[cgc]

I have two Macs, a Sawtooth G4 and a MacPro that are both connected to the Internet and each other through a router/access point. I would like to have a way to backup both my Macs so am looking at Network Attached Storage (NAS) options.

Some of my requirements would be:

1. Be able to access NAS from both computers at same time
2. USB2 or Firewire option to travel with it
3. 100Mbps or 1000Mbps is fine
4. Remote FTP into the NAS for downloading/uploading of files

Finally, I'd love to be able to put my iTunes onto the NAS and have both computers access it and play songs from it rather than from a local folder.

Barebones would be best, I can buy a drive cheap enough, but does anyone have a NAS that works with their Macs tat they recommend?

Thanks.

[mduell]

1. Every NAS should do this.
2. Many have USB in addition to ethernet; very few if any have Firewire.
3. All of them support 100BT, but GigE is very rare.
4. Just a matter of configuring your router/firewall to pass the port(s) through to the NAS box.

POWMAX DX-3535-BU (BLUE) Aluminum 3.5" USB & Ethernet External Enclosure for $52
Galaxy METAL GEAR 3507LR-Black 3.5" USB 2.0 & Ethernet External Enclosure for $55
Both take IDE/ATA drives; Newegg has those too (I like Seagate for the 5 year warranty). Looks like 500GB is the best bang for your buck right now, but 750GB isn't far off.

[ghporter]

I find this interesting: THIS thread showed up directly under the existing (yet not well named) "Network Accessed Storage" thread. Hmmm.

By the way, MY NAS box has USB 2.0 and ethernet, and I use the USB port for backing up. It's WAY faster than ethernet. Since, as mduell points out, firewire is rare (and for general file transfers as in a back up situation firewire's advantages are almost nil), using the USB port has saved me countless hours and frustration, without losing any real speed advantages.

Mine is a CoolMax CN-500,. They also have a SATA/EIDE version, the CN-570, which I would have gone with if I'd seen it first-flexibility is a Good Thing.

[cgc]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I find this interesting: THIS thread showed up directly under the existing (yet not well named) "Network Accessed Storage" thread. Hmmm.
...

Funny as I did a search for "NAS" and got zero hits. I just reverified that and again zero hits. Maybe the search term can't be so short. I usually don't manually scan the forum or threads and just do a search.

I appreciate your advice and will read the other thread as well. Thanks.

[ghporter]

I just thought it was funny. But that other thread, because of the bad wording of its name, probably doesn't have "NAS" in it enough for indexing.

[ginoledesma]

Depending on how much you want to spend, there're quite a bit to choose from. I got myself a D-Link DNS-323, a 2-bay SATA-drive NAS that supports RAID-1. It doesn't have USB/Firewire but 10/100/1000Mbps connection is sufficient for my need (since I use WiFi). I'm looking to get another NAS to expand and one excellent resource I found was SmallNetBuilder's NAS Performance Chart. They also review several NAS products so it may be worth your while.

[cgc]

How difficult would it be for me to get a firewire enclosure and share it over the network instead of a dedicated NAS? I think that sounds like a good solution...

[ginoledesma]

That's the cheapest route, and it also provides the fastest speeds for file transfer on the computer it's connected to. Other Macs will also easily be able to connect to this shared drive. In terms of ease of use, it's probably simpler thans setting up the NAS Device. You would:

1. Connect the drive to the Mac doing the sharing
2. Enable "Personal File Sharing" in the Sharing preference pane within System Preferences
3. Having other Macs connect to it by selecting "Go" > "Connect to Server..." and then typing the Mac's hostname/IP Address (alternately, find the Mac within the Network directory in your sidebar).

One thing though is that you'll need to have the Mac doing the sharing on when you want to access the drive remotely.

[cgc]

One more question, this time regarding Mac/Windows use of an external firewire/usb drive.

Other than FAT32, what filesystem can I use on an external drive that both Windows XP and Mac OS X can read? I know Mac 10.4 can read NTFS but not write it. Can Windows XP read UNIX or is there a filesystem they both can read that's not FAT32? Thanks.

[ginoledesma]

FAT32 is your best bet for seamless and trouble-free use. While there are third party apps that allow Windows to read other filesystems, they're either commercial or use-at-your-own-risk.

[mduell]

OS X can read and write NTFS with macfuse and ntfs-3g.

With NAS the partitions on the drive don't matter (as long as the enclosure supports them), since they're abstracted away from you over NFS/SMB.

[cgc]

Can I boot my Mac from a FAT32 formatted Firewire drive or does it need to be HFS formatted to boot from?

[mduell]

Needs to be HFS.