• Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of the Tom's Hardware community!

2-4 Bay External Network Drive Recommendations

THRobinson

Distinguished
May 17, 2009
689
5
19,015
Hey guys...

Been debating this for years now, and thinking I may finally go this route.

I use KODI, and I have a PC setup as HTPC1 (Primary) on my TV. I have a few tablets setup with access, and another PC (HTPC2) in the living room for the family to use as well. Problem is, some days I leave the HTPC1 on and no one streams anything, other days I turn it off and people complain they wanted to watch a movie or series and it was off. 

Was thinking of getting one of those 2-4 bay enclosures and attach it to the router and just leave it on 24/7 instead.

I have a 3TB HDD for movies, a 3TB HDD for TV-series. I also have a pair of 3TB external drives that I hook up every month or two to make a mirror copy of each drive as a backup, and keep those safe on a shelf. That way if a power surge kills the system, virus, or something like that... the backups are not attached to anything and safe.

Both HTPC1 and HTPC2 are now running LibreElec, but I know absolutely nothing about Linux/Unix. My main PC (which I will use to maintain the files with) is Win10.

Can anyone recommend a good cheap solution that will work with this setup?

Other reason I want to switch is that my HTPC1 is getting on in age. Core2Dual Quad... nice but BIG Silverstone case. In a trade for something with a buddy of mine I got an iMac Mini (2016) plus I have a Raspberry Pi... would be nice to switch to something smaller and far more quiet and energy efficient.
 
How about the WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra? Came across that one when searching, and about $200CAD, lots of reviews, not all good but still a lot of them so was able to get a better sense wether good/bad vs some that only has 2 or 3 reviews.

Software looked good, and said designed for media streaming... any experience with those?

Says will handle JBOD which I think is what I need for having each drive run independently and appear as 2 separate drives. Again, I have 1 drive all movies, 1 drive all TV Series... and I have a pair of 3TB external drives for mirrored backups so, would like to keep the 2 drives showing as separate. Though, I already assume I have to format them to work in the 2-Bay drive. Just hoping the chkdsk for those externals isn't lying and the backups are good. 😀