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Topic: Silly NAS questions: network drives in windows, DLNA, etc (Read 6436 times) previous topic - next topic
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Silly NAS questions: network drives in windows, DLNA, etc

I'd quite like to move all my photos, videos, and music onto a HDD in a NAS sitting under the stairs.

At the moment, I have a wired+wireless home network, but no sharing as such. Just a main PC (wired), laptop (wireless), and 2 STBs (wired - DLNA capable; DMS and DMP/C/R). They'll probably be another PC (wired) and another laptop (wireless) soon enough. Maybe a wi-fi radio too.

What I'd like to be able to do is to have the HDD under the stairs pop up on my PC (wired) and laptop (wireless) as a network drive (i.e. something that can be accessed basically as if it was a network drive), and also be seen by DLNA clients on the network. If it has a funky utility (like Orb) to let me access it outside the house, so much the better.

I don't want someone hacking into my wireless network and seeing, never mind changing, the contents of the NAS HDD.


I haven't a clue how to do this. I've had a google, but I can't even think of the right search terms.

I'm looking at something like the D-link sharecentre pulse 2-bay NAS, or the Netgear Stora 2-bay NAS.

Most importantly, something I can buy very cheaply, pop a couple of 2TB SATA drives into, and forget about. Low power consumption is important. Ability to stream 25Mbps HD videos without a problem is important. Ability to stream two things at once is important. DLNA (or at very least uPnP) essential.

Any help / advice greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
David.

Silly NAS questions: network drives in windows, DLNA, etc

Reply #1 –
Hey 2Bdecided

First off, I think you are getting wireless security mixed up with file security (NAS).  Your wireless should be secure independent of your NAS or other devices.  Make sure you are using WPA/WPA2 encryption with a good password.  It would be little comfort if your NAS was secure, but someone hacked your wireless anyway and broke into your PCs or just used your internet connection.

If you want cheap and low power then something like the two NAS boxes would do.  Of the two the Dlink looks better.  It doesn't mention DLNA, but it does have uPnP and otherwise looks better than the Netgear.  Most importantly for you, the Netgear makes no mention of access passwords or such in it's specifications and doesn't seem to have as many power saving features as the Dlink.

You may have to map a network drive to the NAS once on each PC, but that's easy.

Performance of either should meet your requirements of 25Mbps just fine, but neither is going to come close to maxing out their network connections.  Where you might run into problems is doing 25Mbps over your wireless.  Unless you have a good N connection you'll likely have issues with that.

Silly NAS questions: network drives in windows, DLNA, etc

Reply #2 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
I'd quite like to move all my photos, videos, and music onto a HDD in a NAS sitting under the stairs.

At the moment, I have a wired+wireless home network, but no sharing as such. Just a main PC (wired), laptop (wireless), and 2 STBs (wired - DLNA capable; DMS and DMP/C/R). They'll probably be another PC (wired) and another laptop (wireless) soon enough. Maybe a wi-fi radio too.

What I'd like to be able to do is to have the HDD under the stairs pop up on my PC (wired) and laptop (wireless) as a network drive (i.e. something that can be accessed basically as if it was a network drive), and also be seen by DLNA clients on the network. If it has a funky utility (like Orb) to let me access it outside the house, so much the better.

I don't want someone hacking into my wireless network and seeing, never mind changing, the contents of the NAS HDD.


I haven't a clue how to do this. I've had a google, but I can't even think of the right search terms.

I'm looking at something like the D-link sharecentre pulse 2-bay NAS, or the Netgear Stora 2-bay NAS.

Most importantly, something I can buy very cheaply, pop a couple of 2TB SATA drives into, and forget about. Low power consumption is important. Ability to stream 25Mbps HD videos without a problem is important. Ability to stream two things at once is important. DLNA (or at very least uPnP) essential.


My searching says that both the DNS 320 and the Netgear Stora support DLNA.

DLINK NAS w/DLNA link

Netgear Stora NAS w/DLNA link

Silly NAS questions: network drives in windows, DLNA, etc

Reply #3 –
For sharing, normally you'd assign or figure out the IP address of the NAS and then use that as the URL to log in to it with a web browser then poke around for the settings that enable Windows-style sharing. Sometimes this is called Samba.

Data security on a home Windows network doesn't seem to work very well unless everything is Windows 7 then you can use the Homegroup feature. The NAS is not Windows 7 so not applicable here.

So security has to be done in the network. Make sure the firewall is enabled in your Internet router and make sure you're using WPA2 with a non-trivial password on your wireless access point.

Silly NAS questions: network drives in windows, DLNA, etc

Reply #4 –
Thanks all.