Ask Engadget: Can a NAS device really change your life?

We've got ourselves a tall order here on Ask Engadget, Tony's looking for basically the holy grail of home media gadgetry, and while we're not sure he's going to get all he's asking for -- or even half of it -- we're always up for a challenge. Oh, and as always, don't be shy to send in your own ridiculous requests and more reasonable queries alike to ask at engadget dawt com. Here goes:

"OK, it's a torrent world now, as big media doesn't seem to get the fact that I want to watch what I want, when I want, how I want. So I'm looking for an easy, efficient NAS type device that will handle my torrents. It must:

• Work well with my Mac
• Allow me access when I am on the road (away from home) to add new torrents, see status, etc.
• Work with my Airport Extreme with a HD attached.
• Play nice with my Apple TV (how I watch most files I dl). Can also be used with a 360 if the ATV is a make or break.
• Expandable via drive bays or USB 2.0.
• Not be a power pig.
• Price is not really a major object, but of course good value is preferred.
• Must be quick and easy to add and delete torrents, as I don't have a lot of time to muck around.

What do you or the other readers suggest?"

Would you like fries with that Tony? But seriously, anybody got any pearls of wisdom and / or reality checks for Mr. Optimistic? He might just have to get crafty on his own with a little bit of Automator or perhaps the BitTorrent SDK itself, but perhaps we can get him halfway there. Oh, and it goes without saying that Tony's just looking to download the latest and greatest media released under a CC license for his free consumption, yes?

[Sean O @ Oct 5th 2007 5:26PM]

"OK, it's a torrent world now, as big media doesn't seem to get the fact that I want to watch what I want, when I want, how I want"

You left out the part about not wanting to pay for it either.

[Matt @ Oct 5th 2007 6:11PM]

"You left out the part about not wanting to pay for it either."

The nerve, expecting broadcast TV for free! Ohh wait...

[VixP @ Oct 5th 2007 5:29PM]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/03/qnap-intros-well-specd-ts-209-nas-server/

[aaron @ Oct 6th 2007 7:29AM]

a NAS won't change your life...that's for sure. However if Tony was to ditch all that APPLE shit, and get a WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER...that will change his life...

Who even uses apple TV anyway!?!?!? You can't do shit with it!

[Aigarius @ Oct 6th 2007 12:30PM]

True, you can not do shit with Apple hardware or software.

However, you an use them for the respective intended purpose, which is much more than I can say about all Microsoft software (and some hardware too).

[Scott Hildebrand @ Oct 5th 2007 5:31PM]

This is the site for this stuff: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

Some highly regarded NAS boxes are the Thecus N2100, Qnap TS-209, Synology DS207, Dlink DNS-323, etc. Those all have dual bays and RAID 1 ability. Not sure ATM about which ones can handle torrents, but some do. There is one that also has a PHP/MySQL server. For media streaming to Xboxes and shit you'll want UPnP, forget iTunes server. From what I understand all of them do UPnP. There is some disagreement about none of these having NTFS, but the ex3 Linux file system is better.

[Andrew @ Oct 6th 2007 5:46AM]

I use my Dlink DNS-323 with my Macs, PCs and Xbox (XBMC). I haven't tried it with the Xbox 360 because I'm happy with the plain old Xbox. My Apple TV is just gathering dust so I don't know if it's viable. However I do know my Dlink box is capable of running it's own bitTorrent client natively since it uses Linux as it's operating system. It was one of the reasons I bought it! It also has uPnP, iTunes, FTP and a webinterface that works nicely on all the platforms I have.

[crafty @ Oct 5th 2007 5:35PM]

Windows Home Server.

[opus @ Oct 5th 2007 5:50PM]

2nd that vote for Windows Home Server. I was on the beta and now have my Media Center recording to it. It performs auto backup of all 4 PCs in my house, is a repository for our 50GB music collection, keeps all of our photos, is RAID protected and accessible from the road (along with my Media Center and Sling Box). Its based around Windows Server 03 and has been rock solid for months without any issues. Check it out.

[Chris @ Oct 6th 2007 8:47PM]

3rd voet for home server. It's awesome.

[Duscrom @ Oct 5th 2007 11:18PM]

Yeah, Big Police also dosen't get that I should be able to dive as fast as I want when I want, and stab who I want when and where I want. That big guy walking also should realize I want my money how I want as much as I want and now.

Build yourself a fucking media server and record the shit yourself and let the ad dollars work. "Big Media" dosen't owe you shit. They host it on their own servers cause you're too lazy to watch it with commercials yourself.

[michael @ Oct 5th 2007 11:55PM]

This is pretty surprising, but on10 - one of Microsoft's community/developer sites has actually answered the question too. They suggest WHS (of course), and you should read what they have to say about using WHS for Macs:

http://on10.net/Blogs/larry/answer-engadget-the-life-changing-nas-type-device/

[Mark @ Oct 8th 2007 9:48AM]

Wish there was a torrent of that!

[Mortav @ Oct 5th 2007 5:41PM]

small linux box running samba server, vnc, and azureus. Add a transcoding server if you want it to play nice with ATV. You can auto-spin-down the HDs when idle to save power. Depending on the case size it's as expandable as you want it to be

[Grant @ Oct 5th 2007 5:51PM]

Actually, you don't even need the VNC. Azureus has a web-based UI plugin that comes in both Java and straight-up HTML flavors.

[Josh @ Oct 5th 2007 5:59PM]

I would say small linux box running TorrentFlux. Great web-based torrent client with built in search. Hack your appleTV and install Files/Sapphire, as well as xvid/divx support to play back files natively.

[budtske @ Oct 6th 2007 8:50AM]

Torrentflux-b4rt (fork) is what i use for this feat.

[citycoop @ Oct 5th 2007 10:54PM]

Infrant (now netgear). Their Ready Nas NV+ is the BEST!!!!

[curiousj @ Oct 5th 2007 5:43PM]

So far my Buffalo NAS 500GB is working like a charm:
- opted for the 100/1GB ethernet over USB/Firewire because Mac and PC systems will access the NAS
- allowed me to put all my iPhoto and iTunes files, shared by multiple Mac users;
- allowed me to save Tivo taped shows (Series 2 through TivoToGo) on my PC;
- no real need to access content outside home network;
- 500GB will be enough -- it took me over 5 years to fill up 80GB in my Mac.

I'm waiting for the TivoToGo to work for my Series 3 server, and use my NAS for additional storage.

[Alex @ Oct 5th 2007 5:56PM]

Next 5 years, you'll fill up 80TB...

[jay @ Oct 6th 2007 1:38AM]

took me 3 weeks to fill 500 gb on my new drive

[Martin @ Oct 6th 2007 5:35AM]

With video and games getting bigger and bigger I need tons of more storage. Like other users I filled a 500gb HD in less than 3 1/2 weeks. With my Home Server I can just plug in another external hard drive so for someone with a lot of storage needs it keeps the cost down.

[Pataudi @ Oct 7th 2007 8:28AM]

Hi Curious, could you please post details on how you set up itunes/iphoto etc. on the NAS and allowed it to be shared by all users? Were they on different machines, or all on the same machine? Thanks.

[curiousj @ Oct 9th 2007 4:32PM]

Hey, Pataudi.

I have multiple users on my desktop mac, and I have two Mac laptops. All of them access the same iPhoto and iTunes library residing in a networked drive.

For iPhoto, it was easy -- move the iphoto library over the networked drive. With different libraries, just drag the photos to the new iPhoto libary. While starting up iPhoto, hold down the Apple key, and it will ask you what iPhoto library you want to access.

For iTunes, however, it was more difficult, because everyone had their own libraries. Consolidating them meant that none of them won't have their playlists intact, and many songs were duplicated in multiple libraries. Took me a week to know which steps I needed to do, and half that to successfully consolidate them. Ouch.

You can find better tutorials than my descriptions on consolidating libraries:

* http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/howto-move-your-itunes-music-while-preserving-library-data-when-you-dont-let-itunes-manage-your-music-library/
* http://playlistmag.com/features/2005/08/shiftitunes/index.php
* http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2007/04/15/moving-your-iphoto-library-to-an-external-drive/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbasics4mac.com%2Farticle.php%2Fmove_iphoto_lib&frame=true

Good luck!

[Jason @ Oct 5th 2007 5:47PM]

Don't let the genie free. Use the last wish on yourself.

[realgeeky @ Oct 5th 2007 5:47PM]

I'd like to second the Linux samba box, but add a Drobo to it and you have expandable storage that's mirrored.

http://www.drobo.com

[dade @ Oct 6th 2007 4:15AM]

I have made myself a cheap computer to act as a NAS in my home network. If you have some time to tinker with parts and linux, it's the cheapest, most flexible solution you can have. Besides being a media server and torrent client it doubles as a backup device. Config is some sata300 motherboard with 3 1TB hdd, software raid 5, rtorrent and samba daemons. Rtorrent watches a folder for .torrent files and starts downloading them as soon as they are put there via sftp.
Sounds crazy... it's actually easy and very very comfortable once you get everything running! Plus raid 5 gives you some extra reliability in case of hd failure!

[Eric @ Oct 5th 2007 5:49PM]

ReadyNAS NV. Best thing I've ever purchased. Great support as well. Works great with a Mac.

[siriusfox @ Oct 5th 2007 6:07PM]

I second that. This is the BEST NAS I have ever used. AFP (Mac), SMB (Linux/Windows), and FTP access. 4 SATA RAID bays. Gigabit Ethernet. OSX Widget for monitoring drive status. Email alerts for drive failures and such. If you use an power supply backup, it'll email you when it goes to battery power. It has a limited, but functional iTunes server built in.

The only hard part for you will be the torrents. You'll have to access your Mac and set the bit torrent stuff from there to your NAS. The NAS is just a storage device, not a bit torrent client.

[Chip @ Oct 5th 2007 6:23PM]

Third that.... The readynas nv is probably the best piece of hardware I own (or at least ranks with my Mac Pro). Saved me so many times...I can't count. Stable...os agnostic...X-RAID...what more do you want? Yoda rules!

[joseph @ Oct 5th 2007 8:02PM]

Make me the 4th. I have a ready NAS NV+ (purchased prior to Netgear buying them out) with 4x750GB. Love it! Mount shares from WIN (OS no longer used in my home!), LINUX and OS X. Stream HD, music, whatever...never had a problem.

[Lou @ Oct 6th 2007 2:53AM]

Actually, if your a linux expert, you can compile your own bit torrent client for the ReadyNAS. casue infrant opened up access to root in it's current beta firmware.. which will be included in its official release too!

so you can do whatever you want with the box, if your good with linux.. or wait for other people to develop stuff for it

[iczer2 @ Oct 6th 2007 11:40AM]

I'll be the fifth (or sixth if the last post was a vote :-) on the ReadyNAS NV. It's been one of the best home-centric NAS I've ever used. And the fact you can expand the array just by swapping a drive and you have the ability to run differing capacities and actually grow the array. Great stuff.

The only thing better would be an array like the one announced in another Engadget post where you can run your own OS and then install ZFS. I haven't used that particular file system, but from what I've read it's good stuff.

[Scott @ Oct 6th 2007 7:20PM]

Another one for the ReadyNas. I was going to go with Windows Home Server and upgrade a box I had here, but the ReadyNas was just a better deal overall. It's small (I mean, really small), quiet, and the X-RAID is really nice - the protection of RAID5, with the ability to scale up without formatting. I've got 4X250GB drives now, and when I need more room I'll just buy 750's and swap them out one at a time. No need to copy data off then back on. That's a huge plus, since backing it all up to DLT via another PC on the network will take forever.

Mine feeds movies and music to Xbox Media center in the living room, is an iTunes server for my wireless clients, and comes with backup software to do automated backups of pc's. It's a little expensive upfront, but you won't be replacing or regretting any time soon.

[Tanner @ Oct 5th 2007 5:50PM]

There is a great program for the mac called TV Shows, http://tvshows.sourceforge.net it will automatically download tv shows from bit torrent as soon as they are posted. You could then use apple script or automator to have those shows automatically encoded to an itunes compatible format using quicktime pro or Visual Hub.

[adam @ Oct 5th 2007 5:49PM]

Infrant ReadyNAS NV+. It's an actual RAID, not a hard drive with a network card. And unlike the Buffalo Terastation, it has four bays and can be expanded at will with any mix of drives (up to 4 x 750GB = 2.25GB of data). The system automatically expands the array as new drives are added, without reformatting. Hot pluggable SATA, of course. Gigabit ethernet, of course. Web-based administration. Fun.

If you can live with a USB connection instead of actual network attachment (ie, you'll use your Mac to share the drives on the network), the Drobo offers similar benefits at a somewhat lower price.

[NetRaider @ Oct 5th 2007 8:31PM]

Infrant's ready NAS NV+ works great with SlimServer from SlimDevices as well.

[John Rotondo @ Oct 6th 2007 8:46PM]

Actually, the Infrant RADIiator software in beta now will bump the drive accessibility up to 1TB drives. If you hit their forums, you'll see some folks have had great success with 4TB drives in their ReadyNAS.

[block1of4 @ Oct 5th 2007 5:57PM]

bit torrent is too slow. i use a dedicated usenet account and get a constant 2.5 MB/s download. bittorrent speeds are usually around 500 KB/s for me.

also, i wonder what performance is like between esata raid 5 shared over gigabit ethernet via smb vs. dedicated nas.

[roger_huston @ Oct 5th 2007 5:51PM]

Great Question. I have been doing some research on the subject as well.

The Thecus and QNAP are both good machines. However, I would consider a unit built for 4 drives not 2. Also, if you want something configurable, both the Thecus and QNAP machines have mod groups that allow you to put on Debian Linux and add just about any mod you want.

For me, I am looking into putting on Hamachi on a device so I can access it while I travel.

- Roger

[btr @ Oct 5th 2007 5:56PM]

I'd like to further this quest and say I'd like to have iPhoto and iTunes libraries on it and access it from multiple Macs. Ideas?

[dM @ Oct 5th 2007 6:03PM]

I'm currently running a hacked 1TB Western Digital World Edition II. The WD WEII runs linux and there's a simple way to gain root access to the drive. The drive is currently connected to my airport extreme. I'm running bitflu so I can telnet/ssh or http drop torrents from wherever using my macbook pro or iphone. I run apple's rendezvous proxy service and itunes streaming server as well as ccxstream (xbox media center streaming server). The WD World Ed.II has smb,ftp,ssh,telnet services already on it, you just have to uncomment those lines in the inetd file. I haven't tested yet whether the device is capable of streaming video to the xbox 360 and/or other devices. It did work quite well streaming to my xbox running xbmc.

[Okayplayer @ Oct 5th 2007 6:17PM]

Yeah, I second the MyBook World edition rig.

And it does play REALLY nice when you do a little hacking to the AppleTV too. I had been looking for a way to have pretty much this exact setup and after adding NitoTV and enabling SMB access on the AppleTV everything is SUPER dreamy.

When my AppleTV boots (which is rarely ever since it just stays on and happy... Yeah, I'm now a HUGE fan of the device) it automounts my SMB share of the MyBook. Perfect (okay SMB is far from perfect but over gigabit I've never scene ANY stutter) playback and tons of storage for ALL of my computers (macs and PCs) connected to my network and from abroad.

[Harry @ Oct 6th 2007 1:41AM]

I've got an HP Media Vault. Go here to check out all the cool faqs for it. http://www.k0lee.com/hpmediavault/

[dM @ Oct 5th 2007 6:20PM]

Also, when I did my research this is arguably the CHEAPEST entry point to all these features. I paid $350 check Dell.com or pricematch at BestBuy. Also the 2TB drive is out and the price is steadily falling.

[oscar @ Oct 6th 2007 6:56AM]

Is there any documentation avail on hacking the MyBook? Mine is still a virgin ;)

[dM @ Oct 7th 2007 10:33PM]

WD MyBook World Edition Hacking Links:
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/start
http://martin.hinner.info/mybook/
http://websupport.wdc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5535&whichpage=1

[henk @ Oct 6th 2007 9:30AM]

MAC MINI + OWC MINI STACK DRIVES, run it headless...

[adam @ Oct 5th 2007 5:53PM]

Oh, I should add that the ReadyNAS has every network protocol known to man: NFS, CIFS/SMB, AppleShare, FTP, UPnP AV, etc. Plus 3 USB ports for expansion. It's also quieter than I expected.

[Dias @ Oct 5th 2007 5:56PM]

RIAA is watching...