I need a system to handle 3TB of my digital asset (songs, pictures, video, movie, personal document and software tools), and I expect it will grow to 6-8TB in about 3-5 years. This system will act like a centralized media storage where it can streams the multimedia contents to my living room and also to all other computers connecting to it (a PC and iMac). This system will act like a backup device to my PC and iMac, where all backup process is performed automatically per schedule. I also need some kind of redundancy to protect my digital asset in case of HDD failure in this system. I prefer something simple & easy to manage.

What choice do I have? D-Link NAS? RAID? HP MediaSmart Server? Please advice

cp,

I am just entering into the whole centralized storage/media serving field myself. I picked up an HP MSS ex485 about a month or so ago and it has been a fairly straightforward and painless experience. It took me about 20 minutes to set the whole thing up, including automatic backups, media serving, remote access, users, etc.

Going by the requirements you listed in your post, I can tell you that the HP will do all of those things, it even has Mac support. You're going to need to add hard drives to it to accommodate the media you already have, though.

I think the only problem you might run in to with this solution is space. I think the official HP specs limit the HP to a maximum of 9 terabytes. This is assuming you use a 1TB disk in the 4 HDD bays, 4 1TB external USB drives using the 4 available USB ports, and one 1TB external drive using the eSata port. 1.5TB drives are available, but I'm not sure if they'll work or not. If they did then you could increase your size limit to 13.5TB. Also, I remember reading somewhere that the eSata port is not multiplier aware, so you cannot attach a multiplier to it and add more than one eSata drive (and USB hubs are not supported either). Hopefully the eSata limitation can be changed with an update in the future, because that would increase the storage capacity significantly.

Let me know what you decide to go with when you make your decision, and good luck!

Check out Netgear ReadyNAS products.

I am using the DUO, which meets my needs. For your storage requirments you would need something larger, but they seem to have a breadth of product.

ReadyNAs Pro Business w/ 6TB (Max available) is $3700 List.

Community at www.readynas.com
product info www.netgear.com


I use mine as an itunes server and for backups. It comes with a lite version of NTI Shadow, which is a cloning software. When a folder changes it automatically copies over to the server. It use it mostly for pictures and it works great. As I load them to my PC it automatically fires them off to the DUO (this is a function of the NTI Shadow). If you can't tell I'm a big fan of this product. Everything is setup over web interface. I also like that it was easy to setup auto time on and off. I setup mine to power on at 6am and off at 11pm. I like the fact that it is capable for MAC, PC and linux.

The HP Products look good too.

Good Luck in your search.

Charlie.

QNAP TS409 with 4 1TB drives (4TB ) = $800. Newegg. RAID5. DNLA server (streams everything). Feature-laden NAS. Fairly slow writes to this thing.

Might want to get two of them considering your forecast for expansion.

QNAP TS409 with 4 1TB drives (4TB ) = $800. Newegg. RAID5. DNLA server (streams everything). Feature-laden NAS. Fairly slow writes to this thing.

Might want to get two of them considering your forecast for expansion.

Just checked the QNAP forum... Western Digital 2TB drive is officially supported by this NAS. After formatting losses, and assuming a 4-drive RAID5 setup, the total storage with 4 of these would be 3*1.7TB = 5.1TB. Drives are pricey because they are the only 2TB solution right now.