Networked Hard-drive?

chrislo

chrislo

New Member
So whats available? How reliable are they? Price? I need something that can store my important files. Thanks again.
 
I was thinking of something like this: Networked Hard Drive.

Only problem it doesn't comes with the hard drives, I was looking for something with a hard drive already installed or where you can install them. Finally can you access this from "My Networked Places" like a computer? Any suggestions?

Maybe something even like this: Networked Hard Drive
 
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I was just buy another hard drive and install it in your system and then share it to the rest of your home network... But hard drives do fail more often then we like. Depending on what you are wanting to save, you might want to backup your data to either cd's or dvd's. I use 2 hard drives in Raid 1 configuration. That way if 1 drive were to fail then I still have all my data and OS intact and bootable. Please explain better on what you are trying to accomplish.
 
An NAS? I've considered getting one eventually. They are pretty neat and would probably be quite handy if your network contains a fair number of computers. However, they do have their problems.

If you look around, you tend to find most are limited to FAT32. I also read many problems about the cheaper ones with random disconnections and all. Also, some (like the Netgear NAS) require special software to access them, so that may deter you.

Oh yes, and as John said, you probably would want one that uses RAID. I figure if I could get one that used a RAID1 my files would be pretty safe. RAID0 doubles the likelihood of catastrophic failure, and of course using a single drive, well it could die at any time!
 
johnb35 said:
I was just buy another hard drive and install it in your system and then share it to the rest of your home network... But hard drives do fail more often then we like. Depending on what you are wanting to save, you might want to backup your data to either cd's or dvd's. I use 2 hard drives in Raid 1 configuration. That way if 1 drive were to fail then I still have all my data and OS intact and bootable. Please explain better on what you are trying to accomplish.
Click to expand...

Well I didn't know you could share your hard drive on one PC with others. I thought you had to drag the files to My Networked Places then the computer. Got to tell me how to do that.

The reason I don't do that because I put my computers in stand by when not in use and I would have to go to the PC and turn it on to use its hard drive. Not to mention I want to put my information into an area where its safe from the computer.

Back before I started to seriously use my computers to save my photo's the computer had some problems and needed re-formatting. I couldn't back up the photo's so they were lost to me. Lucky I printed most of the photo's, but now I got 5 years worth of photo's and it would be tragic if something happened to my 3 computers. I plan on backing up to DVD's but its time consuming and I have been planning on doing it for years. Also I want something that will out-last my PC so when the time for a replacement comes its easier to move the information to a new PC.

Mainly what I want to do right now with the drive is back up photo's. But when I replace this computer I plan on using it as a secondary DVR so I will eventually use the drive to back up some video. Of course some of my downloaded files will be put on the drive. Something that can be easily accessed from my networked PC's. Finally something that is accessible from the internet at any time would be great.

Can you tell me more about this Raid 1? This sounds valuable because if one of the drives do fail I want to be able to save the information.
 
The_Other_One said:
An NAS? I've considered getting one eventually. They are pretty neat and would probably be quite handy if your network contains a fair number of computers. However, they do have their problems.

If you look around, you tend to find most are limited to FAT32. I also read many problems about the cheaper ones with random disconnections and all. Also, some (like the Netgear NAS) require special software to access them, so that may deter you.

Oh yes, and as John said, you probably would want one that uses RAID. I figure if I could get one that used a RAID1 my files would be pretty safe. RAID0 doubles the likelihood of catastrophic failure, and of course using a single drive, well it could die at any time!
Click to expand...

I also heard people complain about the transfer speeds, one person was transferring 5 GB's and it took him 40 Mins. I don't know but for higher transfer speeds I think you need Gigabit Ethernet which I don't have. I just want something where I can pick my hard drives and connect it to my router. Wires are not an option (Except where it connects to the router) because my network is wireless. Now that I heard it RAID1 is important to me.
 
The_Other_One said:
Well you can't expect anything too amazing over the network. Here's a decent list showing some NAS benchmarks.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190

Plus realize many drives may be capped at ATA33 speeds, as many external USB devices are...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, I guess everything has limitations. If I lived the first 5 years using PC's with dial up I can handle this. I personally would prefer a model where you can install the drives so you can chose the size.
 
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