2014-05-16, 04:04
Hey all, I'm looking for some advice regarding upgrading my media file storage. I currently have all of my video files on 4 USB 3.0 disks, totaling 7 TB. I run XBMC from my desktop machine with three displays attached, one of which is a 32" TV on which XBMC is almost always running if I'm at home. My desktop PC is a multiboot system, actually originally built as a hackintosh, but I pretty much always boot into Windows 7 because that's my preferred platform for running XBMC while multitasking on my other screens. However, recently, I've had the desire to use OS X more (a VM just isn't the same), or do a bit of gaming in Windows, neither of which works very well when I'm running XBMC.
So what I'd like to do is network all of my storage so that it's easily accessible from all of my devices (desktop, laptop, and a few Android devices), and run my media center from my laptop probably via Openelec. I've been looking at NAS bays with USB ports, and wondered if anyone has an opinion on these two products that I'm considering, or would recommend something else? Both of the following are two-bay diskless devices, and I plan on getting a 2 TB disk to put in one. Newegg has a Seagate NAS drive for $90 and Amazon has the same capacity WD Red for $100. Will probably go for the Seagate unless the WD is strongly preferred. I'm trying to spend less than $300 including the disk, so I'm considering:
Synology DiskStation DS214se 2 USB 2.0 ports, $145 at Newegg w/ promo code
WD My Cloud EX2 2 USB 3.0 ports (apparently certain USB 3 hubs do work), $190 at Newegg
Any thoughts?
So what I'd like to do is network all of my storage so that it's easily accessible from all of my devices (desktop, laptop, and a few Android devices), and run my media center from my laptop probably via Openelec. I've been looking at NAS bays with USB ports, and wondered if anyone has an opinion on these two products that I'm considering, or would recommend something else? Both of the following are two-bay diskless devices, and I plan on getting a 2 TB disk to put in one. Newegg has a Seagate NAS drive for $90 and Amazon has the same capacity WD Red for $100. Will probably go for the Seagate unless the WD is strongly preferred. I'm trying to spend less than $300 including the disk, so I'm considering:
Synology DiskStation DS214se 2 USB 2.0 ports, $145 at Newegg w/ promo code
WD My Cloud EX2 2 USB 3.0 ports (apparently certain USB 3 hubs do work), $190 at Newegg
Any thoughts?