At the moment I am using a QNAP TS-509, it's populated with 5*1.5 TB disks, currently storing about 5500+ TV & DVD rips, so approx 2.5TB of storage used, with only another 3TB to fill 🙂.

It streams to the PS3 via the built in Twonky Media Server, it actually works quit well... a bit of a pain setting it all up but was worth it in the end.

I'm thinking of building a small HTPC (Win7 & MediaBrowser) and using that instead of the PS3 - as I would like to store my BluRays/MKV rips on the Nas then stream them to the HTPC.

I got a Buffalo Terastation Live running 4 x 1 TB harddisk in Raid configuration.

Installed Twonky on it and it works.

Ralf

Which is best is hard to say as it is a personal opinion, but I'm very happy with Synology. I have a CS-407 with the new beta firmware which is launched next month. This works with the PS3 out of the box, and has other nice features too.One of the new is streaming music to the iPhone.

Is your WD connected through LAN or WIFI?? If you're trying to stream HD material you need a LAN cable.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

The WD is connected via LAN (ethernet) to the router and the PS3 is via WIFI... however the files I'm trying to stream are nothing more than 700mb divx movies... so I doubt that its a bandwidth problem really.

All those NAS servers you guys have sound great, however they feel like mini computers! The idea of the WD being small and very energy efficient is good for me, because I dont mind it being constantly running (and sleeping) and it might live longer when not in use...

Well a Nas is just a that, a mini computer... Just packaged very small(ish), and designed to do the one job - to store data. Even your WD World Edition is just a Linux computer with an ARM9 processor.

Nas's from the likes of Synology, QNap, Netgear, et-all, do have some 2, 4, 6, 8+ bay models so they can range in size... also bear in mind if you get say a 4/5 bay model, you can put one drive in and start in like JBOD mode, then later as you could put more drives in you can and expand the raid to raid 5 etc.

Also the drives in the Nas do spin down (I am using WD Caviar Green drives), and the QNap that I have does go into a kind of suspend/low power mode after 20 minutes (I assume the other Nas's do also).

Hi, I use a Synology 207 with two 500gb in Raid 1 (mirrored) config. I chose this primarily for support, as they have awesome forums etc and secondly for the specs. Been is use for couple of years without fault.

I have also purchased many Buffalo Linkstations for my customers which also setup and work very well, although as they have less than professional web and forum pages I hope i dont need support as it may be difficult to tie them down..

Cheers

Russ

hi,

i have been looking at a qnap nas solution to serve media files for my stb. i have two, slightly off-topic, questions.

* is the license for twonky included, or is it a trial version ?

* what made it a pain to setup ?

thanks,

scott

I use a WD My Book world, and I have no cuts on high definition movies (I do not watch SD on it). Maybe you must look at your connection settings befor buying another NAS, which will surely give you the same issue (as the WD also use Twonky Media to act as a DLNA server).

Scott : concerning Twonky Media, as far as I know, it is a free open source software.

You are probably right. I think ill buy an Airport Extreme base station and connect everything to that. Then ill bridge the connection to the cable provider's router...

Funny thing is that once a non-B&O item gets introduced into your entertainment arena, everything is so much more complicated... and you do get to appreciate B&O's simplicity!

For example, I have a PS3 (that i cant turn on using the Beo5, and can only switch it off by navigating and selecting off) cost £285, I got a WD World Book cost £130 and now I need an AExtreme Router cost £135, bringing my total cost to: £550 and all I want is to be able to listen to mp3s with my PC off.

But even though this is (will be) the case, I need to have my TV on and switch the SPEAKERS setting to 2. Both are disadvantages... in the end, although im really apathetic towards the BeoSound 5, you can see its advantages and simplicity.

Just the fact that i can switch it off and on easily and that there are no dependancies is such a great feature! hehe

Shame about the price £550 vs. £3500 and shame about the BM5 video playback and storage capacity