[Gllug] External USB HD recommendations

[Andrew Farnsworth]

Bob Giles wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-12-03 at 12:56 +0000, John Hearns wrote:
>   
> John et al,
>
> I should add that whilst looking into these drives I have seen other
> similar drives that aren't advertised as NAS but merely drives
> accessible via ethernet. Lacie make more than one and I definitely
> recall seeing another in Maplins in West Thurrock when last in the UK.
> That was only 500Mb (only! How blase!) and was clearly the end of a line
> in a battered box. I didn't buy it!
>
> Bob G
Bob and everyone,
  I have to say that I have used several of these devices and they all 
suck.  I tried to think of a more politically correct way of saying it, 
but I can't, they suck.  Hooked up to USB, they perform "OK" but hook 
them up to ethernet and they are so slow as to be unusable.  You cannot 
even play a simple mp3 off them they are so slow.  Now, you can buy a 
true NAS device, even one designed for the home / SOHO and it will 
perform fairly well.  Just check out smallnetbuilder.com for reviews.  I 
have the D-Link DNS-321 and it works fairly well.  Not blindingly fast, 
but I can play music, photos, or movies off it without any problem and 
my backups to it run acceptably fast.  Not too expensive either, I 
bought mine for $100 (US $ as I am in the states) empty and have 
populated it with a pair of Samsung 1Tb drives.  I also have a Mac Mini 
with two Maxtor 4Plus external drives hooked up via Firewire and the 
performance to the mac is better than the D-Link but not so much as to 
make much of a difference.

Andy
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