Need help please .. I "think" I am looking for a jbod enclosure

[scottrf8]

Hey everyone, I have been looking around for awhile for something to pair up with my tv and havent had any luck. If anyone can assist me with what I am looking for, I would appreciate it...

I have an LG tv with some usb ports to read files .. I have a 500GB external hard drive hooked up to it, but as I am sure anyone can imagine, 500GB doesnt go far. So I am constantly deleting files to make room for new ones. I believe the max hard drive that can be hooked up is 2TB, but I am not sure how jbod enclosures work. I understand they have multiple bays for hard drives basically, so storage.

What I would ideally like is:
Some time of external storage that allows for expansion. Something that has numerous bays where each hard drive is accessibly individually (So that if I put in 2TB hard drives, I dont surpass the 2TB max). Something that hooks up to the tv via usb and either has a 2nd usb port (so I can connect laptop to enclosure so I dont need to constantly unplug usb cable from tv to hook up to laptop), or maybe something that can get on the network so I can upload files wirelessly (or wired could work too).

Any recommendations/suggestions. If something like that doesnt exist, then what is closest to that?

I am vaguely familiar with NAS. I got this 3TB network storage thing from bestbuy, but it doesnt allow for playing of files. STRICTLY upload/download which is stupid as hell. Is a NAS device my best bet?

Thanks

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

I always hated NAS storage devices.I hate them so damn much.
Mostly because they have their own system which prepares the drives for use and it does it so horrible that you cannot use it in let's say Linux Ubuntu (if Windows problem(s) needs to be solved on that kind of way).
As for the data transfer speed...OMG...it is WAAAAY slower than the speed with direct USB connection.About 2 years ago I was moving one file of 2 GB in size from one drive to ANOTHER and it took 72 minutes to move the entire file.That is just 2 freaking GB and it took 72 freaking minutes for that lol.And in the case if you are wondering...YES...both drives were the ones from the NAS storage device and they were both formatted and prepared by the NAS storage device system.(Can't remember what file system I used on them back then).
Also most of the NAS storage devices do not allow you to DIRECTLY access the HDD (such as through My Computer) in order to do what you want...such as adding some files/folders,modifying some files/folders,deleting some files/folders and so on...
INSTEAD you had to login into that damn NAS system (mini OS which usually runs through the WEB browser) in order to even be able to see the data lol.And that just sucks!

As in your case...you said:

"I got this 3TB network storage thing from bestbuy, but it doesnt allow for playing of files. STRICTLY upload/download which is stupid as hell."

And I agree.It IS stupid as hell.At least in my case UPLOAD/DOWNLOAD was not the ONLY thing which I could do with my NAS since I COULD play with my files,but even then as I already said...the speed SUCKED AS HELL LOL.72 minutes to transfer 2 GB...omg lol...
And I tryed it on my second computer which is pretty strong so I know it's not the weak hardware which caused that.It's the damn NAS device lol.

So considering everything I said here is the KEY reason why I made my own data device of 10 Seagate hard disk drives and each one is 500 GB 7200 RPM.I called it "UAC data device".
Plus I also put 6 blue led fans which keep hard disk drives cool.
It WORKS AWESOME and it LOOKS AWESOME!
(Can't wait to show that to others ).
After that I made myself a small application in C# which is used to backup ALL my data on that UAC data device.
It is just freaking awesome.Definetely 100% better than that damn NAS storage device I payed for a lot and NEVER used.

So my recommendation for you would be to either make your own data device (like I did because I am crazy ) or to buy something like DAS (direct attached storage).But definetely NOT NAS (network attached storage).
Oh and by the way...I never EVER use RAID.It goes on my nerves lol.Instead I made myself a C# application which does backups automatically instead.But I guess that's just me lol .