hightech
Jul 2nd, 2012, 07:16 PM
I am looking to get some external storage and was wondering what usb3/NAS devices and hard drives are best recommended by RFDers. Essentially, I have a notebook and need to store my files and have access to them either via USB, or thru a network. I have an Apple Airport Extreme Device and a 5 port Gigabit switch. I would be looking at at least 2 TB of storage
Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks
Blueroom
Jul 2nd, 2012, 07:21 PM
On the cheap the AirPort Extreme supports external USB 2.0 drives. The best NAS's I've used that are Mac, Windows & Linux friendly are made by Synology.
fred999
Jul 4th, 2012, 04:39 PM
I have two WD MyBook Live. It's a 2Tb NAS drive, plugged into my switch. I think they're about $140 now.
Got one about a year ago, and another one just recently.
Couldn't be happier.
toalan
Jul 4th, 2012, 07:16 PM
I just got the netgear readynas duo v2, NCIX has it for $99 now, I got it last week for $119. It has dual drive bays so you can run RAID 1, there are 2 usb 3.0 ports on the back so you can share your USB 3.0 drives. I have no idea if you can connect a computer to it via usb 3.0 and access the data at USB 3.0 speeds, I do not have the right cable so I could not test.
I am able to pull ~67MB/s reads and writes to the unit over gigabit ethernet, this applies to both the drives in the unit and the USB 3.0 drives attached to the unit.
The documentation for it is garbage, and the UI is not very intuitive, I had to call tech support to fix an issue which they managed to resolve. There are compatibility issues with green/low power drives, so you need to check the hardware compatibility list before you decide to get it or not.
With 2 7200 RPM HDD, 750GB + 1TB, the active power consumption is ~25W, it idles at ~10W. When there is alot of traffic, the thing sounds like a jet plan, during idle it is not noticeable.
It was not plug and play for me, I went through alot of hassle figuring the thing out. If you are a techy then it is a good product, I would not recommend it to computer noobs
There are other NAS boxes in the same price range like the DLINK stuff, but I hear their transfer rates are ~25MB/s over gigabit, the strength of the readynas is fast throughput at a low price.