Network Drive for Home Network

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fred Atkinson
  • Start date Start date
F

Fred Atkinson

I'm trying to choose a network drive for my home network. I
keep reading different descriptions and they all seem to have their
setbacks.

My budget is limited (remember that we are talking home
network here, not for a business), but I don't want to buy something
that won't support my home network as I build it further. I'm open to
the size, as long as there plenty of storage (ideally, I'd like at
least 500 GB). I want one that will support Windows and Linux (this
is a must as I have both a W2K and a Linux machine on my home
network)). I want it to support NFS, FTP, TFTP, and have a Web
interface for intial configuration and drive management. Gigabit
Ethernet interface would be nice, but at least Fast Ethernet.

I don't want it limited to a small number of users (Iomega
says a maximum of four users on their home network drive). I may want
to access the drive from off network and/or add other PCs later.

One drive I reviewed restricted downloads of certain audio and
video files (apparently they are trying to prevent illegal file
sharing). I'm not planning to do anything illegal but I do want to be
able to access any file on my drive from when and where I want to
retrieve them.

If someone knows a newsgroup or blog that might be better for
me to inquire on, please let me know.

Regards,



Fred
 
Fred said:
I'm trying to choose a network drive for my home network. I
keep reading different descriptions and they all seem to have their
setbacks.

My budget is limited (remember that we are talking home
network here, not for a business), but I don't want to buy something
that won't support my home network as I build it further. I'm open to
the size, as long as there plenty of storage (ideally, I'd like at
least 500 GB). I want one that will support Windows and Linux (this
is a must as I have both a W2K and a Linux machine on my home
network)). I want it to support NFS, FTP, TFTP, and have a Web
interface for intial configuration and drive management. Gigabit
Ethernet interface would be nice, but at least Fast Ethernet.

I don't want it limited to a small number of users (Iomega
says a maximum of four users on their home network drive). I may want
to access the drive from off network and/or add other PCs later.

One drive I reviewed restricted downloads of certain audio and
video files (apparently they are trying to prevent illegal file
sharing). I'm not planning to do anything illegal but I do want to be
able to access any file on my drive from when and where I want to
retrieve them.

If someone knows a newsgroup or blog that might be better for
me to inquire on, please let me know.

Regards,
Fred
Click to expand...

There are NAS charts here.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190/

Building your own, installing whatever OS you want, is one way to
ensure the feature set it there. (Maybe a mini-itx board or
something.)

I found some yesterday on the Newegg external enclosure page,
but you have to read the feature set and the customer reviews
carefully. One reviewer noted, that when in NAS mode, the
thing wouldn't support more than 200GB. So you would want
confirmation of what disks worked with it, before buying.

So you're going to have to trade off your "cheap" versus "useful"
lists.

7 solutions here. Advanced search with "USB & Ethernet" selected...
3 have cooling fans, to extend the life of the drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010090092+1054213783&Subcategory=92

This is the one that couldn't handle a large drive. One reviewer
gives details.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16817193050

The reason I was reading that, is a local retailer is selling a
unit that looks very similar to it, and I was trying to get
some data on it. The local retailer slapped a logo on it,
that cannot be found on the net, so it means I have to
"search by analogy" to get tech data. The "Eagle" is visually
the closest match to it, that I could find.

With regard to fans, my policy is to open the enclosure
and change out the fan as soon as I get it. I pick up
a ball bearing 40mm fan from a local electronics store,
to replace the sleeve bearing typically found in the
enclosures. Some enclosures have the fan integrated into
the plastic housing, which makes it impossible to replace.
I've had sleeve bearing fans fail (rattle) on the first
day I used them - which is why I just change out the
fan immediately, for peace of mind. At the very least,
try to pick an enclosure design, where the fan can be
replaced. At most, you might have to splice the old
cable and connector, onto the new fan to be able to
install it.

Paul
 
Fred said:
I'm trying to choose a network drive for my home network. I
keep reading different descriptions and they all seem to have their
setbacks.

My budget is limited (remember that we are talking home
network here, not for a business), but I don't want to buy something
that won't support my home network as I build it further. I'm open to
the size, as long as there plenty of storage (ideally, I'd like at
least 500 GB). I want one that will support Windows and Linux (this
is a must as I have both a W2K and a Linux machine on my home
network)). I want it to support NFS, FTP, TFTP, and have a Web
interface for intial configuration and drive management. Gigabit
Ethernet interface would be nice, but at least Fast Ethernet.

I don't want it limited to a small number of users (Iomega
says a maximum of four users on their home network drive). I may want
to access the drive from off network and/or add other PCs later.

One drive I reviewed restricted downloads of certain audio and
video files (apparently they are trying to prevent illegal file
sharing). I'm not planning to do anything illegal but I do want to be
able to access any file on my drive from when and where I want to
retrieve them.

If someone knows a newsgroup or blog that might be better for
me to inquire on, please let me know.

Regards,

Fred
Click to expand...

Why not repurpose a desktop computer by installing Linux? You
would have full control of its capabilities and increasing the
available storage is easy and inexpensive. I use a couple of
old boxen this way as FTP and CIFS (Samba) fileservers. I chose
to run them headless (no keyboard or monitor) and just log in
from another machine via the (gigabit) network with ssh for
maintenance. If you really want a web interface, try FreeNAS.
 
Fred said:
I'm trying to choose a network drive for my home network. I
keep reading different descriptions and they all seem to have their
setbacks.

My budget is limited (remember that we are talking home
network here, not for a business), but I don't want to buy something
that won't support my home network as I build it further. I'm open to
the size, as long as there plenty of storage (ideally, I'd like at
least 500 GB). I want one that will support Windows and Linux (this
is a must as I have both a W2K and a Linux machine on my home
network)). I want it to support NFS, FTP, TFTP, and have a Web
interface for intial configuration and drive management. Gigabit
Ethernet interface would be nice, but at least Fast Ethernet.

I don't want it limited to a small number of users (Iomega
says a maximum of four users on their home network drive). I may want
to access the drive from off network and/or add other PCs later.

One drive I reviewed restricted downloads of certain audio and
video files (apparently they are trying to prevent illegal file
sharing). I'm not planning to do anything illegal but I do want to be
able to access any file on my drive from when and where I want to
retrieve them.

If someone knows a newsgroup or blog that might be better for
me to inquire on, please let me know.

Regards,



Fred
Click to expand...

Why don't you just add a "network" drive to one of your computers and
set it up for sharing with other computers on your network? Its not
very hard, it won't restrict the number of users, it will use the same
anti-virus as its host computer, you can choose to use the entire drive
or only a partition, and its easy to manage.
 
You want a drive or a server?


Why don't you just add a "network" drive to one of your computers and
set it up for sharing with other computers on your network? Its not
very hard, it won't restrict the number of users, it will use the same
anti-virus as its host computer, you can choose to use the entire drive
or only a partition, and its easy to manage.
Click to expand...
And when you reboot it, everyone on it gets mad. Or you do
something and blow it up and then all your network stuff is not
available to the rest of the systems. I would start thinking at
least to semi-dedicate a box, perhaps usually VNCed into, for the
server. Maybe that's the Linux system.



--
"I'm sorry, too, Dmitri... I'm very sorry... *All right*, you're
sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well... I am as sorry as
you are, Dmitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am,
because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are... So we're
both sorry, all right?... All right." Peter Sellers, "Dr
Strangelove", 1964.
 
Back
Top