Anyone use a NAS type box at home that can stream to TV, speakers, etc. and can BT? I’m looking at Synology and maybe BuffaloTech. any recommendations? something simple to use, reliable (dont wanna be troubleshooting all the time), maybe can remote access using either xbox or android phone.
May be you can buy a small PC and install what you want in it.
I got a server@home, and i’m using it with XBMC (A really nice Home Cinema software), deluge torrent with a web interface, and much more other stuff.
But if you want only a NAS…I don’t really know how is the market now…
What’s your budget and is data loss prevention important?
There are a ton of NAS boxes on the market these days from very little money to quite a lot, hence a rough budget estimation would help to narrow things down.
Just be aware that the really cheap ones in general are also pretty crap as they have very underpowered processors and very little memory, so if you start doing multiple things at once, they’ll grind to a halt, especially if you’re running a RAID setup as they all tend to use software RAID.
I’d suggest a Drobo, but they’re not cheap and not readily available in Taiwan 
shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 9696&c=A05
How about something like this maybe? qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=117
Then you get a media player, basic one drive NAS and BT downloader in one.
Otherwise I’d say this looks pretty good for the money synology.com/us/products/DS411slim/index.php
Plenty expansion options, decent enough processor and RAM (not sure about ROM), only downside being it taking 2.5-inch drives, but it means it’ll take up less space. That said, it’s about half the price compared to it’s 3.5-inch drive sibling so the extra cost of the drives isn’t going to make a huge difference.
On the other hand, if you just want something affordable with plenty of space and don’t care about performance, then this isn’t a terrible deal shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … T&ROWNO=22
Just be aware that Buffalo has terrible UI’s.
thanks the QNAP looks like the ticket. was looking to stream directly to TV and do BT PC-less.
but in terms of functionality, isnt the QNAP and SYnology the same or did I miss something?
I think you missed something yes, the QNAP is a media player with simple single drive NAS functionality, although it can be connected directly to a PC for large file transfers over USB 2.0 or eSATA as well. As such it has all the ports you need to hook it up to your TV as a media player and it also comes with a remote. There’s a higher-end version on offer as well qnap.com/pro_detail_hardware.asp?p_id=171 but I guess it’ll be more expensive, but it offers the option of adding a second eSATA hard drive.
The Synology on the other hand is a regular, if somewhat advanced four drive NAS with RAID support and a fast processor.
In both cases you’d have to initiate the BT downloads from a PC though.
Still, knowing a rough budget estimate would help.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]I think you missed something yes, the QNAP is a media player with simple single drive NAS functionality, although it can be connected directly to a PC for large file transfers over USB 2.0 or eSATA as well. As such it has all the ports you need to hook it up to your TV as a media player and it also comes with a remote. There’s a higher-end version on offer as well qnap.com/pro_detail_hardware.asp?p_id=171 but I guess it’ll be more expensive, but it offers the option of adding a second eSATA hard drive.
The Synology on the other hand is a regular, if somewhat advanced four drive NAS with RAID support and a fast processor.
In both cases you’d have to initiate the BT downloads from a PC though.
Still, knowing a rough budget estimate would help.[/quote]
I hadn’t thought about an exact budget, but I would probably balk at anything over 200USD unless it was an all-in-one box so I wouldn’t have to buy additional products. for me the priority functionality:
- store my movies and photos and be able to view them using a TV (instead of booting up a PC)
- BT stuff (hopefully PC less)
- backup files
If you’d be willing to pay a bit extra, you could probably build a mini-itx system yourself that would offer more functionality.
Why would he bother with that?
The idea of getting a NAS is simplicity, not building another system.
[quote=“Jack Burton”]
I hadn’t thought about an exact budget, but I would probably balk at anything over 200USD unless it was an all-in-one box so I wouldn’t have to buy additional products. for me the priority functionality:
- store my movies and photos and be able to view them using a TV (instead of booting up a PC)
- BT stuff (hopefully PC less)
- backup files[/quote]
US$200 isn’t going to get you much I’m afraid, that’s what, like not even NT$6000 these days. I hope that price doesn’t include the hard drive as well?
The cheap ones I’ve been suggesting are at least $300 plus.
I guess this should do the job shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 42&ROWNO=2
It does at least come with a single 1.5TB drive for that price, but that means that you have no data security.
The Qnap player comes without a drive as well and it’s $300 again shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 4Z&ROWNO=1
This might be a workable alternative shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 7435&c=A05 it does fulfill your basic needs as long as you don’t mind using a 2.5-inch hard drive.At least it’s dirt cheap and it’s more of a media player than a NAS, but it does BT downloads.
They also have a slightly fancier version that accepts 3.5-inch drives for a bit over twice the price shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 5695&c=A05
Thanks. I think I can go higher based on your feedback. Like I said, I just want the convenience of one box; if that will cost a little bit more (as opposed to having to get different things and upgrade, etc., I’m fine with it).
A question about BT download speed: PC v. NAS Box, what’s the limiting factor, all else being equal (e.g. HD speed, internet connection speed) - does it come down to the difference of PC CPU+ram v. NAS CPU?
It depends on how many concurrent torrents you’re downloading as yes, it’s got something to do with the processor, a really slow, basic, old ARM processor is going to have limitations on how much you can do simultaneously.
That said, I don’t really know what the minimum requirement is for everything to run smoothly, but I’d suggest having a look at a couple of reviews of whatever you’re considering getting in the end. I guess here’s a good place to start reading smallnetbuilder.com/nas
There’s always going to be a trade off between cost and performance, but it’s been a while since I’ve been playing with NAS boxes and can’t really say what a good model for your requirements is, although I’d say something like a 1GHz+ ARM chip should do the job ok, but also make sure that whatever you get has enough RAM, as torrents eat a fair bit of memory if there are a lot of peers.
From what I’ve seen, this appears to offer the best best performance for the money shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 7349&c=A15
You can get it bundled with drives as well for a small discount over what you’d pay for the drives on their own shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 3888&c=A10
That said, this seems to offer the same kind of functionality for the same kind of money shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 4594&c=A05 it has one benefit over the Synology, it has two eSATA ports instead of one which means you can add a couple of extra drives if need be at a later stage while maintaining the performance level that SATA gives over USB. It’s apparently a little bit more power efficient as well, but we’re talking about 5W here…
QNAP might actually be quite good for BT stuff, they just announced a new firmware which adds a ton of features for BT qnap.com/fw_v34/DSV2.aspx?lang=eng
Also, this is a bit more affordable model than the last one which I missed last time around shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 1S&ROWNO=1
It’s a new model which lacks the eSATA expansion options, but also costs a lot less.
[quote=“TheLostSwede”]QNAP might actually be quite good for BT stuff, they just announced a new firmware which adds a ton of features for BT qnap.com/fw_v34/DSV2.aspx?lang=eng
Also, this is a bit more affordable model than the last one which I missed last time around shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 1S&ROWNO=1
It’s a new model which lacks the eSATA expansion options, but also costs a lot less.[/quote]
Cool. thanks for digging up all the options. I’m going to check out the QNAP above. I’d like to be able to stream vids directly to TV without going through the PC (which has HDMI out to the TV).
Well, you said you had an Xbox 360 right? That should do the job as long as it supports the file formats in question. I’ve done it from a PC, but it’s a bit messy, it should be easier over DLNA from a NAS as you don’t have to set up the PC to share the files which imho is a pita…
I am considering using HP’s proliant microserver
silentpcreview.com/HP_Proliant_MicroServer
It retails around $300USD for base configurtion.
Quote of specs:
* Low starting price
* Very low power (12W TDP CPU)
* Potential for low noise (just two fans, a 120mm and a smaller one)
* PCI-E x 1 slot for TV card
* PCI-E x16 slot for discrete graphics
* Full size DDR3 slots (not expensive laptop or server) for cheap upgrade to 2 or 4 GB
* ECC RAM support (not found in HP Home Servers)
* 4 HDD easy to use “pluggable” drive bay (not hot swap)
* Sturdy, tidy build quality — even the motherboard slides out easily on a tray
* Internal power supply rather than yet another AC/DC adapter to add to the clutter
* Full size optical drive (for lower cost)
* Gigabit ethernet
I had the chance to try one of these when it just came out.
One thing that is nice about this model is that it has usb port inside behind the front panel.
This can be configured as primary bootable device so that OS can run from a usbstick and the hard drives can be configured using RAID/LVM for data storage.
Not in Taiwan it isn’t, here it starts at NT$19900 ($685) buy.yahoo.com.tw/gdsale/gdsale.a … t=gdsearch
Otherwise it’s a nice piece of hardware, as it’s a full-on computer rather than an ARM system which means you could potentially do a lot more with it if you’d want to.