Inquiry: NAS or Wireless drive

[geoff29]

Hi people of the LTT community,

 

New guy here with a noob question. Can someone help me with choosing between a NAS and a wireless drive? My target devices would be a WD MyCloud or a WD Passport Wireless Pro. I will just be using it as a storage of videos and such for streaming at home. Decided to research on this topic as my current setup at home is a smart TV (LG w/ webOS to be exact) with an external drive hooked to it and I would like it if I can still watch some movies off of the drive while still being used by other people -- so I need the drive to be connected to a network.

 

Some of my inquiries would be:

- is one faster than the other taking note that I will stream from the drive through wifi? (well, I would still fill the storage device using a USB cable for faster transfers)

- will I be able to stream a single video file simultaneously thru different devices (ie, watching Rick and Morty S02E01 through my iPhone and my sister's laptop; most of my files are 1080p H.264 and some H.265)?

- what should be the proper hardware specs (number of cores and RAM size) for a media streaming drive?

 

So in conclusion, I would like to hear your thoughts on this (like pro's and con's between the two network storage) to help me decide on which of the two to choose? Also, if you know a better option about other brands and stuff would be nice.

 

My budget would be between 150USD ~ 180USD

 

Does my inquiry make sense? Hopefully.

Am I asking too much? Lemme know.

 

Thanks in advance guys!

 

 

Cheers,

Geoff

Edited February 9, 2017 by geoff29
forgot to mention my budget