1st NAS system/home network help.

[beecee]

i am looking to set up basic home network, for distributing Movies/TV/Music around (to start with) 2 bedrooms.

i currently use 2 WDTV live media players with attached usb drives, which is a pain to constantly have to unplug to put more films/tv etc on them, so decided it would be better to have it in a central place so that it can be accessed anywhere.

all i want is to be able to play files through the WD (or what ever media device) via a power line network from the NAS.

looking at the below type set up.


Q1- is that a realistic/easy set up?
Q2 = would this be a good NAS? looking at 2x4tb WD initially, with my current USB drives as back ups.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BJ1BGB6?ref_=gb1h_tit_m-4_0887_0ad52397&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

i'm a noob so go easy one me.

[MartyG]

Yes, depending on the NAS, some have USB ports allowing you to plug in external drives which can then be shared via the NAS.

With the one you've linked it shouldn't need much in the way of setup, other than plugging it into your network switch / BT Hub (the NAS is will ideally be hardwired, though I'm sure wireless ones exist), so your PC wouldn't be plugging in to the NAS directly as you've shown, rather it will be accessing as a network device. The NAS can run the media sharing stuff, so the external drives will simply behave as an additional drive.

[smouty]

I would run Plex on your NAS. On the TVs something like a Fire TV stick will play anything.
Those Netgears are OK if you are on a budget. The HP gen7/8 microservers are significantly better for around the same price when on offer. They are able to be installed with the Synology NAS OS. Once installed they are comparable to a Synology NAS costing around ?1k.

[beecee]

thank for the replies, its basically only be rips of my movie/music files i would want to access, budget is ?400 ish.

[concretesnail]

I use a similar nwtwork but with a little differnce when it comes to the position of the nas. I have the nas unit connectwd directly to the router amd then acees to the nas isnt controller by the pc being on and any device with network access can stream the content of thw nas. It work fine an even the girlfriend can work it.

[Baseley09]

You could cheap out and just get like a 2nd hand core2duo desktop for ?50 or less (free?), fill it with drives of your choice and run plex media server.

[MartyG]

Going down that route, I'd install the FreeNAS OS and use the plug-ins for it.

[smouty]

Going down that route, I'd install the FreeNAS OS and use the plug-ins for it.

Maybe an older version but the recent ones that use ZFS?
A bit RAM hungry and there have been reports of total data corruption.
There is a fork that is less hardware intensive - http://www.openmediavault.org/

[MartyG]

Yeah, 8 GB is optimum for the current version, I hadn't seen any reports about total data loss though, one to keep in mind.

[k0pp0]

8GB for a NAS os is mental

[smouty]

Yeah, 8 GB is optimum for the current version, I hadn't seen any reports about total data loss though, one to keep in mind.

Actually 8Gb is a requirement due to ZFS. 16Gb is optimum.

http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/

[MartyG]

Blimey, hadn't realised it had jumped up that high. Might be better going with the forked version then if you fancy going down the self-build NAS route with a lower spec machine.

[huxley]

For whats its worth I`ve had one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DS2.../dp/B00FWUQNDQ for about a year with a pair if 5TB WD Red drives in it. It really is plug in and forget. It works with every device I have. PS4 XB1 XB360 phone Ipad as well as my smart tv which is not the higher model but the Samsung media player is more than happy to play most file formats inc full fat bluray mkv rips. I`ve now offloaded my media pc in favour of the nas.
I cant recommend it enough.

[smouty]

I'm using a DIY Synology variant on an HP N54L microserver (two in fact) and agree it is easy to use and does everything you need.
The N54L is about as powerful as a genuine Synology box costing around ?1k which is not bad when they were on offer for ?80 after cashback.

Guide here - http://cyanlabs.net/Thread-Install-X...HP-N54L-Server

[beecee]

Ideally looking for a pre-built system, low powered one as well. So an old pc will be power hungry.

Huxley. Looks good, going for a 4 bay one, with 2 x 4tb drives to start with.