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Fellows,

I would like to know if you use, how you use and which device as Network Attached Storage. I've being reading some reviews online, and there is a lot off downsides in many models - more recently, the ones from IOCELL.

Some of then need special software to be accessed, some of then are too warm, and so on. There is any one quite famous for linux users? I was expecting to connect one of those things in my wireless router (with cable) and, and when it get on it would be mounted like a pendrive in the network... I really have no idea :(

Thanks!

Pedro

3 Answers 3

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One of the systems that supports CIFS and NFS perfectly (and I currently own one) is Synology.

Just works, no complaints.

Any other NAS that supports either CIFS or NFS will work because you can mount any of these protocols in Ubuntu without any problems.

One word of advice I have is to just check the website forums page of the brands you are interested and have a look for any NFS or CIFS complaints users are posting there.

ie: Synology had a problem with CIFS low transfer rates that was fixed 2 versions of the software ago, you can read about all the complaints on their forum. Its fixed now.

To use a NAS on your network cannot be more simple:

1) Plugin the NAS to your router, it will probably be setup to look for IP addresses by it self

2) Create users and shared folders on the NAS using the NAS interface (much likely a HTTP page)

3) In your Ubuntu system install the required protocol files (CIFS or NFS)

4) Modify your fstab file (`/etc/fstab') to mount the shared folders you just created automatic on each startup, instructions for that normally can be found on your NAS website support pages.

Thats all! Its that simple. Gl and if you need any further assistance on this just ask ;)

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  • Thanks Bruno (and maybe obrigado because with this name or you are Brasilian like me or Portuguese :) Im looking for something not very expensive. 2TB in one disk looks quite enought; this one from Synology looks very good for me; as I asked to gus over there, its not my priority but it is easy to conect and play media directly from it? Thanks, Pedro Oct 14, 2011 at 11:44
  • Very very easy, its has a built in DLNA server, can have squeezebox installed, there is huge support the any software that you might think, it can bootstrapped and allows you to do simply anything that you might want / think, has built in BT and emule client, download manager can do so much stuff for you and many many things more. Have a look at their website, there is a demo of the software running so you can see all the possibilities. The one I have is the ds110j, has only 1 disk in and support till (until latest software) 3TB drives. Its silent, has power saving features, no heat issues. Oct 14, 2011 at 12:28
  • Tv connection can be done via DLNA server (ethernet directly), it will simply read your disks via the built in DLNA server. If you have a xbox360 or ps3 the NAS will show on your "sources" list and start sharing your movies/photos/music with them so you can use the NAS as a source for all your media. Oct 14, 2011 at 12:31
  • btw "Obrigado" will also do since I was born in Portugal! :D Boa sorte! Oct 14, 2011 at 14:42
  • Here is the link for the live demo of the interface and a overview of the features. The cheap nice NAS I recommend from them is the ds110j. Oct 14, 2011 at 14:44
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I've been using my NetGear ReadyNAS for a couple of years now. It supports CIFS, NFS, SMB, WebDav and a bunch of other protocols. You can think of it as a mini linux server that sits on the network and just happens to have a massive redundant hard drive. The newer versions of the ReadyNAS can do just about anything that a normal webserver can do via add-ons.

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  • Thanks Gus! Im looking for a not very professional (== cheap) and I found this one link Which looks quite good. Its not my priority, but how this works with a TV? USB directly? Using the addons you said? Oct 14, 2011 at 11:38
  • It supports quite a few ways to stream off of it. The readyNAS website lists most of them. I have a xbmc box connected to my TV so I just stream off of the network. I have a friend that connects to it using his XBox and the DLNA server. Depending on the software your TV has, you could either connect off of the network or the USB connection.
    – Gus E
    Oct 16, 2011 at 20:59
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I think you need to decide how much you want to spend first. Then think a bit about things like scalability, and the cost of the power consumption (10W standby equates to $10/year).

Most of these boxes seem to run linux underneath, so maybe you want to check how easy it it to extend the feature set (even if only as a view into the level of support that is available)

I went for a fairly high end home device, Qnap TS-219P II, this has 512M Ram, 2GHz processor, and is apparently able to run a Myth-tv backend. Certainly it should be able to cope with waking up my main machine to do recording, or any other always on task I need.

The IOCELL range don't disclose their hardware spec, and also appear to use a non-linux OS on the NAS - at least they don't seem to support NFS, so even if they are PnP on other OS, for linux it may not be a good option.

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