dannymccann
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Registered: 9th Aug 06
Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire
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As the number of computers in our house grows I want to have a central 'hub' to store everything on. We won't be going fibre anytime soon so a cloud option isn't really practical, so I'm thinking a storage solution on our home network could be useful.
Am I talking about a NAS? I'm not very clued up on networks at all (even simple home ones). I think from reading it is what I want, but can I get ones that are completely wireless (i.e. do not need to be connected to a PC, simply a hard drive that is connected to all my devices by WiFi?).
It won't be used for movies or streaming as such, just a simple dumping ground for pictures, documents, my wife's business invoices etc
I'm not looking for top tech, I just want something simple to get me started and I can upgrade at a later date, as I am running out of space on Dropbox
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
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You're probably better off using Google Drive or Dropbox for that sort of thing. Data stored on a NAS in your house is still vulnerable to disk failure or theft, where as storage services have much more redundancy.
Google Drive and Dropbox keep a local copy of the file on your computer(s) and keep them synced online. You don't need a super fast connection for it to work and as an added bonus, you can access your files anywhere there's a web connection.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by ed
You're probably better off using Google Drive or Dropbox......You don't need a super fast connection for it to work ....
Depends on the amount of data Danny is wanting to store; if you've got a pee-poor upload then getting the data into the 'cloud' is going to be arduous at best and similarly it'll play havoc with any download limits you may have.
Personally 'Cloud' storage is great for backups but it's cack as a replacement for network storage.
Danny - A NAS box will sit on your network (usually wired, so needs to be plugged into your router etc) and provide network storage to all of your devices - obviously majority of consumer NAS boxes will do a lot, lot more like iTune servers, DLNA/media servers etc.
Ideally you want a two-bay enclosure so at some point you can implement RAID 1/drive mirroring (helps with hard drive failure) and personally i'd be looking at Synology (arguably the better interface, extremely easy to use) or QNap (usually better hardware) boxes but if the cost is too much (Synology/QNap two-bay enclosure without hard drives is around £150-200) then have a look at D-Link, ZyXEL or Western Digital boxes.
As Ed mentions though, a NAS box is open to fire/theft/hardware failure; so you obviously want to backup anything important to either 'cloud' services or to another location, eg - copying to an external drive and leaving it at the parents/friends etc.
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Kyle T
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Registered: 11th Sep 04
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
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I can't see poor internet being a valid reason to not go cloud, yeah your initial upload might take decades but you're only going to be making delta changes after that - and it should be manageable.
I just don't think it's worth managing the risk of disk failures/theft at home.
Cloud gives the advantage of being available anywhere (that's still an option for NAS tbf, but more to config) and you're using multi-million $ infrastructures rather than a disk in a box.
Lotus Elise 111R
Impreza WRX STi
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Dom
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quote:
Originally posted by Kyle T
Cloud gives the advantage of being available anywhere (that's still an option for NAS tbf, but more to config) and you're using multi-million $ infrastructures rather than a disk in a box.
But it sounds like Danny wants highly-accessible central storage whereby he's shifting data off individual systems and making it accessible to a range of devices on the network rather than a backup solution or a typical 'cloud' (awful term) storage solution where data is stored remotely as well as being duplicated across multiple devices, ie - Dropbox and the likes.
quote:
Originally posted by Kyle T
I can't see poor internet being a valid reason to not go cloud, yeah your initial upload might take decades but you're only going to be making delta changes...
In a one-way backup situation, however using it as storage as you would with network storage makes you 100% reliant on your internet connection; so a cack internet connection will make it pretty woeful.
Either way, Danny's got two options he can opt for.
[Edited on 30-05-2014 by Dom]
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Kyle T
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Registered: 11th Sep 04
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
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I guess it depends what we mean by cack internet. If it's just slow speed, I really don't see it being an issue - particularly as he said "It won't be used for movies or streaming as such, just a simple dumping ground for pictures, documents, my wife's business invoices etc"
If the connection is frequently dropping out etc, most cloud services (I'll keep using the term if it annoys you) offer offline-file' type functionality anyway.
With My Documents redirects and stuff like that you can set up a nice seamless environment on your windows devices.
I've been using similar techniques on ~12m ADSL for years now - but my quantity of data is small, and it's not particularly important.
I appreciate the value of LAN speed accessible files, but the benefits you get from bunching the whole family's data onto one physical device seem to be outweighed by the fact all your stuff is one glass of wine away from being toast 
Lotus Elise 111R
Impreza WRX STi
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ed
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I use Google Drive for all my files now - my internet connection is crap. As I said in my previous post, it stores everything locally and syncs your files with Google's servers. Ideal 
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Kyle T
...the fact all your stuff is one glass of wine away from being toast
Hence why you have backups as you would even if you were storing them remotely 
quote:
Originally posted by ed
I use Google Drive for all my files now - my internet connection is crap. As I said in my previous post, it stores everything locally and syncs your files with Google's servers. Ideal
So a backup solution rather than a storage solution considering you're retaining files locally.
In my situation i use a raided NAS box as primary storage (as well as a media tank) between devices on the network, meaning i can get away with minimum storage specs on each device; i then use a few 'cloud' services (Hubic and Box) to backup 'important' data (essentially everything other than media) and anything 'seriously important' get dumped to encrypted external drives - covers me for pretty much anything
[Edited on 30-05-2014 by Dom]
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
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Well I do also Time Machine onto my NAS and Back blaze everything too!
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dannymccann
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Registered: 9th Aug 06
Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire
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What you guys are discussing is proper overkill (for me anyway!)
My current set up is this (please try not to faint  ):
Couple of laptops each with their own HD's with stuff on that is backed up to various CD's, some of which I can't find (thus the reason for consoling onto a network HDD)
Few phones, again similar really, documents on each that if/when we change phones need storing somewhere safely
Photo's, many of which I keep but dont really care about, but I want to secure my son's pictures for obvious reasons. These are currently stored locally on the laptop and uploaded to DropBox (hence the reason why I am running out of space on it, even reduced in size)
Got some songs, but it's my wife's old CD collection she's ripped and then probably 100 mp3's we've bought, not exactly a back catalogue
I like Dropbox but I don't like the fact you store it in the 'cloud' and then it creates a local copy on every device anyway, seems like I'm storing data 17 times? Also, if I eventually upgrade HD's in laptops to SSD's (small ones, not spending stupid money on xxxGB SSD's) this wont work as they will run out of space in no time
Hence the reason for a 1TB network connected HD. Reason for network connectivity (WiFi preferably) is just so every device can access it without having to plug a lead in and be in the same room.
I know about Raid setups, interesting idea for the future. In my 10 year's of having computers I've only ever once had a HD fail on me, I'm far from a power user these days.
I just want something cheap and simple that is going to do what I want. I know you can get a 1TB MyBook for something like £70 but obviously this isnt linked to a network so doesnt do what I want it to. That's essentially what I want, a WiFi MYBook, do they exist?
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oceansoul
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Registered: 19th Jun 06
Location: Sunbury, Surrey
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quote:
Originally posted by dannymccann
Hence the reason for a 1TB network connected HD. Reason for network connectivity (WiFi preferably) is just so every device can access it without having to plug a lead in and be in the same room.
I think your getting slightly confused here. The NAS drive connects to the network (90% of the time) by a LAN cable. This will usually be into the back of your router, or another switch if you have one.
Then any device that wants to connect to it, say your laptops or phones, do so over the network. Using WiFi etc.
The NAS drive doesnt need to have WiFi for other devices to talk to it. They do so via WiFi to the router then through the LAN cable.
I have a buffalo linkstation duo NAS drive that i use to store drive image backups of all my computers HDD.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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quote:
Originally posted by dannymccann
seems like I'm storing data 17 times?
This is no bad thing for the stuff you actually want to keep. Also, you can choose what to sync. Only sync the stuff you need.
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Rob_Quads
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
Location: southampton
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+1 if its important you can never have too many copies
As for the concern about not having enough space when you switch to SSDs, i would not be worried as the likes of dropbox you are not going to be storing enough that makes it an issue. Now 120GB SSDs are fairly cheaper and its doubtful you have more than 15gb in dropbox
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dannymccann
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Registered: 9th Aug 06
Location: Doddington, Lincolnshire
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Fair point, thanks for the pointers everyone, this thread has made me feel about 65 trying to understand what's what
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