NAS Server, Data Backups, RAID, etc.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

I have been looking recently at getting a more sophisticated back up and storage facility for the McDonald's SOHO set up and have been looking at various NAS devices, for example the QNAP TS-419. Reason for posting this is to ask if anyone has any experience in this area and so can offer advice on what to look for, what pitfalls to be aware of....etc.

By way of detail our PCs currently comprise my video machine that has the following:-

C: a 150GB Raptor as the system drive - no user data here;
D: a 500GB HD as a personal data store;
E: a 1TB drive as a 'work in progress' video and photo drive;
F: a 2TB video archive drive plus back up copy of my system drive and backup copy of my photo directory from the D: drive.

Mrs twosheds does a lot of work developing websites for clients and in her PC there are:-

C: a 250GB system drive - some personal data held on here;
D: a 320Gb personal data drive which also doubles as a 'work in progress' drive;
E: a 500GB drive for back ups and archived work.

There is a general use laptop that we have but it does not hold any critical data.

A key issue is that for both of us the 'work in progress' can and often does consist of a lot of client photos and video clips that would cause problems if they were lost.

[Chuck Engels]

Hi John,
This is what we use at work, mostly for document storage.
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/net ... -ts-wxl1d/

We have had it for over 2 years now and it has been extremely reliable.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Thanks Chuck. Will have a look at that.