Looking for MUST Read intro to NAS recommendations

[StephenBB81]

Hello all.
I'm looking for the must read information pages about setting up a NAS.


I have a 3TB Seagate GoFlex Home ( which I hate) attached to a Asus N66U router (Which I like)

I have about 2TB of video content that I stream to any of the 4 TV's in the house and right now it's a mess. I hodgepodged everything together just to get it working and didn't spend nearly enough time reading or learning, the Seagate was a gift from my Father in Law so I wanted to make use of it.

Today I want to actually start a foundation for my home network and media sharing, I no longer travel weeks at a time for work so I can spend a bit of time actually making things happen.

My ideal situation will be built around a NAS, I need to figure out what brands I should be looking at and what features I should care about from my brief looking today I'm thinking QNAP is probably the company I'm looking at, and I've read I shouldn't even try and understand their branding/numbering schemes so I've got that headache ahead of me in comparing device.

I'd like a NAS unit that I can add storage to in the future, my 2TB of video content is likely to double if not triple in the next 18 months as my kids are 4&5yrs old and the content they consume is getting more HD and more varied. I'd like accessing the content to be easy enough that the 4 and 5 yr old can use it and then teach their mother (yes it's that bad) So Tutorials about setting up idiotproof access for a specific models would be great. I prefer reading over watching video's but am willing to do what I need to so I'm educated.

In a Perfect world the NAS would connect to the main TV in the house and act as a XBMC (Kodi) server for that TV but I do have a Lenovo T520 that can be re-purposed to that task if that is a pipe dream, pages talking about this would be appreciated.

The house is primarily a Windows Based computer house; so Windows Based tools are what I would like to be pointed toward. Android Apps are doable as remote tools as I can convert those to work with my BlackBerry devices in the house for Personal side of Balance

Really any pages that are relevant to using NAS for home media serving in today's environments would be appreciated, or any hand holding for area's I should just avoid researching because I'll get lost in hype without substance.

Thank you


EDIT:
Completed Reading
- How To Choose the Right NAS for You http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-basics/30107-how-to-choose-the-right-nas-for-you

 

[stevech]

Take it from the many folks here.. Buy Synology or QNAP and be done with it.

 

[L&LD]

QNAP recommended here. Synology is the only other option though, I agree.

 

[StephenBB81]

For the mos part I am sold on going QNAP or Synology, (flirting with FreeNAS and a Dell Cloud server so I can VMware ESXi as well but its less likely )

but QNAP's model numbering scheme makes it very difficult to figure out which models to compare and what features are present where.

 

[L&LD]

For my customers, I don't compare features of each NAS available. Instead, I get them to choose a total budget (NAS plus HDD's plus usually one or two extra drives at time of purchase as cheap 'insurance').

With this budget chosen (usually in the $3-4K range with setup not included), I can then choose the highest performing cpu, chipset and ram options possible at that moment in time and also decide if special ordering is worth waiting for or simply going and picking a locally available product off the shelf instead is the better option for them.

None of my customers have complained about extra capacity, features or performance that they didn't initially use. But the ones that set an unrealistically low budget had the pleasure of spending more than twice as much for a NAS + HDD's plus setup and downtime in a very short period (less than a year).

The model of the NAS doesn't matter. Buy as much hardware as you can afford today. And if your budget doesn't allow you to buy for expanding into the current or immediate future, then I suggest you continue saving instead of obtaining something that is only good enough for now.

 

[stevech]

When budgeting, be sure to include the backup hardware too.
RAID is not a backup.

The NAS (mainboard, pwr supply, maybe disks) will fail, someday, or you'll make a mistake with the NAS admin, or burglars will get your stuff.