Upgrade your home network with a media-streaming, backup-ready NAS box - dotsonposelver
If your home network lacks a NAS box, you'atomic number 75 missing unfashionable on two counts: Prime, mesh-attached store (NAS) is the easiest agency to back up attached PCs. Second—and more agreeably—a NAS box seat can store your media libraries and stream files to any PC or networked audio gimmick in your mansion (examples include devices in the AirPlay, NuVo, and Sonos merchandise ecosystems). You can also stream your favorite movies and digital photos to your smart TV (or to your unarticulate Television receiver, if you have a flowing box or home-theater PC connected to it). Better NAS boxes make unaccessible access thinkable, thusly you can access your stuff from—and stream your media to—whatsoever twist anyplace you have Internet access.
You needn't pay big bucks for an expensive multibay pose designed for small businesses, either. Would you buy a Lamborghini strictly for driving to the corner fund? Blackball a spectacularly successful PowerBall encounter—probably non. Follow the selfsame principle when shopping for a NAS box. One caution: Though single-bay NAS boxes are cost in force, they provide nobelium data redundancy. If you store anything on them that you can't afford to lose or can't ray-create, back them up.
A call for simple, $200 NAS contenders
With frugality and practicality in in beware, we exsert a call for reasonably priced ($200 operating room less) NAS boxes that put up at to the lowest degree 1TB of storage, support remote access via the World Wide Web (ideally with mobile app support), and can act as both iTunes and DLNA-certified media servers. Tetrad vendors stepped up to the plate: Buffalo Engineering science with its LinkStation Live; LaCie with its CloudBox; Seagate with its Central; and Western Digital with its My Book Live.
The hardware configurations tested to beryllium surprisingly quasi: Each box uses a 3.5-inch mechanical petrous drive, a gigabit ethernet interface, and an external AC adapter; and each is about the size of a sensitive-format trade soft-cover book. However, all manufacturer added widely different features and amenities on exceed of the hardware. You'll find the nitty-gritty details at the close of this article.
Buffalo LinkStation Vital
Buffalo's LinkStation Live ($140) is a capable media streamer with the strongest feature set of the four boxes we looked at. Unfortunately, it fell cancelled the stride in copying files, its UI was rather slow to react, and configuring many of its features—including remote access—proved to be less than illogical.
The 2TB LinkStation Ringing delivers distributed folders, user accounts, workgroup and domain support, AFP and FTP file sharing, and—of course—iTunes and DLNA-certified media servers. You also get BitTorrent downloading, desegrated Eye-Fi service (so you can copy photos from your digital camera to your networked storage exploitation Wi-Fi), Flickr integration (so you can mechanically upload photos stored in a designated pamphlet on the LinkStation to your Flickr history), NovaBackup (for backing up PCs to the box), an along-board workaday to hindmost up the LinkStation's files to other locations, and unaccessible access via BuffaloNas.com (where you stool manage and share files via the Net).
Like the LaCie CloudBox, the LinkStation Live will automatically unconcealed uncomparable of your router's ports for remote entree, provided that your router supports UPnP port forwarding. If your router doesn't, you'll have to do information technology yourself. (The LinkStation Springy expects to use port 9000.)
Buffalo's box was the second fastest in our roundup at handling a 10GB mix of files and folders, writing them at 17.5 MBps and reading them at 29.9 MBps, but the LinkStation Live's performance with our voluminous 10GB file fell fountainhead below the curve: It wrote that file at 22.7 MBps and read it at 49.1 MBps. On both operations, that's a good 10 MBps slower than the performance turned in by next slowest drive.
Altogether was well on the streaming front line: The unit spooled our 40-mbps, 1080p files to ternion PCs with nary a hitch. It was besides the only box in the roundup that transcoded MKV files on the fly, and so they would play in Windows Media Thespian via DLNA. Information technology didn't list playable WAV files in iTunes, but otherwise that server was adequate to snuff. You should consume none qualms all but using this social unit to stream movies around the house.
In setup and constellation, the LinkStation Live was the least user-friendly box we examined. Happening the strange hand, it lacks nothing in features and it streams really nicely. Users with the subject chops, or the patience to learn some spic-and-span skills, could sweep with the American bison product.
LaCie CloudBox
The LaCie CloudBox is a icy white, Neil Poulton-premeditated rectangular a NAS boxful that looks nice alongside iMacs and the like. IT is passing white, however, indeed it testament jump against black A/V equipment. The 2TB CloudBox can be tricky to configure for remote approach, but it boasts top-notch features, good all-or so performance, and carries a moderate price of $150.
The CloudBox runs the full version of LaCie's Dashboard OS, which the company has gradually crafted into a feature-tasty oblation. In addition to foreseen features such as user and shared folders, FTP, and workgroup, you'll detect a BitTorrent node and a broad browser-settled file manager. The CloudBox ties with Western Digital's My Book Live for best backup features in this quatern, starting with a translation of Genie Timeline for the PC, Intego for the Mac, and boxwood-to-box backup via rsync (so you tin plump for up the contents of the NAS box itself).
Out of the corner, the CloudBox is ripe to break along your local network. If your router lacks UPnP (Universal Plug-n-Play) port forwarding, however, you mightiness require to configure it yourself to get remote access—and that can be a challenge. (In most cases you'll find a router's embrasure-forwarding settings under its play features: Forward port 8080 to the CloudBox's IP direct.)
The CloudBox performed well in our tests. Both the DLNA and iTunes servers functioned perfectly, and the unit effortlessly streamed our 40-mbps video to three PCs simultaneously. File-transfer public presentation was real good for a scummy-priced box, and the CloudBox took first place on the labor of reading our 10GB premix of files and folders, with a speed of 33.7 MBps. IT wrote those files at 16.5 MBps, and it wrote and read our single 10GB file at 31.6 MBps and 63.5 MBps, respectively.
LaCie provides dedicated remote-access apps for iOS and Android devices, but not for Windows Phone 7 or 8. The app isn't as attractive as Seagate's handsome Dashboard OS, only it does the business. For Windows Phones, you can use a one-third-party DLNA- or iTunes-compatible node such as cPlayer (for Windows Phone 7 and 8).
LaCie is unequaled among the tetrad manufacturers represented here in offer a free 10GB/one-year subscription to its own Wuala online storage help. Tote up that to the BitTorrent client, plus redeeming performance and looks, and you have an all-just about enthralling take in a household NAS box.
Seagate Middlemost
The Seagate Halfway is the vainglorious elementary of NAS boxes. Wholly you have to do to to set it up for outback access code is to surfboard to the unit's contour page; enter your name, email address, and password; and so respond to an email message that golf links to a create-an-account page. Your name becomes your local net login, your email address is your inaccessible login name, and your password whole kit and caboodle for both. Information technology may take 30 minutes or so for everything to propagate, but one time it's done, it's done.
You can role the included Splashboard software to open the aforesaid configuration page (Dashboard too takes care of PC backups), or you can manually breaker to the unit's URL. Seagate automatically maps the Midmost's public folder to drive Z in Windows Explorer, which displays the Universal resource locator. Removed access is via Seagate's SeagateMedia app for iOS, Android, and Provok, Beaver State a Tappin-powered website where you can bring off, manage, and portion your files.
Thanks to its fine mesh palpebra and perforated base, the Central sheds heating plant without needing a fan. The social unit's near-silent convection cooling, plus its quiet parkway, means that you prat plop the Central next to your nursing home-theater setup without adding considerable noise. On the other hand, the Central's decidedly retro resemblance to an older telegraph or DSL modem may not be welcome in your living room.
Priced at $170, the 2TB Center is the solitary unit in this roundup that comes with a USB port. The port is for storage only, but any drive you attach will appear on your network as a ramify shared folder, so you nates copy files thereto as you would to any former network resource. The Central is an always-on device with no power button; but as is true of the other boxes' drives, its drive spins down when not used, to economise power.
Seagate developed a shield-shaped and easy user interface for the Central. Basic features include device setup, user accounts, and enabling or disabling remote access and the multimedia servers. One feature allows you to back off happening the Central whatever pictures posted to your Facebook account—but that's it for frills. Though the Dashboard software backs up PCs to the box, it doesn't provide any means to back risen the box itself. That's a major omission for a single-embayment NAS box, given its deficiency of data redundancy.
The Central performed well in our tests, but it displayed some files in iTunes that wouldn't flirt (tracks encoded in Ogg and FLAC), and it failed to showing some WAV files that iTunes is capable of performin. To its credit, the box seat streamed our enlarged 40-mbps video file simultaneously to three PCs, without a hiccup; and it was the solely entrant in the group that served up Ogg Theora video.
File-transfer performance was real good for a low-priced NAS corner, registering 16.9 MBps while writing our 10GB mingle of files and folders, and 20.1 MBps while interpretation them. It did even better with our large 10GB file, writing it at a roundup-superior speed of 40.3 MBps and reading information technology at 75.2 MBps.
Effortless setup and quiet streaming make the Seagate Central a specially expert fit for A/V systems. Then again, we want that it had an on-card self-backup capability, BitTorrent support, and the power to interface to more than social sites than fitting Facebook.
Western Digital My Scripture Live (1TB)
WD's My Book Resilient isn't conspicuous in whatever one exceptional region. Only taken as a full-page, it achieves the best balance of performance, features, and price ($140) in the roundup. It besides delivers the easy outside accession setup that the LaCie and Buffalo lack.
The My Book Live, same other NAS boxes, can be accessed ended a local electronic network without any configuration—just plug it into your router. But WD has created useful shares (publicly shared folders) that make life easier. In that respect's a public share, with euphony, film, and video subfolders; and there are shares dedicated to backups (including Time Political machine Backup for Mac users and WD's own bundled SmartWare). For mount functioning the box itself, WD provides an on-control panel routine that creates "safepoints," which are much like Windows Restore Points, but constitute a full backup.
WD supports most video recording codecs—except for Ogg Theora—and the My Book Live's streaming performance was smooth as silk. We did encounter a minor glitch with the WD's iTunes host that created listings for unplayable WMA and WMA Lossless files. On the some other hand, this was the only drive of the four that transcoded FLAC files for playback on a customer PC linear iTunes. If you're an audiophile, you probably have a player than can support those files natively. Other people in your household might not be as picky, or they mightiness prefer the casualness of Apple's player.
The My Book Ringing performed passing well overall, though it struggled to a higher degree the other trinity drives when version our 10GB mix of files and folders, delivering throughput of just 16.4 MBps. Conversely, it was considerably faster than any former box when piece of writing those same files, clocking in at 26.9 MBps. Go figure. And the My Book Live excelled with the single 10GB file, writing IT at 32.4 MBps and reading it at 77.1 MBps.
WD has the optimum app insurance coverage of any of the foursome drives we proved, with versions of its WD2go media player for iOS, Mechanical man, and even Windows Call up 7. You force out as wel demonstrate remote access exploitation a browser, via WD's slickly-rendered, Java-founded www.wd2go.com.
My Book Live delivers the best overall experience
The Seagate Central's superquiet operation, speed, and USB port make information technology a particularly proficient accommodate for an AV frame-up, though Seagate might cause made it yet more appealing by adopting a Thomas More modern look. The LinkStation Last is a viable media streamer, just it lagged behind the rest of the subject in single file imitate public presentation and relief of configuration. The LaCie CloudBox performs well, has a nice have set ahead, and is a fortified product at a nice price. At last, however, Western Integer's My Book Live delivered the best compounding of low price, performance, features, and alleviate of setup and use. That earned it the extra half-point information technology needed to adopt the top spot.
Feature sets
| PRODUCT | Capacity | USB port | Online storage | Backup computer software | Remote access | App hold |
| Old World buffalo LinkStation Live | 2TB | No | Atomic number 102 | NovaBackup (PC) | Local/portal | N/A |
| LaCie CloudBox | 2TB | No | Yes: 10GB for one class | Rsync (for NAS fill-in), Jinni TimeLine (PC), Intego (Mac), Time Machine back | Local/hepatic portal vein | Android, iOS |
| Seagate Bicentric | 2TB | Yes | No | Seagate Dashboard (no provision for NAS backup) | Local/portal | Android, iOS, Kindle |
| Western Member My Book Live | 1TB | No | No more | Safepoints (for NAS backup), WD SmartWare, Time Machine support | Local/portal | Android, iOS, Web, Windows Telephone set |
How we tested
We careful each box's file-transfer performance by copying first a 10GB appeal of small files then a single 10GB file (a read test). Then we copied those files back to the NAS box seat (a write try out). We repeated each task several times and so averaged the results.
We paid special care to each box's still of setup and apply, media-moving capabilities, and remote access. To evaluate media capabilities, we used the media server surgery servers (DLNA and/surgery iTunes) on each box to stream medicine and telecasting encoded in various file formats to iTunes, Windows Media Participant, and XBMC running connected Windows clients. We besides streamed 40-mbps, 1080p MKV files to three separate PCs simultaneously, to test each box's power to serve duplex users at once.
Picture codec support
| PRODUCT | MP4 | MKV | AVI | WMV | FLV | Ogg |
| Buffalo LinkStation | Yes | Yes (extra feature: transcodes for Windows Media Player clients) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Nobelium |
| LaCie CloudBox | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Nary |
| Seagate Central | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WD My Book Live | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Audio codec support
| PRODUCT | MP3 | WMA | WMA Lossless | M4A | M4A Lossless | Ogg | FLAC |
| Buffalo LinkStation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| LaCie CloudBox | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Seagate Amidship | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WD My Book Live | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Note: The file formats traded in the charts above indicates the box's power to stream a format, not the client's ability to play it. XBMC and iTunes can play sound streams encoded in Apple Lossless, for representativ, but Windows Media Player cannot. Windows Media Player, meanwhile, is incomparable of the few media players that dismiss handle WMA Lossless tracks.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/451613/upgrade-your-home-network-with-a-media-streaming-backup-ready-nas-box.html
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