DS207+: What all do I need to make this work?

[Frequentflyer]

I'm about to pull the trigger on a DS207+ for a home network, which consists of two desktops wired to an Actiontec MI424WR (Verizon Fios) and a laptop using wireless. One desktop is a home built with an Abit IP35 Pro motherboard which has dual gigabit NIC's running Vista 64 and the other is a Dell XPS 200 running XP SP3, which I'm not sure off hand what kind of NIC it has, but I bought it in 2005 and I assume it is 10/100. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8600, also running XP SP3 which has a Broadcom 440x 10/100 NIC and WLAN 1350 wireless. We also use a wireless printer that is not hardwired to the router.

Both desktops are plugged directly into the MI424WR right now and when I set my desktop up, a friend of mine recommended I plug both NIC's in and run a bridged connection, which from what I read now, really isn't doing much for me.

I'd like to get the DS207 with two 1TB drives and run it in RAID1, mainly for JPEG storage, video storage from my Canon HF100 camcorder and backup. I recently purchased a Maxtor Central Axis, but could not get it to work and eventually returned it. Not sure it was me or the hardware or a little of both, but I had read that the Maxtor software was not Vista 64 friendly. Most of my picture/video editing will be done on the Vista 64 machine, but my wife will also need access to the NAS from her machine (the Dell XPS).

My plan is to buy a Netgear GS608 gigabit switch and the DS207+ with two WD 1TB "black" drives and plug everything into the switch.

So I guess my questions are, is this all I'll need to make this setup work and will I have issues with a home network running Vista 64 and XP on different machines?

 

[thiggins]

Your basic plan is fine. If the XP and Vista machines talk to each other fine and share files you have overcome the biggest hurdle.

Plug the Synology and any computers that you want to have decent file transfer speed into the gigabit switch and you should be fine. You will find that wireless transfer to the NAS is very slow. Ok for occasional access, but not good for large backups or heavy use.