Need help choosing a basic NAS

[jamst149]

So I am looking for a solution to store my media (songs/movies). I currently have a 1 TB HDD that just plugs into my laptop. I recently bought a new HDTV that supports DLNA though and so now I am looking for a way to access my media on both my laptop and my HDTV easily over the network with good performance.

I have about 160GB of music and 670GB of movies. I would like to keep the two seperate i.e. on two different HDD's.

So here is what I would like to do

1) Store my itunes library on the NAS to stream wirelessly over my wifi network. I don't think I necessarily need a NAS with an itunes server although I have read of some people having dreadful experiences getting their music to play nice with itunes in this type of setup. Basically seems like lots of folks run into issues with itunes not playing their music correctly or not even recognizing their music is even there. I organize playlists based on my itunes ratings so it is important to me to be able to keep this functionality. From my understanding some of these NAS' with itunes servers don't support this. Also want to be able to buy music from itunes store. Would it directly download to the NAS or would I ahve to transfer the new files?

2) Store my movies. I just bought a panasonic viera st30 smart tv that can access dlna. I would like to be able to access these files with that device.

3) Move torrents directly to the NAS. From my understanding I wont need a NAS with a bit torren client as I use utorrent and could download the files to my laptop HDD and when the download completes you can automatically move the file to a designate location.

4) Automated backup of all my media. It seems as though I might be best off buying a 1 bay NAS that has the capability of attaching an external HDD to do automatic backup to.

Anyway my main concern seems to be with how the NAS will function with itunes playback. Like I have said I have read some horror stories from people buying a NAS only to find out it doesn't function the way they thought it would. Otherwise I am trying to find an affordable device that does what I am looking for.

Would love some suggestions. I have been pouring over a bunch of different NAS devices on amazon, newegg, cnet etc and I am having a very difficult time finding the right device. Kinda new to this whole server thing so there is lots of stuff I don't quite understand that just seem to confuse the living daylights out of me and render me unable to make an informed and educated decision on what is actually right for me. I have read how to choose a NAS but alas I still have trouble with the plethora of choices.

Thanks

 

[stevech]

consider Synology DS111J (single drive), and use a USB drive to backup that.

Try the Synology on-line interactive demo - try before you buy by using that.

 

[thiggins]

Your requirements are pretty simple. You just need a basic NAS that can run automated backup.

If you want diskless, you can try the single-drive Synologies or QNAPs. But you'll be paying for features you don't need.
For single-drive diskful, look at Buffalo or Iomega.

I have used a QNAP TS-109 Pro and Synology DS109 to hold my iTunes files and run Squeezeserver. Only problem I noticed is that Squeezeserver playback would get hung up if the NAS was very busy indexing or doing something else.

I now use an Acer Aspire R1600 Nettop to host iTunes and Squeezeserver. Just because I had one lying around and it can be used to run backup to any cloud service instead of just the ones the NAS vendors use.

 

[jamst149]

Your requirements are pretty simple. You just need a basic NAS that can run automated backup.

If you want diskless, you can try the single-drive Synologies or QNAPs. But you'll be paying for features you don't need.
For single-drive diskful, look at Buffalo or Iomega.

I have used a QNAP TS-109 Pro and Synology DS109 to hold my iTunes files and run Squeezeserver. Only problem I noticed is that Squeezeserver playback would get hung up if the NAS was very busy indexing or doing something else.

I now use an Acer Aspire R1600 Nettop to host iTunes and Squeezeserver. Just because I had one lying around and it can be used to run backup to any cloud service instead of just the ones the NAS vendors use.

I went with a 1TB Buffalo linkstation pro for now. 1TB is about what I need for the moment and I allready have a 1 TB external HDD I can run backup too. The synology products seemed a bit overkill (like you seemt o indicate). Plus with the thailand flooding the proce of HDD's just seems so artificially high at the moment.

My biggest concern is some people seem to report a decent failure rate with this product and that their customer service is shoddy at best. Just hope I don't get stuck with a lemon.

 

[thiggins]

I know that Buffalo doesn't issue firmware updates very often. I can't speak to customer service, since I've never used it.

The best insurance you can have is to have the drive backed up and check the backup every once in awhile.

So when the product does fail (and it eventually will), your data is still safe.