New to NAS Technology and Need Some Help

[Ken7707]

I’m new to NAS Technology and not sure how powerful a NAS I should buy and which brands and models, I should look at.

Here is some background and what I’m trying to accomplish:

We have 2 Computers at home along with an ipad and itouch:
One computer is for a very small music studio.
The other computer is our main family computer that my wife uses for her Photography hobby.

*I want to Backup from both computers, along with files from the ipad and iTouch and put them all on the NAS.

*I’m thinking we would be looking at around 2 TB to maybe 3 TB of storage over the next few years.

*I would like to access the NAS from the ipad and itouch to play music, videos, look at photos etc.

*I would also like to access some document files from the NAS when I’m at my work office, which is a 45 minute commute.

*I also dabble with creating websites and I would like to use the NAS to put a few websites online. If any of the websites start to get lots of traffic, guess I would have to move that website to a paid web hosting service.

*Someday I want to get a Webcam and run it outside for a view of nature in my backyard and use the NAS for that too.

*I have Apple TV and it would be great to somehow use the NAS with Apple TV, to view Photo’s and home videos on our flat screen TV. Unless there is another way to do this between the NAS and the TV?

*I also use Crashplan to backup my Main Family computer and it would be nice if I could get Crashplan to work on the NAS too.

I hope I didn't babble on too much

I really need some direction and how to go about getting the right NAS.

Thanks,
Ken (newbie)

 

[thiggins]

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-basics/30914-how-to-buy-a-nas-shorter-version

 

[stevech]

Dear OP

I recommend a Synology or QNAP, definitely over the retail store shelf NASes like Seagate, Buffalo, IOmega, Netgear, LG, Western Digital.

A two-bay NAS with USB3 is a good choice. Buy it disk-less and shop Newegg.com for good deals on 3.5 in. 7200 RPM (not 5400) drives.

I backup PCs using Acronis True Image with a destination of the NAS. When I used Crashplan because they refused to allow use of a NAS (or any other network storage) for business reasons.
Acronis has saved my bacon many times. Thus, I don't use freeware either. Penny-wise/pound-foolish as they say, of my time.
I also retrained to store virtually NO data on PCs - store it on the NAS. Then I don't have to worry so much about frequent backups of PCs.