[Kratlusker]

Hey Everyone.

I need to upgrade my storage. At the moment I'm using a QNAP NAS 2x2TB in raid 1. It's primary storage for my media on my HTPC, and I need atleast twice the storage so I can keep expanding my movie and music collection. That means I'm corrently looking for a 4 disc enclosure.

I have been looking at the pros and cons in using a NAS compared to a external raid cabinet like this: http://www.raidsonic.de/en/products/soho...ectID=7058

So far I'm thinking about skipping the NAS and just buy the external HDD cabinet. Why? Because I only acces my media through my HTPC, I don't use all the fancy functions build in the NAS, it's almost half the price compared to a 4-disc QNAP NAS (in Denmark).

I only acces my media 4-5 times a week, so I dont want to keep it turned on. Feel like it's a bit of energy waste when it's on standby for so many hours a week. The boot time of my currently NAS QNAP TS-219P is 2-3 times longer than my HTPC (meaning that I have to wait for the NAS to power up - quite annoying).

I got this power strip that is controlled my computer (no power when it's shutdown). If I hook up the HDD cabinet to the strip, then it will power on and shutdown with my HTPC, and I got instant acces to my data when the HTPC is ready.

Only cons I see is if I want to acces my media data through my other computers, then I have to turn on my HTPC. But that isn't really a problem since I almost never do that, and I have no plans buying a HTPC more for the bedroom or something.

Then someone might ask why I dont just build a HTPC with room for 4 discs. I like it small and fancy. The external HDD's can be hidden away, and future HTPC upgrades will be less painfull when the HDD's is not integrated in the HTPC.

So my question is, did i miss some cons replacing my NAS with a normal external HDD?

[Balinus]

So my question is, did i miss some cons replacing my NAS with a normal external HDD?

It depends if you backup your media files or not.?

Also, what model of QNAP do you have? You should have at least a USB2 port on your NAS. You might plug you external HDD in the USB port and play all your media from the "NAS+external HDD". If you are lucky, you have a eSATA port on your NAS, which would be ideal. You could then plug an external HDD with the eSATA port.

That would be the cheapest way to upgrade in your situation I think.

edit - Just looked at your raid enclosure you've linked. I'm not sure how you connect this enclosure to a computer/router/etc. Through USB, eSATA, ethernet, ...?

I only acces my media 4-5 times a week, so I dont want to keep it turned on.

With QNAP NAS you might have a built-in power schedule. If your listening hours are mostly contant (i.e. evenings), you could just schedule the NAS for a couple hours per days instead of leaving it open all day.

[poofyhairguy]

edit - Just looked at your raid enclosure you've linked. I'm not sure how you connect this enclosure to a computer/router/etc. Through USB, eSATA, ethernet, ...?

Looks like it is Firewire 800, 400, esata and USB. Yet I think it relies on Firewire daisy-chaining for its main effect. That is very 2000s.

The best solutions are ones based on port-multipliers and esata. Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6816132029

That works fine for media. It would be terrible for anything else (and it would be difficult to copy media between drives) but for simple playback it is fine.

For such enclosures to work though you either need a mobo with a port-multiplier compatible esata port (good luck there) or you use the PCIe 2x add in card included.