NAS drive

[Spacecadet]

The other issue that your going to hit with the price is that hard drives are still suffering from the Bangkok floods.
I notice the WD 1TB passport drives are still £40 more than what I paid for them last year

[Durbs]

I used to run a NAS as well as an ML115 server. Found the server performed far better than the NAS in streaming and copying duties so bought myself an HP N40L Microserver to replace them both.

That is a superb bit of kit and they were offering a £100 cashback offer before Xmas so it ended up being just over a hundred quid!!

Miles faster than a NAS, 4 drive bays and a small footprint plus I can run SQL Server etc on it as a dev box as well as using it for storage and streaming.

Microserver is the way to go: Hewlett Packard HP ProLiant N40L 1P 2GB-U Emb SATA NHP 250GB LFF 150W PS MicroServer 658553-421 | Servers Direct

OS-wise, I put Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 on it which comes with the Action Pack subscription and is rock solid (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/serve...ge-server.aspx).

[Support Monkey]

Netgear Universal WiFi Range Extender: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

stick one of these in between and hard wire your Playstation, I am running 2 PCs from one of these, would really struggle with streaming over wirless but with this the wirless capability is turned of it is just linking back to the main router over wifi, i can stream the same film to both PCs with no problem now

[PAH]

Problem with the PS3 is it doesn't support all popular video formats so may need to transcode on the fly (using 3rd party software on the streaming source), which requires more CPU power than many cheapo NASes have, to ensure stutter free streaming even over wired ethernet, especially with HD video.

I decided to use a dedicated totally silent streamer (AC Ryan Mini for under a ton), separate near-silent blu-ray player (Philips for under a ton), and relegate the PS3 to games machine. The noise of the PS3's fan mid-movie in warm summer months did for it as much as the lack of direct video format support.

I have a traditional NAS (D-link DNS-320 for around £60 without drives) for streaming as it wakes up and sleeps automatically without hassle. I chucked in 2 x 2TB drives when they were around £55 + vat, and don't raid them so it has almost 4TB capacity.

I have two HP Microservers (works out at £100 each once HP rebate and VAT reclaimed ), the older N36L as a backup for my NAS, and a newer N40L as a play box which I've upgraded to 8gb ram for under 30 quid and chucked on Windows Server 2008 R2 courtesy of my Technet subscription. I only turn on the Microservers when needed, and use Windows remote desktop to admin them so they can run headless.

As hard drive prices are still high following the Thailand floods I've used some older 320gb and 250gb drives I had knocking about, which will do until the 2TB prices come back down.

[Durbs]

and a newer N40L as a play box which I've upgraded to 8gb ram for under 30 quid

I assume you put in 2 x new 4gig sticks?

If you've still got the original 2GB ECC stick the N40 ships with, would you sell it to me?

[stek]

I stream from my iMac to 2nd Gen Apple TV over wifi and no stuttering at all.

Go it off to a tee now, torrent movie/tv show, drop it into IVI (cracking program, £2.49 from the Apple Store) it encodes it for Apple TV/iPad/iPhone and goes off and gets the poster artwork, PG rating. dates, cast list etc and sticks it all nice and bonny into iTunes as if it was purchased from there, ready for streaming to any Apple device.

Nice.

[Scrag Meister]

I just wish the PS3 could handle MKV/AC3 packages.

[PAH]

I assume you put in 2 x new 4gig sticks?

If you've still got the original 2GB ECC stick the N40 ships with, would you sell it to me?

Yep 2 x 4gb Kingston non-ECC ram for £25 + vat (reclaimed).

Thinking of banging the old 2gb stick in my N36L, bringing it to 3gb total so I can install Windows Home Server 2011 on it (has a minimum ram requirement of 2gb), but not got round to that yet. That's assuming it works in the older server.

[Lockhouse]

I've got a Tranquil PC SQA-5H running WHS with 10Tb fitted. Not the cheapest but it really is fit and forget. Have had it two years without a single issue. It supports three PCs, a couple of laptops, two Squeezeboxes and a WD Media Streamer. Only downside is 2Gb main memory but I don't think it affects the performance that much. Next time I will replace the chassis with the latest one (I'm only a version behind at the moment) and keep the disks.

[ChimpMaster]

Some interesting ideas out there. I like Durbs set-up and the flexibility it offers, but it'll be too much for what I need right now. I just want something low maintenance, low power consumption (always on) and basically for streaming media and perhaps some general backup.

I like the AC Ryan Mini that PAH has, so I'll look into that a little more. I already have an external USB drive I could use for this.


Otherwise there's this NAS: Zyxel 500GB (1 x 500GB) NSA310 1-Bay Network Attached Storage (91-016-007011B) - BT Shop

which is an entry level NAS drive supplied with 500Gb disk for only £67. Frankly 500Gb is plenty for me for now, and it can be replaced with up to 3TB when needed. What do you think of this one?