hi, I have been using the Thecus N2100 for quite some time and now I want to find something a little faster. (The N2100 is still good/perfect compare to anything else I try and in the price-range). But now budget is not an issue. My main concern are speed, supports raid, allow multiple users and extra functions like the thecus also I will mainly be using it to stream video files that are 700+ megs, thecus is fine with that most of the time.


I been looking at these,

FreeNas
Open Filer
Window Home Server
Thecus SMB/Enterprise NAS

Any comments much appreciated.

hi, I have been using the Thecus N2100 for quite some time and now I want to find something a little faster. (The N2100 is still good/perfect compare to anything else I try and in the price-range). But now budget is not an issue. My main concern are speed, supports raid, allow multiple users and extra functions like the thecus also I will mainly be using it to stream video files that are 700+ megs, thecus is fine with that most of the time.


I been looking at these,

FreeNas
Open Filer
Window Home Server
Thecus SMB/Enterprise NAS

Any comments much appreciated.

you might take a look an at unraid from lime technology. Not the most feature rich server in stock form but it has some unique capabilities that no other solution has. Dunno if its right for you but you should check it out.... Its free for up to 3 drives...

http://lime-technology.com/

I have a QNAP TS409. It has way more features than I could ever use. It is a great media server.

You can put 4 drives (up to 8T) it, and you can RAID 5 them for some disaster protection. I stream bluray movies from it (they are > 30GB, and the bitstream is greater than 30Mbps). I think this is a very capable NAS.

It cost me about $500. 1TB drives are going to run you less than $100 each.

BTW, my friend set up unraid and it did not work out well for him.

Do you guys know your recommend any server ot NAS for a Mac guy? I do not want to deal with Windows at all.
Thanks

drobo is not really a NAS but works well with MAC

The infrant/Netgear ReadyNAS does AFS? and Bonjour and works extremely well with my Macs

Mac's communicate nicely with any SMB NAS though. SMB is the windows file sharing protocol bust pretty much all NAS's other than Windows home server are based on some form on linux or bsd. Any of these should just show up in finder automatically.... I have validated that Thecus N5200, Buffalo Terastation, Infrany ReadyNAS, and Unraid all talk to my macs with no issues. I have not attempted to use any of them as a print server with a mac. you can even hack time machine to backups any of these fairly easily... by following a simple procedure...

None of them run windows.... you have tons of choices... you might want to check Macworld and see which ones have more Mac specialized features.... but all four of the ones I own work fine....

Sean

and BTW: 30 Mpbs on Bluray can be done by any old POS NAS including my original terastation. My fast NAS's are literally 10X faster than what current state of the art bluerays require. Speed is really a luxury for backups and getting data on a NAS quick. Even a slow NAS can stream multiple BD rips simultaneously...

Sean

and BTW: 30 Mpbs on Bluray can be done by any old POS NAS including my original terastation. My fast NAS's are literally 10X faster than what current state of the art bluerays require. Speed is really a luxury for backups and getting data on a NAS quick. Even a slow NAS can stream multiple BD rips simultaneously...

Sean

Yep, I have a Buffalo terastation also. Mine works well, but the mediaserver it came with (Mediabolic?) did not stream my HD Camcorder files (avchd). Ugh. I had to install a different one to get this to work. It wasn't easy (for me).

My QNAP has very low write speed. For mediastreaming, this is a non-issue. For some, though, this would be a deal killer.

I have a Buffalo Linkstation QUAD and recently bought a TheCus 4100Pro. I like the 4100. I got mine on ebay for $360 and installed 4 1TB drives. It supports SMB, NFS, AFS, FTP. I am disappointed with my Buffalo QUAD. It's slow and tedious to install your own drives.

I'm using the Thecus N5200 and love the things so far. I just bought it and it's pretty rock solid. I'm running a single Hitachi 2TB drive in it at the moment but plan on upgradeing to 5 x 2TB soon in RAID5. I know it's not supported but they have been proven to work in this system. you can a diskless system for 2-500 on ebay. The pro version for a little more.

I can't recommend the N5200. Its fast. 1/2 the features still dont work after 2 years of ownership. Support is non existant and I have suffered data loss twice and had to restore from backup. save your self some head ache and get a well supported and reliable NAS like the products of Netgear (ReadyNas) or QNAP or one of the other vendors who actually support their products. My N5200 is my most regretted purchase of computer gear of all time.

Sean

I have two TheCus 4100Pro's and love them. Zero issues. I even tested one by pulling a drive and installed a new drive in it's place to test the rebuild option. It worked perfectly. I ended up selling my Buffalo QUAD because Buffalo support and their flaky product were useless junk.

ReadyNAS Pro Pioneer here with 6 2TB drives in RAID-5. Works very well, is updated regularly and well supported.

BTW, my friend set up unraid and it did not work out well for him.

Interesting. I'm curious what version he used. I just finished building an unRAID server and I love it. All the other RAID solutions suck when it comes to expandability, and availability of data if the drives start dying. unRAID doesn't stripe the parity to the data drives, so the data is always available if you have to mount the drive in a stand alone scenario to get the data back. I have NO linux experience, and I'm able to do what I need, which is store movies and serve them up on demand.