on a budget...cheap pc or nas ?

[reevesy]

hi all,
going round and round in a world of media and music streamers and i've come to the conclusion i'm probably best off sorting the storage out,ripping music and films ( could continue to use my xbox as a stop gap.....aware of compatible file issues) and when budget allows get the player side of things sorted.

.....dont know if this is the best way to go

....music is a toss up between the usual suspects sonos or squeezebox (and the software needed to run it).
.....films maybe the med8er.

...basically squeezebox aside i'm just after a good storage system for film and music in one room only with something i can stick in the cupboard and only be on when i need it.....would have to be quiet though. portable storage would mean another box on the shelf and not out the way.

the nas side of things i thought would be reasonable straight forward until i started to read about stuttering with the squeezebox label art side of things and the basic operating system of a nas being a problem....though this would be a problem with a sonos as i understand it.

budget at the moment is about 250 to 300 quid...cheaper the better though.

the nas side of things ....been looking at things like the
the netgears....duo and the stora
...also seen the free hard drive offers.

or do i put together a cheap very basic pc second hard complete or secondhand build it yourself (never done it but have upgrade mine a couple of times with bits and pieces) and add acouple of hard drives along the way...then just run it when i need it....probably a couple of hours at the time.

..connection would be wired most likely and would all ahve to be reasonable simple to use...as others might be invovled in the music playback side of things.

would generally like some guidence folks as my time spent doing my online reasearch is starting to stretch it a bit with the family

any help with making some sort of decision would be graetly appreciated.

cheers.

 

[Uridium]

You'll find most will slag off the Netgear Stora. I think it's a huge bargain.....

I have mine serving userdata to 3 Windows machines in the house (via Windows mydocs folder redirection) streaming to 3x PS3, an ACRyan POHD and an Xbox.

Accept its limitations though (without paying a subscription your limited to 3 users accounts, lack of bittorrent/downloaded without hacking it, crappy software) and take it for what it is (simple NAS storage with DLNA) and it is a stunning bargain.

I look after huge multishelf corporate SAN's for a living and am still impressed by the Stora at only £50 for a Dualbay Gigabit NAS

I even have a free app running on my HTC Desire that backs up the Phone and FTP's it across the web to the Stora.

 

[reevesy]

You'll find most will slag off the Netgear Stora. I think it's a huge bargain.....

I have mine serving userdata to 3 Windows machines in the house (via Windows mydocs folder redirection) streaming to 3x PS3, an ACRyan POHD and an Xbox.

Accept its limitations though (without paying a subscription your limited to 3 users accounts, lack of bittorrent/downloaded without hacking it, crappy software) and take it for what it is (simple NAS storage with DLNA) and it is a stunning bargain.

I look after huge multishelf corporate SAN's for a living and am still impressed by the Stora at only £50 for a Dualbay Gigabit NAS

I even have a free app running on my HTC Desire that backs up the Phone and FTP's it across the web to the Stora.

thanks...
funnily enough i've just been reading up on the stora a bit more on the ebuyer reviews.....does look like a good deal.

....i only want good storage to supply two media players...in the same room,only using 1 at a time.
.....how hard can it be?


....looks like i dipped out on a free hard drive on that one though.

cheers.

 

[Uridium]

thanks...
funnily enough i've just been reading up on the stora a bit more on the ebuyer reviews.....does look like a good deal.

....i only want good storage to supply two media players...in the same room,only using 1 at a time.
.....how hard can it be?


....looks like i dipped out on a free hard drive on that one though.

cheers.

Which Media Players do you want to use with it?

I ask as the DLNA server on the Stora isn't the greatest..it tends to be an all or nothing approach meaning media lists on the Client end can be a little cumbersome if you have a lot of media shared.

I have 4 users in the house all with their own shared media.....as many have folders named similar such as 'music' or 'movies' the Stora displays the same folder names multiple times over DLNA meaning stuff can be a little tricky to find when used on the PS3.

On my AC Ryan POHD this isn't an issue as it connects using SMB so browsing is just that of the folder structure on the Stora.

Access from PC's is 'supposed' to be done using some ropey netgear software on the supplied CD...I haven't even took it out of the sleeve and simply map a network drive in each users Windows profile to the Stora. By default it creates a personal 'MyLibrary' folder for each user which i map to one drive letter on the PC and also access to a 'FamilyLibrary' shared storage area that i map to another drive letter.


I missed out on the free HDD offer as well, I had a spare 2TB drive that i was using for something else so just used that initially then a few weeks later i just dropped a second in to enable the RAID mirroring.

Only other problem i came across is that although it does have a USB port for attaching an external disk; there is no option or feature to back the NAS storage up to this (remember RAID is hardware redundancy NOT a backup solution..) I get round this by creating a simple Robocopy script that syncs a copy of the data from the NAS to the USB drive.


There is a forum full of info on the Stora over at Netgear that's worth a read...it's mostly full of negative posts from disappointed people who thought they were getting a ReadyNAS for peanuts rather than took the time to look at the Stora's positives but there is some useful info if you dig around.

Sorry I'm rambling...Basically let's just say it handles SMB/CIFS browsing much better than DLNA

 

[reevesy]

thanks again....
would have thought storage could be so complicated

well the thats the rub at the moment,i have'nt made my mind up on which music streamer yet.
....i like the price of the squeezbox touch but am wary of all the issues that people are getting using nas and attached hard drives with squeezebox software etc etc.
like the remote and the straight forward usuability of the sonos....especially with nas it seems...and the apparant bettermusic playback but a bit expensive and out of budget for the moment.

currently its looking like sorting some storage out connecting by wire to my xbox for now to stream some movies and tv shows.......look at getting a music streamer again to be hard wired unless wireless can hack it.

later probably get a media player such as mede8er or something a bit cheaper to replace movie/tvplayback that the xbox would be doing.

just the 1 user,me....all the others do is surf tinternet.

cheers.

 

[reevesy]

anybody any other thoughts..

anybody used a cheap pc as a nas........just been looking on a auction site and theres some dirt cheap ones about.

cheers.

 

[graham.myers]

please pick a forum and stick to it. if you want a post moving just ask, dont start a new thread on the same subject

closing this one