NAS for PC and MAC

[Toto]

Hey guys.

Can I trouble you for some experienced advice please?

I'd like to purchase a NAS, but I need it to support MAC OSX and Windows file systems.

I'll be attaching it to my wireless router via Ethernet, and my main Windows PC connects directly to that router, but my MAC Book will connect using the wireless.

Any thoughts on a decent piece of kit. I have not considered how much storage I need, but I may want to protect access to it from certain users, or rather certain partitions if you get my drift.

[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by Toto

Hey guys.

Can I trouble you for some experienced advice please?

I'd like to purchase a NAS, but I need it to support MAC OSX and Windows file systems.

I'll be attaching it to my wireless router via Ethernet, and my main Windows PC connects directly to that router, but my MAC Book will connect using the wireless.

Any thoughts on a decent piece of kit. I have not considered how much storage I need, but I may want to protect access to it from certain users, or rather certain partitions if you get my drift.

Budget?

[Toto]

Originally Posted by ZrByte

Budget?

Hmmm, try me. I really don't know what I want to spend, I guess sub £300?

[martyh]

this is the one i use ,mine is 500gb ,i have found it a good bit of kit in the last 18 months no probs at all and does support mac

http://www.buffalo-technology.com/pr...kstation-live/


this is the product specs
http://www.buffalo-technology.com/fi...0Live-EN_2.pdf

i presume you mean that you want to use a mac and a windows pc at the same time ,i am fairly sure that it can but am not knowledgeable enough to be 100% sure

paid £120 for it

[danielf]

I have an older Linkstation and can access it from both my windows and mac machines.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by danielf

I have an older Linkstation and can access it from both my windows and mac machines.

i thought you could but wasn't sure .i think it depends what file system it's formatted to

[Jon T]

Originally Posted by martyh

i thought you could but wasn't sure .i think it depends what file system it's formatted to

The drive can be formatted to whatever, it makes no difference, it's how it's presented to the network that matters, Windows shares use SMB(Server Message Block), Apple used to(still does?) use appletalk. I'm reliably told that OSX can connect to SMB shares as well.

[ZrByte]

Originally Posted by martyh

i thought you could but wasn't sure .i think it depends what file system it's formatted to

Actually it depends on the network protocols it uses. Pretty much all home use NAS boxes use SMB (Or samba) which works with everything though certain versions of this can have issues with windows vista/7.

To the OP, have you considered a DIY NAS? These are the best full feature NAS units you can really get without spending thousands on commercial grade equipment. Interestingly they can be quite cheap depending on the hardware you use.
I have one at the moment running FREENAS on a compaq d530 USDT. This system is about the size of a digibox and runs nice and quietly. It's only a test NAS with a meagre 40GB storage but it started off as a test for a uPnP NAS server and I was so impressed with it I changed the settings and kept it online as a permanent mini-NAS.
You configure it through a web interface on your main pc but I also have mine linked to my HD-TV through the VGA port so in the event that I cant get to the web interface I can just change channels on the TV to check for error messages.

[martyh]

thanks for the clarification JonT and ZrByte