FreeNAS or others?

[french_guy]

Hello

I've 4 PCs at home, and tons of digital pictures. I want a central storage, so i need a NAS. I made a trial with the Netgear SC101, but I wasn't impressed...So I returned it
I want to know if FreeNAS is better (faster, reliable, etc) thans other "ready to use" solutions such as Thecus 2050, or other in the ~$150 area
Like I said, I want a central storage, but I also care about the integrity of all my pictures, so i need Raid (1 I think) to protect my data
So, should I build a NAS box with FreeNAS, or should I buy a ready to use NAS?

Thanks

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Netgear has two lines of products.....their own stuff and the technology they picked up when they bought Infrant. The Infrant stuff rocks:

For a 2 disk system:

http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNASDuo.aspx

The

$399 for the NAS with one 500 GB drive
$114 for a matching 500 GB drive

So for about $500 you have a fully functional NAS, w/:

-The spare hard drive will keep an extra copy of all the data and instantly take over if the first hard drive should fail.
-Hot Swap capability....yank and replace a drive while watching a movie and NAS just keeps on playing the movie w/o a burp
-Advanced media streaming support allows the ReadyNAS to directly serve media, with no PC required, to devices such as the NETGEAR EVA8000, Sonos® Digital Music System, Logitech Squeezebox™, Apple iTunes® clients, Sony Playstation® 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360®.
-Directly stream music, photos and video to existing network media players without a computer
-simultaneously accessible via all connected Windows or Macintosh computers.
-the ReadyNAS can be set up to provide secure access to all the stored files remotely via the Internet.
-Officially licensed BitTorrent client allows downloading to occur without the need for an additional computer.
-3 year warranty on NAS, 5 year warranty on HD's.

For a system w/ up to 4 disks:

http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNASNVPlus.aspx

Everything in the above and more.....5 year warranty on NAS and HD's.