> -----Original Message----- > From: Tony [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 3:58 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: Ah... that feels better > > is there any reason to have a nas over lets say a usb 2.0 external big > daddy 120gb or larger drive?
A NAS device like has a lot of benefits: +) The data is protected (if you use enough drives in the right configuration). In my case it's four drives in a RAID 5 configuration - if any of those drives fail I simply pop a new one in the device and after a few hours of synching all my data is restored. +) The device is network accessible. So my main machine, my laptop, my son's machine and my networked DVD player can all see it whenever they want regardless of which computers are on. (Normal USB drives are dependent on the host machine being on.) +) The device is functional on it's own. This is more especially true of a dedicated file serving PC with a full OS. Even in this case with my the little Linux OS on the NAS it can do a ton of stuff all by itself. The primary function for me is media serving - I don't have to have any PCs on in the house for my networked DVD player to play video from this thing. +) Capacity. Even the largest external drives (right now about 500 Gig for upwards of $700) can't match the potential capacity of a device which can hold four drives. I put four 400Gig drives in my unit and even with data protection from RAID 5 I still have 1100 Gig of free space. The big reason NOT to go with a NAS to is price - external drives are cheaper and simpler. Although adding an internal drive is more complicated it's often much cheaper. External drives are also more portable than a NAS unit if that's an issue. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:195811 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
