Best NAS solution? (Network Attached Storage, iTunes, PowerBook, Airport)

I too am looking for a reasonable NAS solution. I've seen a lot of write ups in the various forums discussing LinkSys, D-Link, SimpleShare, etc. but none really seem to have positive experiences. I did notice that Geeks.com carries a single NAS drive enclosure "Netdisk-35" that supports USB and 10/100 Ethernet and uses a proprietary technology called NDAS to communicate with computers. I've been searching for reviews on this but haven't been able to find any yet other than a brief note from deal.com.

Geeks.com sells the enclosure for about $54 US. Ximeta also makes a similar solution using the NDAS Network Direct Attached Storage technology and it appears that this is Ximeta's own proprietary technology that does support Mac OSX and Windows computers on an Ethernet infrastructure.

Apparently there is a limitation of NDAS in supporting drives over 250Gb so if you have larger drives, it may not be a good solution.

I don't have any experience with NDAS but would like to learn whether anyone else has and what their opinions are about this particular product.

Looking for inputs!

Happy New Year!
Jim Naeve
Murphy, TX

PowerBook G4 17" 1GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) Steve, you really must bring back the Newton!

Lacie Ethernet Disk Mini. It's available in 250GB, 300GB, 400GB and 500GB sizes. Full support for MAC OS

iMac 20"/2.0GHz/2GB/250GB Mac OS X (10.4.2) xServeG5/iBooks/PowerBooks/eMacs/lots more

I don't dispute Lacie's product quality at all however they don't have an Ethernet enclosure only solution which is what I personally would like to have rather than Firewire or USB. I have Firewire now but with my PowerBook, I'm not always at my desk and would really like to have access to a centralized drive without having to buy a server. I recently had a PIII/550 Intel box that I was running SUSE Linux on until recently when the IDE controller died. Now I'm stuck with a couple 120Gb drives and no place to put them.

From what I can tell, there are no solid solutions for Network Attached Storage 'enclosures' that will support Mac effectively except for the one I mentioned above. It seems good however, I'm just not familiar enough with the NDAS technology to know or understand whether it will indeed work on Mac's.

Jim

FYI - the perfect example of what I'm looking for can be found with Netgears "Storage Central SC101". However, that particular product does not support Mac at all and will only work with Windows and does not support any standard protocols such as NFS, SMB or FTP. Too bad, very nice concept but falls short for me.

Jim

Well there's always this little gem from Lacie, assuming you have the cash..

Buffalo also has some nice products.

Lacie's Ethernet Disk Mini is an ethernet-based network drive. It also happens to have a USB port - so you can use it either as a standalone ethernet only drive or a personal drive.

The original question was in regard to a basic networked attached drive that would have full Mac compatibility and be useful for storing iTunes music off an Airport Express unit - the Lacie fits those requirements nicely, and at a reasonable price.

An alternative, at about the same cost, would be a used G3 iMac (one of the fruit color iMacs) set up as an iTunes jukebox connected to the Airport hub.

If you need something bigger, Lacie also has the Lacie Ethernet Disk that has an embedded WinXP operating system and sizes up to 2TB

I have purchased a Buffalo Linkstation to accomplish the original concept.

Though i have got it to work it was no small task and not one to be underestimated. Because the Buffalo (and i believe Lacie) are created in a system that is not inherently completely mac compatible you will have file name length issues, a real problem for itunes files. It can be resolved but i had to hack the linkstation (i was not that proficient to begin with)and give it new alternative firmware. The file names are no longer a problem.

Also be aware that itunes does not like looking away from the hard drive music folder. It will revert whenever the network connection is severed. (i.e. when you close the lid of your mac.) I hope mac will improve this area as it is the obvous requirement for growing music files but i am still looking for the complete simple solution.

I have the Maxtor Shared Storage Drive w/ 300GB. It has a built in print server and works quite well with my PowerBook. It does not specifically support OSX but because it uses the SMB protocol I have no problems connecting to it at all. The performance is very good. My only complaint with just about every NAS device out there is they all have 10/100 ethernet ports. For doing backups to this device it would be nice to have 10/100/1000 ethernet. That way you could use a cross-over cable and backup at 1Gb/sec. Needless to say, at 100Mb/sec these are not good choices for large files and backups unless you have lots of time to kill.

I have just bought a Buffalo NAS, too, and am having the same naming issues. What did you do to hack the NAS OS? Also, I'm having 2 GB file size limitations when trying to back up to the NAS. Any ideas?

David,
A couple of points to note:
1) doing the math helps better rationalize your transfer rate:
- 100Gb at full 100Mb Ethernet = about 17 minutes (assumes a perfect stream)
- Reality is, ATA drive constraints prohibit perfect steady flow of data for consistent throughput. Additionally, you're using a wireless network which is much slower than this but also, not really a full 54Mbps even with 802.11G, particularly if you have security enabled.

2) backing up large amounts of your data over a wireless LAN isn't the most efficient use of a NAS unless you're performing incremental backups or small sets of data so you're not having to wait long periods of time to perform the transfer. if you're willing to wait and speed isn't the issue, then there isn't a problem.

3) for home situations, a NAS is best thought of as a central repository for all of your PC's to use. the files you share including movies or other forms of data, pictures, music, etc., can all be shared via the NAS. however, remember that speed isn't on your side if you're using a wireless network at home.

4) if you are considering a NAS for home and have a fast Ethernet backbone, i.e. GigE and you have a couple PC's that are hard-wired to the GigE LAN, then a NAS is a nice solution.

I don't know the specs on the LaCie drive and what sort of device this is but it's a nice option and they typically make very nice products. I'm sure your expectation was set much higher by having hard-wired connectivity but also consider your environment. If backups are your goal, stick with USB2, Firewire 400 or 800 - it's safe, effective, tried & true.

Good luck.
Jim

I'm also looking into NAS drives for my PbG4/Airport Extreme network for similar reasons as others have mentioned: Back-up and permanent storage of iLife libraries.

I was interested to hear of David's dissatisfaction with the LaCie as it is one of the drives I'm considering - along with the Iomega StorCenter. For me the LaCie wins over the Iomega because it can be used both as an NAS or a USB drive.

David, did you try to transfer your larger files via USB instead of over the AP network? I'd be interested to hear of your experiences with USB performance.

Maxtor announced this at MacWorld in January:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/01/11/sharedstorage/index.php

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.ba88f6d7cf664718376049b2913460 68/?channelpath=/en_us/Products/Network%20Storage/Maxtor%20Shared%20Storage%20Fa mily/Maxtor%20Shared%20Storage%20Plus&productview=Specifications