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Nas drives



Jaff.

ClioSport Club Member
I'm sick of turning the pc on all the time to watch a film on my external HDD so I've been thinking about nas drives?

can Apple TV access them and play my movies?

Can I put my current 2tb HDD into them or do I have to copy it all over?

talk to me!
 
  FF Clio 182
Apple TV can only access an iTunes library so you would need a computer on all the time.

NAS drives are good for the price you could run a small server. Other option would be to buy a media centre and run it off that.
 

Jaff.

ClioSport Club Member
Are nas drives more friendly to my electricity bill than leaving my pc on 24/7?

​What do you mean media centre?
 
  FF Clio 182
Are nas drives more friendly to my electricity bill than leaving my pc on 24/7?

​What do you mean media centre?

Yes there are but you get less functionality. A media centre is basically a really low power consumption PC that is used primarily for media. Plug it into your TV so access all your movies and music. Usually run software like XBMC
 
You've got 2 options

Buy a nas drive that has a built in iTunes server (most do as they are effectively little linux machines) - but then it's a bit of an arse to organise the itunes library

Buy a nas - then tell iTunes that the library is on the nas drive and leave your pc running to dish the itunes library out
That's what I do but with a mac mini :)
 

coolspot007007

ClioSport Club Member
  Seat Leon Cupra
I run a WDTV Live hub (1TB NAS and media controller) and store all my TV/Films on a Synology Diskstaion (twin 3TB) NAS/small business server. The WDTV can run additional usb storage and obviously you can just add a NAS to the network to expand it so it would be a cheap option.

The Synology can run as a media server on it's own but you'd be looking at £250 + drives to go in it, mine wasn't powerfull enough to run 1080p over dlna (2011 model) so I had to add the WDTV . You can add apps to it like Sickbeard and Couchpotato to get TV and Films for you automatically and/or add to your download list from your mobile etc. so it's ready when you get home, it's a great bit of kit. It has an itunes server too.
 
Problem with that is no backup. The stora has 2 hard drives running in raid, so if one goes down you don't lose everything.

Pretty essential for me as my whole Aperture photography library and every dvd I've ever bought is all on the NAS drive
 

Jaff.

ClioSport Club Member
Well I used to leave my pc on all the time until my electric bill landed and realised I was paying way too much and not using it enough. So I was hoping a nas drive would be a happy medium as in will stay on all the time with access to it when I want to (via ps3 and I was hoping ATV) and not consume so much power
 
I managed to get my hands on a Synology DS209+II nas from work that was being thrown away and it's fantastic. I stuck a few TBs of space into it, it will put stuff out over Windows sharing, NFS, all sorts of technolgoeis. You can download addons for it for example, you can make it so a .torrent file in a particular directory, will start the NAS downlaoding that torrent, amongst other things.
Synology devices are pretty good for the consumer - we got rid of it because it wasn't quiote 'enterprise grade'.

I would say NAS all the way, They're not very expensive either, be sure to get one with at least 2 bays, so you can have it in RAID either for redundancy, no REAL advantage putting it in performance mode (RAID0 stripe) since it's a networked device anyway and will be subject to multiple things slowing it down on the way.
 

Jaff.

ClioSport Club Member
How does it know when to turn them on then? A request from a media player?

i.e turn the ps3 on, search for media servers, find nas drive?

​or am I in the wrong ball park?
 

Jaff.

ClioSport Club Member
Cool. That sounds ideal then. Just have to find a way to get ATV to work. Possibly a JB ATV2?

Next question... Any recommendations? Am I right in thinking the external HDD I have now will slot straight I to them with no messing about. Set it up and voila?
 

MaLicE

Honorary Member
ClioSport Club Member
  Lazy v8
is your apple tv jail broken? if so you can get nas drives that will run plex media server on it... the less powerful nas units wont decode though, you have to have it in the right format or it wont decode on the fly... however the more expensive ones do...

but you are looking 300+ with out drives...

plex will stream to xbox etc.
 

coolspot007007

ClioSport Club Member
  Seat Leon Cupra
If you get a Synology you can schedule it to power itself on/off with an app. I have mine coming on at 4.30pm -3.30am weekdays and 10am-3.30am weekends to allow time for downloading that days TV before I get in from work. They are pretty efficient anyway and if you don't want the power scheduled it supports wake on LAN too.
 

Nik

ClioSport Admin
  Clio Trophy #355
Another vote for Synology NAS here, mine is the best purchase I've made for years. Synology's iPhone apps are very handy too for scheduling a torrent download or something, or just streaming music / films.
 

Jaff.

ClioSport Club Member
Synology seems the way forward then.

currently have ATV3 so not JB

any links to some good value synology stuff?
 
  A4 Avant
I've a 2 bay Synology and it's brilliant. Power schedules mean it's only on when I want it. I'd like to upgrade to a 4 bay for future proofing but it's a bit on the steep side price wise especially once I've added two more drives.
 
  Polo + Micra
hp microserver if you can get one cheap imho (mine cost £109 in total with a 250Gb HDD)
 
  Polo + Micra
HP Micro Proliants are good, but the aim here is not to have a dedicated machine running like a server or pc. NAS offers much more low-power operation.

i've got ubuntu on mine running trasmission and samba with 5 drives and a graphics card and pulls about 70w max (average about 35w) it only has a 150w psu

from a price point of view it's better than the synology for a 4 bay
 
i've got ubuntu on mine running trasmission and samba with 5 drives and a graphics card and pulls about 70w max (average about 35w) it only has a 150w psu

from a price point of view it's better than the synology for a 4 bay

That's actually a lot less draw than I thought! My 2-bay synology draws 10-25W with 2 drives.
They did have a good deal on those proliants a while back, we got 2 in work for about £160 after cashback, not including drives though.
 
  Polo + Micra
yeah i paid £109 after cashback

i'm sure they are going to have a deal on the n54l now that the gen8 is out
 
  Polo + Micra
also use wake on lan to fire it up when i want to and use cron to shut it down every night
 
  2001 Clio 172
I'm looking into this now too. I currently run an external HDD through a WDTV box, however the 500GB is now full. Do I go NAS or simply larger HDD? I'm leaning towards NAS but have had close to no experience with them.
 
  Polo + Micra
you have missed last months hp cashback on the n54l which i managed to get for £199.97 before cashback (cashback is £100)

and some one had a deal of £180 for my n40l:dapprove:
 
  Turbo'd MX-5 MK4
I just bought a 6 bay Netgear NAS off eBay, so provided that works ok I'll be selling my Duo.
 
  Rav4
Mac mini + 16TB NAS + Plex is the ultimate home theatre.

Are you running plex off your mac mini or your NAS, I cannot remember :)

I have a Synology 1513+, which I have Plex running on it, but not too good, so will be running off the Mac Mini.

Plex is simply awesome.
 

dk

  911 GTS Cab
I've just finally gone and bought a NAS, been thinking about it for years, need something raided to protect my photos.

Gone for a synology DS213J and 2x 3TB WD Red NAS drives.

Not sure I'm going to use it to stream using DLNA as i mostly watch my downloaded tv shows on my 17" MBP in bed, but we'll see.
 
  Clio Trophy
Openmediavault running on an old Low power PC with Plex Server installed is the ultimate machine. Cheap and powerful.
 
Not sure I'm going to use it to stream using DLNA as i mostly watch my downloaded tv shows on my 17" MBP in bed, but we'll see.

OS X will be able to see the shared folders on your diskstation and they'll be treated as a network drive. No need to install any DLNA media server app on the NAS. You'll be able to play the files using VLC or the like. If you mount the shared folders in OS X, then Plex XBMC will be able to access them also.
 


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