Buyers Guide
In this section we will recommend our
favourite products for different categories of user. Not everyone needs
blistering performance or every feature under the sun, while for others speed
and capacity are everything. Hopefully you'll find the right NAS for you with
the help of our recommendations.
Novice User
Although setting up most NAS boxes is not
difficult, k it still requires a degree of knowledge and technical acumen.
Manufacturer Dane Elec has identified the need for a truly plug-and-play NAS
box and has satisfied that demand with its MyDitto products. Available in a
number of capacities, the MyDitto provides an ease of access we have not seen
matched by competing products, as it is facilitated by a unique 'key' based
method for installing and accessing the product. Simply attach your My Ditto to
a router, power up the device and plug in the included USB key device. An
application will autolaunch from the key and it will automatically log into
your server without need for further configuration. The MyDitto software is
displayed in an FTP-style configuration, with one window pane reserved for your
local files and the other showing files on your server. You can then simply
drag and drop the files you want to use into your desired folder on the local
drive.
Despite its position as a product clearly designed
for novice users, the MyDitto still offers a wealth of features. An iTunes
server is included, as is the UPnP and DLNA functionality necessary to stream
media to Xbox 360, PS3 and other dedicated media centre systems. The MyDitto
also houses a BitTorrent client, which will please serial downloaders. There's
even an application for iOS and Windows Phone users that allows you to remotely
access the information stored on your MyDitto.
The MyDitto is designed to facilitate
additional users by use of extra keys. These can either be purchased separately
(two are included as standard) or you can turn any USB pen drive into a MyDitto
key by plugging it into the box's USB port and pressing a button.
You can't have everything, however. Even
when connected to a gigabit network the MyDitto isn't the speediest of NAS
boxes around. The 13MB/s write speed and 24MB/s read speed are slow compared to
speedsters such as the Synology range of products, and at $297.6 it’s pretty
expensive for a 1TB variant. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a NAS solution
and don't want the bother of complicated administration, this is a great
choice.
Feature Rich Single Disk NAS
SYNOLOGY
Disk Station DS111 NAS enclosure
If you don't need to serve more than the
3TB of data and redundancy is not important to you, then you can get a number
of affordable yet feature-packed NAS enclosures. One such device we were very
impressed with was the QNAP TS-112. At $192 without a drive, this box is
affordable and accommodates any standard 3.5" desktop hard drive. In terms
of performance, it delivers a read speed in excess of 70MB/s over a gigabit
network, and a write speed of around 65MB/S. If you're still struggling with a
NAS from a couple of years ago, this QNAP product is likely to deliver five
times the speed, because the performance of processors and the amount of RAM
installed within contemporary NAS devices has been greatly improved.
As is usual with QNAP products, the TS-112
is brimming over with features. The usual music and video streaming
functionality is handled with aplomb, while print serving and FTP features are
joined by support for BitTorrent and Emule P2P clients.
QNAP even provides a Dynamic DNS service
that will allow you to connect to your box over the internet using a proper web
URL, in the format of http://thenameofmynas.mycoudnas.com. As your home IP
address changes, the NAS pings this change up to the DDNS server at MycloudNas,
updating the link. An application called 'QMobile' can be downloaded onto iOS
or Android devices and be used to play photos, music, and video files that are
stored on the NAS. There's also a handy feature called 'Multimedia Station',
which presents all the video, music and photo files stored on your NAS in an
easy to browse web-based format. This makes sharing photo albums and music
effortless, whether you're accessing them locally or remotely over the
internet.
A competing product to the QNAP TS-112 is
the Synology DS112J. At $182.4, it's competitively priced against the QNAP and
provides almost all the same features, including the DDNS server. In our
testing, it too was extremely rapid, offering read speeds of around 70MB/s and
write speeds of a little over 50MB/s. It's therefore marginally slower than the
QNAP, but the included software is arguably more intuitive.
Regardless of which of these exceptional
products you choose, we are confident that you'll be delighted with the
performance and features they offer.
