NAS/Wifi/Modem/Router solution
1 - 20 of 22 Posts
You'll have difficulty getting rid of the Sky router as they don't like devices other than what they've provided connecting to their network. I'd suggest using a third party Wifi extender such as this wee fella TP-Link TL-WA901ND Advanced Wireless N Access Point: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories plus a decent NAS, such as this one Synology DS212J 2 Bay NAS Enclosure: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories. You'll need to provide your own drives, according to your storage needs, probably 2TB each. I'd say Western Digital Red drives are your best bet, as they're optimised for NAS RAID.
I have both these contraptions, use Sky at home, and they do the job nicely though, if you include the original Sky router, it's a 3 box solution.
EDIT You might want to have a re-think on your budget if you want to stream HD to 4 devices simultaneously. That takes some serious bandwidth, so you'd need a more expensive NAS as a minimum, plus your WIFI network is going to struggle. Is 4 devices receiving HD over wifi a realistic goal, or can you throttle back on that? If not, realistically you're going to be better off with a wired solution.
BTW the Synology works great with Sonos, lovely bit of kit.
I have both these contraptions, use Sky at home, and they do the job nicely though, if you include the original Sky router, it's a 3 box solution.
EDIT You might want to have a re-think on your budget if you want to stream HD to 4 devices simultaneously. That takes some serious bandwidth, so you'd need a more expensive NAS as a minimum, plus your WIFI network is going to struggle. Is 4 devices receiving HD over wifi a realistic goal, or can you throttle back on that? If not, realistically you're going to be better off with a wired solution.
BTW the Synology works great with Sonos, lovely bit of kit.
Really? Good effort, I'd be fascinated to know how you managed that one. If it's a viable option, then Woz's recommendation on the Draytek Vigor will solve your wifi/router issues- the 2950 is a great bit of kit.
Cool, thanks! Just as an aside, certain routers (Draytek included) give you the option of setting your locale as Japan. In this mode, you get more channels available for your wifi, it goes up to 14. Do be aware that this is also not legal over here. Nevertheless, there is (ahem) anecdotal evidence from assorted miscreants that it clears up neighbour-based wifi congestion beautifully.
Joined
·
217 Posts
As opposed to wirless, I use HomePlug 500AV from Solwise to stream from a QNAP NAS to different rooms in the house.
What he said. Homeplug rules. Top out at the 200Mb devices though, laws of diminishing returns apply after that.
Joined
·
8,035 Posts
As you mention streaming HD I assume that your 200 movies will be / include Blu-rays. Have a think what format you want to store these in. I've ripped my 400-ish DVDs and BRs as iso files so its just like playing the disc over the network (menus, extras etc) and a DVD takes about 7GB and a BR up to 50GB.
I also have 7 Sonos zones of various types (great bits of kit!) and have opted to stream all my CDs (I guess 400/500) as Lossless so they sound their best. This takes about 300-400MB of storage each CD.
My storage also holds all our digital photos and various other bits and pieces.
All this storage adds up. I'm currently using about 8 or 9TB of my 12TB of space so I have some future proofing of space. The last thing I would want is to loose all of this (mainly the photos, the music and movies I could rip again... Wouldn't be fun and would take me a couple of months, I guess, but I could) so also have a backup (which soon will be of all of my content)
You need to work out what formats you want to store things in, how much space that will take, how much future space you want, and what level of risk you're willing to accept regarding data loss. This will dictate what your storage solution will look like and how much it will cost. £375 could soon disappear though depending on your requirements :-/
As others have said I'm not sure about streaming HD to 4 devices over wireless. I'd recommend some kind of wired solution if that is your goal (home plugs would be least disruptive)
Not sure that's helped much as I haven't suggested any solutions, however, hopefully it's given you a bit more info on the types of questions you'll need to think about.
Si
Joined
·
2,115 Posts
I am with sky and all I did was to plug a D-Link wireless router into the sky router as you say their wireless signal is pants. So I guess just use theirs as a modem works a treat got the Smart TV, sky plus, 2 + laptops, 2 + IPhones and a few I pads as well as anyone else like when the kids pop over connecting to it. No hacking into the sky router port forwarding or anything
Joined
·
4,501 Posts
Joined
·
26,851 Posts
I've got a 2830Vn at work. Used to have a Netgear and had to resort to an ISP supplied Sagem for a while. The Draytek knocks spots off both and is rock stable. Have got a 6Tb RAID NAS on the way from someone here on YD that i'll use for file storage as we're upping the amount of media we will need for marketing,
At home I've got an ISP provided Thomson thing but it seems pretty solid, runs quite cool and the wireless is good- then again Woz Towers isn't huge. Replaces a Netgear thing that was fine for a bit then completely fell over.
Plugged into the Thomson thing is a 3Tb Buffalo NAS with all sorts of fancy servers on it from DLNA to iTunes and even a little Bittorrent client. Have a mains adapter also plugged into it so that if I'm sat in the living room and need to shift a big file I can have a wired connection.
At home I've got an ISP provided Thomson thing but it seems pretty solid, runs quite cool and the wireless is good- then again Woz Towers isn't huge. Replaces a Netgear thing that was fine for a bit then completely fell over.
Plugged into the Thomson thing is a 3Tb Buffalo NAS with all sorts of fancy servers on it from DLNA to iTunes and even a little Bittorrent client. Have a mains adapter also plugged into it so that if I'm sat in the living room and need to shift a big file I can have a wired connection.
3TB is the biggest you can get (AFAIK) in WD Red, so you're going to be looking at a 4-bay NAS as a minimum. QNAP and Synology all do decent models. 4 drives in RAID5'll give you 9TB to play with.
From bitter personal experience, RAID5 controllers aren't always as reliable as one would wish for, so RAID1 is worth exploring, but you would need an even bigger NAS to accommodate the drives required (4x3TB in RAID1 = 6TB), and then things get really pricy.
That said, all of the above will obliterate your £375 budget...
Joined
·
26,851 Posts
My work server has 4 hot swappable discs in a RAID 1 with 2 discs the system and the other 2 for storage. Only 70Gb though as they're SCSI but the server also has redundant power supplies too attached to an APC battery backup almost as big as the server so it can run for 90 mins if one of the lads fires up the vertical borer direct online and pops the board fuses.
Will keep that for server stuff and use the NAS for files. Probably use a RAID 1 system there too giving me 3Tb which should be plenty although I could get another Tb out of it with RAID 5. But for work I prefer reliability over space!
Will keep that for server stuff and use the NAS for files. Probably use a RAID 1 system there too giving me 3Tb which should be plenty although I could get another Tb out of it with RAID 5. But for work I prefer reliability over space!
Get a UPS.... our kettle blew last week, took the power out and corrupted both my HDs in the NAS ! They are independent disks...I've now got a UPS from APC, powers down NAS after 30 seconds.. didn't cost a bomb as wasn't latest model (Back-UPS CS 500).. worked out of the box with FreeNas on a hp proliant microserver.
1 - 20 of 22 Posts
Join the discussion
Join now to ask and comment!