Should I get a NAS?! Help!

[dreamfloyd1987]

Hi everyone

First of all thank you for reading this message, I know this forum must get a lot of requests for advice so I appreciate any replies.

Basically I am going digital with all my music and films. I want to be able to stream these things onto my TV and through my HiFi set up.

My question really is about whether or not I should invest in a NAS. I have been recommended one of these devices by many sources as the solution to my problem. Would it be worth it in my case?

I am looking at the Sinology DS716+ to start with.

Are NAS devices more reliable than an external hard drive? I have heard people with NAS devices also back up to an external hard drive anyway. Is this the norm? How about RAID? I am a complete beginner with this but have looked into it a little and there seems to be mixed opinion about whether RAID provides a viable backup solution.

Any general advice?

Cheers,
Michael.

 

[kanewolf]

Why did you pick the DS716+ ? That is geared toward small business. The DS716+ is $550+ at NewEgg. The DS215+ is $400. The DS216play which is geared to digital media is $250.

Are NAS more reliable than external disks.... Probably. Mainly because they can be tucked away and not disturbed. There are hundreds of threads here of external disks which get dropped or otherwise physically abused. You do get the benefit of RAID with a NAS. That can help with a disk failure. They are not really likely if you purchase quality disks.

Should you backup on an external disk when using a NAS with RAID. YES. RAID is not a substitute for proper backups. Never have only a single copy of anything important.

 

[jsmithepa]

You have to ask, if not NAS (in your situation) then what the alternative?

External USB drives are hooked up to one machine, and for everybody else to access to it, that said machine has to be on 24x7. It's do-able, but it not as nice as a dedicated NAS.

As mentioned RAID is not backup. RAID is a 24x7 uptime mechanism to guard you against a single HD failure, it does not guard you against user errors, malwares, bad updates, buggy updates. A REAL BACKUP is to provide you, what Apple calls theirs aptly a "Time Machine" so despite of whatever trouble, hardware, software, or human, you are able to GO BACK to a point when everything was peachy.