A small guide to NAS

NAS, network attached storage for: this acronym you may be familiar. It refers to storage systems that are real small home servers using an OS-based GNU / Linux and designed for service 24/24 (small footprint, low power consumption, etc..), Accessible on your local network or from the out. But in the jungle of the proposed models, it is sometimes difficult to navigate ...

 

How to choose a NAS

The choice of NAS takes into account many things, but the balance between these points is most important. There is the capacity that is important but is not used much if you do not have services that go with it. If your NAS has the final RAID but the community is nonexistent and the builder seems reluctant to update their products you may want to quickly change ... We must choose a consistent hardware and software without favoring one or the other.

When choosing your NAS brand is crucial. The operating system is common and by upgrading the more you get services, advanced hardware systems - RAID arrays and multiple - and the price goes up ... Synology makes a special effort to integrate in a dedicated NAS systems Apple. There are of course Time Machine and iTunes server, as well as iPhone applications dedicated to sharing features music and photos from the NAS. Its systems offer a good combination between an OS and an administration fearful of efficiency and a quiet albeit finishing equipment sometimes just ok.

Netgear, there is a solid material with an administration interface somewhat archaic in Java. This is however compensated by the services, and a very active community. The latter manages to give a facelift to older models with newer and performants.Qnap services, meanwhile, NAS offers very mature either in terms of hardware or software with advanced backup in the cloud , remote access and a wide range of applications for mobile devices. They are supported by a hyper active English-speaking community, but are a little less easy to use for special débutants.Mention Drobo, which designs products a little different, but often used as NAS. The brand is known for its hard disk storage "classic" but stands still with the Drobo FS, a backup system that uses a RAID system owner.

Configuring your NAS

Once your NAS connected and turned on it will be necessary to connect to configure it. Some brands - such as Netgear with Raidar - will offer you a wizard to detect your NAS as a widget or dedicated application. You have access to at least the management interface of your NAS via your browser or some - like Drobo - all the management capabilities of the device. Generally, you will find in the manual of the device IDs default for your first login to the admin. Once logged in, remember to change them. You start with a guided configuration of your NAS that will cover the main leveling: network administrator account, security or even activation of services.

For the network, the first advice is to "fix" your IP address. That way if something goes wrong router after a power failure or problem allocation DHCP you can always find your device on your network. The local IP address assignment via DHCP is done growing. If your box has the address 192.168.0.1 the first device that will connect to 192.168.0.2, the second 192.168.0.3 etc ... To avoid a conflict of IP address assign a very remote - 192.168.0.150 for example - so that a unit does not come to a conflict of IP devices.