Planex intros Jack in the Box iTunes/DLNA media server

Looks like Planex is joining Princeton, Buffalo, and others in talking up the iTunes/DLNA capabilities of its NAS media servers, tossing in some added branding for good measure with its new Jack in the Box unit. Like Princeton's offering, Planex's will require you to supply your own hard drive, although it takes things one step further with room for two 3.5-inch SATA drives (up to 750GB each), with support for RAID 0 or 1 configurations. Like some of Planex's other NAS servers, this one also promises to play nice with BitTorrent, with its own client taking some of the load off your PC. Rounding things out, you'll also get a built-in SD/MMC card slot, which you can use to offload data at the touch of a button. Look for this one to hit Japan later this month for ¥39,800, or about $334.

[Via Impress]

[graeme.snell1 @ Apr 11th 2007 5:43AM]

Anyone know what the iTunes server capabilities actually allow you to do (on this or the Buffalo NAS products?)

[badnegro @ Apr 11th 2007 9:30AM]

Serious, is it better to get this or to get an Airport Extreme and attach a coupla USB hard drives? I have a Windows MCE box, a Mac Mini & an Xbox360. Since the X360 will support h.264 soon, I'm planning to transcode all my wmv and repackage dvix/xvid into h.264.

I currently use reference files to play .avi flavor video thru iTunes/FrontRow (very high Wifey Approval Factor, BTW) on the Mini in the bedroom, but get nadas to the X360 in the living room. So h.264 for the 360 will be sweet. I want to use a NAS to centralize the content since I'll be able to use the same content for the MCE, Mini & 360. I have a Netgear SC101 NAS -- it sucks balls. I only use it for archival and leave it unplugged from power when it's not in use (its Zetera agent likes locking up Explorer).

So, getting back to the main story -- is a DLNA/iTunes media server going to give me h.264 love across my network, or am I better getting an Airport Extreme and sharing the content directly from the router?

Thx.

[Rick Lyon @ Apr 11th 2007 10:36AM]

I thought you didn't want RAID 0 or 1 with HT? That RAID 5 or RAID-X was the way to go?

[chris @ Apr 11th 2007 1:30PM]

This is pretty cool, but I'd love to know what BT client it's running or if you have the option of putting one on it, though then it would require knowing the OS particulars.

Of course, even the translation is goofy to read and my nihongo is getting pretty shoddy.

I want a NAS that will run super low power consumption to just sit there and suck down torrents and allow me to stream my data to my network (whatever that may be)... seems simple enough, no? Well, I guess if it was, it wouldn't cost a person upwards ot $300 just to build their own.

[bin@ary @ Apr 17th 2007 3:31AM]

iTunes server allows you to put music from your library, on to the servers library.
All itunes clients on PC's on the network can access the servers library. (itunes clients will automatically recognize the itunes server presence)

The BT client I believe is the original opensource client from bittorrent. Not my preference but wth...
I like the idea of having the bittorrent download stuff while my PC isnt even on.

I like the look of this NAS though...seems pretty compact.
Also the SD card slot is a nice feature.
I hope it has print server though.

[someguy @ Nov 1st 2008 9:03AM]

"! want a NAS that will run super low power consumption to just sit there and suck down torrents and allow me to stream my data to my network (whatever that may be)... seems simple enough, no? Well, I guess if it was, it wouldn't cost a person upwards ot $300 just to build their own."

Try http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/OpenSlug/InstallCtorrent