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Questions about NAS (Network Attached Storage)


DigeratiPrime

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Hello all I am currently looking to buy another hard drive soon, and this time around I am considering using some form of NAS for my needs. I have some hopefully basic questions that some may know the answers to.

Can I attach a regular internal hard drive to my router (Netgear WGT624) some way? This would be ideal because I would not need a new router and internal drives are cheap. Probably not I am guessing :-p

Can I 'convert' an internal hard drive into an external one and plug it into a router either through USB or ethernet in some way? Again this is cheaper, but it would give more options about what hard drives I can use, and should give the ability to convert it back into an internal one if I want.

An issue I have heard some people having with NAS is support for only FAT32 partitions, I want to know if I can have an NTFS formatted external drive on the network. And of course have read and write access?

What are the disadvantages to using NAS? Transfer Speeds? Cost?

Thanks :)

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Hi Digerati

Im not sure if this is what you are looking for but I think it is.

http://www.nintek.com.au/x/scripts/prodVie...?idproduct=7562 (Aus Site so dont take any notice of price.)

Just found the US Vantec site - http://www.vantecusa.com/product-storage.html#

Also a company called Lanway does stuff along these lines although they do a "Complete" setup, (case and drive) It is an english site.

http://www.lanway.co.uk/products/products_...ults.asp?cat=CE

Hope this helps out.

Also if you use an external enclosure you can put any size drive in it. IIRC

Edited by oldwolf
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Why not build a mini ITX form factor computer, and put in some hard drives yourself? just an idea, like mashie did. Check it out, it's really worth it!

i like the case, i was working on building a raid 5 system, just for file storage on a private network, but the thing i didnt like was using a micro atx mobo, i found it big, but then again i shouldnt really matter, but i just like smaller sizes, thanks for pointing this site out, it will definatly give me some more ideals

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geesh forgot to answer the post in my last post so here goes on what i can tell you

Hello all I am currently looking to buy another hard drive soon, and this time around I am considering using some form of NAS for my needs. I have some hopefully basic questions that some may know the answers to.

Can I attach a regular internal hard drive to my router (Netgear WGT624) some way? This would be ideal because I would not need a new router and internal drives are cheap. Probably not I am guessing :-p

Can I 'convert' an internal hard drive into an external one and plug it into a router either through USB or ethernet in some way? Again this is cheaper, but it would give more options about what hard drives I can use, and should give the ability to convert it back into an internal one if I want.

An issue I have heard some people having with NAS is support for only FAT32 partitions, I want to know if I can have an NTFS formatted external drive on the network. And of course have read and write access?

What are the disadvantages to using NAS? Transfer Speeds? Cost?

Thanks :)

yes you can convert an internal hd to an external, theres no difference

the advantages with nas in a raid setup, is speed of course, but it all depends on what type of setup your interested in making,, raid 0 is the fastest but it yeilds no security meaning if 1 hd messes up, kiss the data good bye,

raid 1 is alittle better but more secure,, but most ppl are liking raid 5,, but it envolves atleast 4 hd's with it, you get speed as well as security, if one drives goes bye bye, just pop in a fresh one and off you go, your safe,

but yet it is pricey but anything can be built and especially affordable if your a good shopper and if you have spare parts,,

,, heres a guide for doing an affordable raid 5 setup

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-how..._diy_raid_5_nas

hope some of my advice helps you out

Edited by Lost Soul
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was using a micro atx mobo, i found it big, but then again

Uhm... that is a mini ITX mobo. And on his forums I have a post about a s754 mini ITX mobo that is available, too.

actually the sizes are different in the 2,

Mini-ITX is 6.75" square

and Micro ATX is around 10 x 12, so yes thats a big difference

Edited by Lost Soul
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well this does give me some ideas, I honestly forgot about external enclosures. I do like the Vantec one I found at newegg, but it does not have an ethernet output so I would need some adapter or a new router. Speed does not seem to be an issue as USB 2.0 and 100 mbit ethernet are both capable of the peak transfer speed of a 7200 rpm hard drive. One large issue is I have not found a router that supports writing to ntfs, only fat32. I did see something about full support for the ext3 file system though. Seems like two choices at the moment:

Go with another internal drive, keep a pc running for it, save money.

Or spend almost twice as much buying an enclosure and new router or other hardware and get only limited file system support.

I am obviously leaning towards the first, but if anyone has any more information I welcome it :)

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Why not build a mini ITX form factor computer, and put in some hard drives yourself? just an idea, like mashie did. Check it out, it's really worth it!

& for the original poster, yes NAS supports NTFS, I have an original of it installed

on a system at the moment.

Edited by Zxian
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I've been holding off on purchasing any form of NAS because of the need for drivers or not being compatible with Mac OS, etc... I wanted something truly easy and found it in the Buffalo Linkstation Pro. It has one Gigabit Ethernet port, jumbo frames (9K) supported, two USB 2.0 host ports for plugging in other drives and chaining them from the Linkstation. It has provisions to backup the internal hard drive to another Linkstation on the network or to a drive connected to one of the two USB ports. It's small, very quiet, has a SATA drive, good looking. There's some good info at linkstationwiki.net if you're interested.

BTW, I got mine for $249 after rebate from Fry's. Happened to walk in at the right time...

edit: Shoot, almost forgot the best part. It's running some flavor of Linux and is using the XFS file system. No need to worry about huge file sizes, OS compatability, blah blah blah... You get the idea. Built-in FTP server, user and group management, scheduled backups. Jeez, there's really too much to list about this little gem. I love it!

Edited by clintb
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