NAS server?
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- spifflink
Has anyone ever used one to serve up big media files for clients before? Or, does anyone know if its possible to set up a hard drive so you can access the files over the internet(which would be cheaper than buying a NAS server)?
- horton0
i don't think you want NAS.. aren't they designed to serve local wireless networks.
Rumpus is an easy solution to quickly turn your Mac into an FTP server:
- spifflink0
thing is though, I want to be able to access the drive from my powerbook anywhere i have internet. I have a little 2-bay 1.5 TB USB2/FireWire 800 setup. I heard there was a way to hook it up to an airport station through the usb port and access it from the internet if you set it up right. Is that even possible?
- horton0
i think you can plug your 1.5TB drive into the airport and access it locally, but if you wanna serve files across the internet then its gotta be connected to a computer which will act as the server.
a NAS drive will have a basic OS installed onto it that will allow connected users to access files stored on the disk. i'm guessing that includes internet/FTP connections, but i dunno.. not a server techie guy.
- horton0
or i could be totally wrong all-together so somebody feel free to school me if so :)
Rumpus is still a pretty nice little tool if you don't have web space to FTP files to clients.
- ribit0
I use Rumpus fo rsome stuff, but I also access Firewire drives over Apple File Sharing over the internet...You just need to connect to the computer you have the drives connected to (which means setting up port forwarding in your hom erouter to forward port 548 requests to that comouters IP address...and then when you connect over AFP, it shows you a list of drives...
But its easier to just go buy a Lacie Ethernet Disk mini and serve stuff over Apple File Sharing, Windows Sharing, FTP and HTTP really easily...
- mbr0
Wow, finally some responese! (I've posted about NAS a few times now with no responses)
Buy one. They are cheap for what you get. I am looking at the Buffalo and Iomega versions, probably the 2 gb versiosn (about $1200 for the 2gb, $600-700 for the 1 gb).
Network Attached Storage are an array of hard drives (4 in thsi case, in either RAID 0, 1 or 5 - they usually come in 5) with ram, a processor and Linux. Both of these have FTP/web access, I think (one of the best features).
Take a look here for reviews:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/
If you get one, post what you think.
- spifflink0
Well I am looking at a way to hookup my already existing 1.5TB drive to the network. It only has firewire 800 and usb2 on it, so I am trying to figure something out. The only computer with firewire800 in my house is my laptop so I cant connect that up to the network because that is with me, it doesnt stay at home. I will have to look into this port forwarding thing and possibly invest in a new airport base station(the one with airport disk included).
- ribit0
If you connect it with USB to the Airport base station, you just have to switch on 'share drives on the network' or something, that uses AFP on port 548, no other port forwarding needed.
A problem I found with the Airport Extreme Base station is that if you want to forward Apple File Sharing (port 548) to an NAS server, you have to turn off the built-in drive sharing over USB, as that feature wants to use port 548. I wish they'd let us choose what port we want to share the USB drives over...