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Looking for NAS
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Hanul
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Nov 4, 2005, 05:09 AM
 
I have three Macs in my home and I used to sync them via .Mac and an external hard drive. A few days ago the disk died. Now, instead of buying a new external one, I'm looking for a home NAS. There are a few out there, but not all offer Mac support. I'm eying the Western Digital NetCenter, because it is relatively low-cost and explicitely states Mac support.

What are your experiences with NAS (WD NetCenter, Buffallo LinkStation, Linksys etc.)? Any recommendations? I know, that a cheap home NAS tends to be slow for large files, but I like the idea of having the NAS in a closet and never to carry an external HD from one system to another. How is access to a NAS? Does it show up as an drive icon on the Desktop? I read about the NetCenter that its HD is accessed via any browser which I find strange.
     
ginoledesma
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Nov 5, 2005, 12:50 AM
 
I don't have personal experience with these "home NAS" stuff, but I've been doing a lot of reading on them since I'm also considering building something similar.

From what I've read, most of these will share the contents of the drive over the network using SMB (Server Message Block), the same protocol used by Microsoft Windows File Sharing. The Mac has had adequate support for SMB since long ago, through technologies such as Thursby's DAVE and AdmitMac, Obdev's Sharity, and even with Samba (built into Mac OS X itself since 10.1). Exported shares will be mounted as network volumes on the Mac. I am unsure if Mac OS X is able to mount these shares on startup (I'm sure there's a way).

Aside from Windows file sharing, most of them provide FTP access to the drive. While Mac OS X's Finder can found FTP sites as volumes on the desktop, you only have read-access to it (ala public iDisk). What I'm looking for is something that has NFS support, but my search hasn't turned any yet.

Another you might consider is D-Link's Home Network Storage Adapters which come in wired and wireless versions. These are the same things as the products you mentioned, except that they don't come with hard drives themselves. Instead, you can hook up an existing hard drive over USB and share it over the network. I think this is especially handy since you can detach the drive and take it with you, or add more drives over the network as you see fit.

Lastly, I came across this article today about AMUG's SuperMini -- a beefed up version of the Mac Mini which you could theoretically use as a network file server. I'm looking into this vs building my own small Linux based file server as large internal drives are cheap these days.
     
Hanul  (op)
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Nov 5, 2005, 04:22 PM
 
I ordered the WD NetCenter 250GB at Amazon for €250. It will take a week until it is shipped. I will post a review here.
     
yaro
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Nov 6, 2005, 01:42 AM
 
Is there a caller id type modem replacement for the g4 quicksilver modem?
     
yaro
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Nov 6, 2005, 01:49 AM
 
Is there a caller id type modem replacement for the g4 quicksilver modem?
     
ginoledesma
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Nov 6, 2005, 07:33 PM
 
I think you've got the wrong thread. :-)
     
legacyb4
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Nov 6, 2005, 09:47 PM
 
If they had designed it right, the Netgear SC101 would have been just right; as it is, you have to use some utility in order to mount the share which is totally fecked as the enclosure is designed for basic RAID-1 and also for popping in your own drives...
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