold my burgeoning music collection and thereby free up 70GB on my iMac (and give it a bit of a rest).

soi la, soi carré
 
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Mike - I was a little harsh in my reply - you were right to bring up the Airport Extreme option... a very useful solution - especially if you are investing in an Airport Extreme base station for your network. I'm already 802.11g ready (hence the reply) without using any Apple routers :(

Some in depth questioning shows that there could be a set of drivers by end of Q2 2007 for the Netgear solution. In the meantime I think the Buffalo kit could be the way to go. As I originally mentioned, I was keen to go with the Netgear solution for the RAID 1 campatibility - but I guess I could go with a more formal backup practice (*sigh*).

After trying the Netgear solution with just the Windows XP boxes, there seem to be issues accessing the volume via wireless (over a period of time). This alone raises some concerns!

I'll take a look at the La Cie devices (always had lots of success with them in the past) and let you know what I go with.

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch
[/tt]

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Mulling on the ability of the new apple Airport extreme to connect to USB disks, I read on the knowledgebase
document305038 said:
The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) supports USB storage devices that have a block size of 512 bytes, and are formatted as Mac OS Extended (HFS-plus), FAT16, or FAT32.

The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) shares storage devices based on the format used to initialize the storage device. For example, if HFS-plus formatting was used, AFP and SMB/CIFS protocols are used to share the device on the network. If FAT16 or FAT32 was used, SMB/CIFS protocols are used.

Note: Use AirPort Disk Utility to discover and mount AirPort Extreme-based volumes over the network.
Click to expand...

On the plus side, it shows that both Apple and Windows-formatted disks are OK. (It also suggests that the Extreme is running an embedded OS - prob. cut-down OS X.)
On the down side, the mention of an AP Disk Utility suggests that one would probably need a script to automatically mount volumes on a desktop when a computer connects to the network.

soi la, soi carré
 
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You can try Is a good NAS that will support both mac and windows. You can get the hardware in comp usa
500GB for $549
It has a built in web server that makes it accessible anywhere.
 
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Final heads-up on what we finally went for in the end...

We went for a DLink DNS-323 (purchased from We immediately upgraded to 1.02b firmware available from the US DLink site (better to do this with the European model and void your warranty than use the updaters from the UK Dlink site - which are way out of date).

This device gives us RAID 1 across two SATA drives (takes up to 750Gb disks - so if you span them you can get 1.5Tb of online storage). It has a USB port allowing you to use it as a print server. It has Gigabit ethernet. It can be modded to run Debian (and as a result can run subversion code repository software - which was our goal).

It can run an FTP server as well as an iTunes server too!

Anyway, it's set up and talking to XP, MacOSX and Linux without a problem. The web based setup that is built-in to the firmware is dead easy to set up and use. Best of all... no drivers.

I would recommend this solution for anyone in a mixed mode environment.

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch
[/tt]

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I went and purchased one of these and so far I'm pretty happy. Still got a few teething troubles with connecting to it from Vista but on the whole... great!

One thing I am stuck on though is the iTunes server.
I copied all my music over to the NAS, set up the iTunes server and... nothing.

A bit of testing revealed that it doesn't like either alot of files or data over a certain size. I need to experiment to determine which.

I had read there was an issue regarding addressing more than 2Gb of data, but I thought this was fixed with Firmware 1.03.

Have you had any joy with the iTunes server?

<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.
 
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Foamy,
Have you tried using Firefly instead? When Roku had issues with the licencing for iTunes 7 on their soundbridge range of products, it was an ideal work-around.

soi la, soi carré
ymca.gif
 
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I have been reading various hacking articles about installing Firefly but I don't think I'm quite ready to do that.

I'm going to play around with it a little more later and see if I can get it working.

I want to have it a bit longer before I break it!

<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.
 
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