Mac NAS/Storage Options... So Confused!

I was a Mac fiend back in the day, (well) before OS X, but I haven't touched them in years. However, I have long lusted after a good HTPC, and after pondering other options, I have settled on buying a Mac Mini for my Panasonic plasma. But I'm stymied on storage solutions, and I'd like some advice.

I am looking to do two or three basic things from the Mac: record/playback TV (just the ten or so channels I get on very, very basic cable, but which include HD) and playback DVD rips. I will also probably watch some online video, although I don't worry too much about the HD streams, and I have little interest in Netflix (which I can watch via the 360) or Blu-Ray. I suppose, if the Mini were capable of it, I might figure out some way to get it to play Blu-Ray rips or other HD files, but it's not essential.

So... to NAS or not to NAS, that is the question. I have looked at all kinds of machines, including the Synology DS209 and the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, but reviews of even the best NASes are all over the place (reading tech product reviews on NewEgg or Amazon is enough to drive even the heartiest shopper mad). One of the reasons I decided to go for a Mac Mini was because I've waffled for years about building my own, but I was weary of the steep learning curve. I want, as they say, something that "just works." (I also flirted with Dell's Zino HD, but to get a decent configuration you have to add several hundred bucks to the price, and the thread here is full of bugs, problems and other issues. Why not just get a Mac, I asked?)

However, one key issue that I keep coming back to is the PVR functionality. I don't know if NAS can be used effectively with TV recording. I am leaning toward an HD Homerun for this machine, but I assume the Mini would need some local storage for that. (I'm probably going to stick with the base Mac Mini model for internal storage, so 160G or so. I could upgrade, but videos of upgradingdrive seem a little scary to me. And besides, wouldn't I have to clone the smaller drive to the new drive? I have no idea where to start.)

So I'm leaning toward getting one of the OWC Mercury Elite-AL enclosures (the Duo or the Quad... probably the Quad -- I will probably start with a HD in a USB/FW enclosure and upgrade down the line), but I could be convinced to build a NAS box if I can do what I need to with it, and someone could suggest a configuration. I want something easy to use, with low power requirements. In fact, if I could find something that could go to sleep when we're not around (we mostly watch/record TV during prime time, so the computer could be off outside of those times, and presumably scheduled to wake up when we're there), that would be wonderful.

A few other things to keep in mind: We have two other computers in the house, my work laptop and an aging Dell tower, which my wife uses for surfing, and could be replaced with a netbook soon. I don't have a lot of interest in sharing files or doing backups between the machines (although I won't rule those options out). I will probably use some other sort of storage solution for backups of important stuff. I'm just not enough of an expert user to know how to set that stuff up. We only have one decent TV, the Panasonic. There's a smaller one in the bedroom, but it only gets used about two hours a week. It does have a networked, hacked Xbox running XBMC attached, though.

Any suggestions?

Would I be able to set up shared folders for other computers to access?

Thank you for the tips everyone.


That's a good-looking unit, but it tops out at 2 TB, right? I've been leaning toward one of the Mercury Elite-AL Pro models (the Duo or the Quad). I crunched some numbers, and I could do four TB on the Duo for about $450, or $650 on the Quad. It seems like a no-brainer to go for the Duo, but the Quad, by virtue of having four drives, could do RAID 5 (or RAID 1+0). Do you all think it's worth $200 or so for that capability?

That's not a bad suggestion, although I was leaning toward the $450 solution, not the $650 one. The real question is whether the Mac Mini would be able to use the NAS as a recording hard drive for PVR stuff. I suspect not.

I'm leaning toward a graduated solution, meaning first I'm going to buy a 2 TB hard drive and a simple enclosure off of NewEgg, then I'll buy a second and get the OWC RAID enclosure. After that, I will think about a NAS. This way will make it a little easier on the pocketbook, I think.

NewOrlnsDukie mentioned Drobo, which was the first storage suggestion I looked into, but Amazon and other forums are littered with people talking about compatibility, speed and dependability issues. This is the case with most products, I know, and I suspect a lot of these people are the just the squeaky wheels, but the sheer volume of complaints related to Drobo seemed larger than most products. It was enough to put me off of the idea.

Do you record onto the local hard drive and then dump things onto the NAS? Or does the NAS support direct recording? In other words, the Mac doesn't have to use its local disk at all?

If that's the case, welcome to the future, kids. I'm impressed!

Yes, but are you running the recording through the Mac, or controlling them through the Linux system? I'm going for WAF here, so I was going to use Elgato's software to run the HD Homerun recording, because I figure this would have the simplest interface for her to run (and, frankly, for me to figure out, since I'm just starting to learn Linux).

That's why I'm guessing local storage is the better option to NAS, at least for my needs, because the Mac Mini will need to write directly to whatever storage solution I end up using. I suppose it could be configured to record to the Mini's (paltry) interior storage, and then automatically dumped on to the NAS once recording is complete, but that will probably be beyond my current abilities or my wife's interaction interests.

I can't imagine too many things we'd record that we'd want to keep long term. We're just not that heavy of TV users. If something did arise that we didn't want to lose, I guess we'd burn it to disc. (My primary intent is to replace an aging Tivo series 1 with something that can record HD. All the other HTPC stuff is just gravy.)