Teach me!

[Beeeyeee]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You plug it in

 

Run a little program that finds it

 

Then you manage it with a web interface.

 

Then you can map a drive.

 

It will always be on, but it only pulls about 10-15w and will spindown drives when not needed.

 

You can access it anywhere if configured to do so.

What kind of program do I need to find it?

web interface as in an IP address thing? Sorta like accessing your router?

okay good to know:)

will that program let me configure it to be accessed remotely?

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You plug it in

 

Run a little program that finds it

 

Then you manage it with a web interface.

 

Then you can map a drive.

 

It will always be on, but it only pulls about 10-15w and will spindown drives when not needed.

 

You can access it anywhere if configured to do so.

Does it pull 15W even when the drives are spinning?

[Electronics Wizardy]

9 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Does it pull 15W even when the drives are spinning?

more like 30w when in use.

[Beeeyeee]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

more like 30w when in use.

Yeah 3.5" hard drives use ~20w each under load. Idle they don't use anything. 

[Mikensan]

I think you (OP) and the other poster who asked for an explanation have a general understanding, but the purpose of a NAS is to make files (of any type) accessible on your local network. The differences in NAS's are additional features such as letting you run Plex directly off of it so you can stream movies to your TV / phone / PC. 

 

On a normal NAS, you get a cable to plug in to your router/switch. Some pre-built NAS's will give you a CD to install some software to help your computer communicate to it. If you are savvy enough and can figure out the IP address of the NAS you can just go to http://ip.address.of.nas... From there you can set it up and enable any features you might want (like plex). The prebuilt NASs like QNAP/Synology will teach you / walk you through how to set it up and access it (either from your local computers or over the internet).

 

Products like Synology/QNAP are great because configuring them is very user friendly, and often reliable. They also offer a great deal of features. The only limiting factor is they cost more money and don't usually have a strong processor.

 

People who want to host a minecraft server, do heavy plex transcoding, or are interested in file integrity on the next level, would start recommending things like FreeNAS/unRaid because you can set them up on any computer (there are recommended specs for each). If you just want to share files (or access them from say work), maybe stream 1-2 movies, and maybe automate some torrent downloading - prebuilt NASs are great.

 

**Not to mention, if there's any issues you do get warranty with pre-builts.