Now that my new office is starting to come together, I have begun research into ways of storing all my files in a central location on the network. This has several advantages: they can be used from every device that is connected to my home network and I only have to backup one device.
What I want is a NAS, or Network Attached Storage device. There are literally hundreds of devices available and if you’re not convinced by that choice yet, you can just build your own machine and put a Linux distro on it or go the Windows Home Server route. Tom’s guide has a nice overview if you want to add RAID.
One thing that I worry about, is the power consumption of such a device. It will be on 24/7, but I will probably only use it for a small part of that time. I couldn’t find much information about it, but I think this is where a dedicated device could shine. So here are some interesting links about devices built to be NASes:
- Ars Technica review of two popular NAS options
- The Linksys NSLU2 is great if you want to hack your device.
- The ReadyNAS range of devices is a very popular choice if you want something that just works.
- And finally, Tweakers has an enormous overview of available devices. It’s in Dutch, but the tables are comprehensible by any one.
Feel free to share your suggestions and tips in the comments.
What did you buy in the end?
To be honest, I haven't bought one yet. I'm currently using a fairly cheap LaCie external harddrive for manual backups. It's a little more work, but it's a very cheap solution.
I've also backed of a bit from the NAS idea, I'm now looking at low powered PCs for media playback. They'd be on 24/7 so could double as a NAS. The Mac Mini is very low power, but seems a bit expensive. The Dell Inspiron Zino HD looks very promising. You can get one with almost maxed out specs for <€700 (that's with a 1TB drive) and it consumes in the range 25 to 90 watts (http://blogs.amd.com/home/2009/11/12/the-dell-i…)