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by dint of. Kirk McElhearn, Macworld.com

As more homes get multiple computers, more homes need some type of reticulated storage. With netting storage, you can share symphony files, videos, and photos among machines; send files back and from retirement; and implement a backup strategy.

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A USB drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station or a Time Capsule wireless drive can handle the backups—assuming all the machines in your house are Macs. But if you require a central repository in spite of your family’s iTunes library, or a impute where everyone can share files without pillaging one another’s hard drives, or if your home network has both Macs and Windows machines, those two Apple solutions aren’t enough.

Network-attached storage, or NAS for short, could be what you need. It can handle a wider range of storage chores than either an AirPort-connected USB be impelled or a Time Capsule can.

Network Storage Options

AirPort plus USB Hard Drive Time Capsule Network-Attached Storage Can supply external storage Yes Yes Yes Can be used for Time Machine backups Yes Yes No Can be used for other backups Yes Yes Yes Individual user accounts and permissions No No Yes Can specify user and group permissions for multiple folders No No Yes Supports FTP No No Yes Can share by Windows PCs Yes Yes Yes

NAS has been commonplace on liberal enterprise networks for years. But this technology be possible to also have a place in the home (or small business), providing always-on storage notwithstanding Macs and non-Macs alike. NAS is inexpensive and surprisingly easy to set up and exercise. Compared with the cost of buying every Mac in the house its own external drive, NAS can be cost-effective, overmuch.

How It Works

NAS involves more than just attaching a hard airing to a network: NAS devices are really mini toothed servers. Running an embedded operating system (usually some cast of Linux), they give you full control over users and permissions. Most dare more services as well: some support FTP, virtually all work with both Windows machines and Macs, and many can function as iTunes and media servers, too.

Many major storage and networking vendors sell some form of NAS (sometimes called network hard drives).

NAS for the Home

Product List Price Storage Capacity Wireless Networking Gigabit Ethernet USB 2.0 Ports iTunes Compatible Built-in FTP Server RAID Apple Time Capsule $300-$500 500GB–1TB 802.11n Yes 1 m No No Buffalo Linkstation Live $180–$370 320GB–1TB No Yes 1 Yes Yes No Iomega Home Network HD $149–$300 360GB–1TB No Yes 1 No Yes No LaCie Ethernet Disk mini-Home Edition $150–$250 500GB–1TB No Yes 1 Yes Yes No Linksys NAS 200 $150 N/A No No 1 No Yes 0, 1 Maxtor Shared Storage II $200–$650 500GB–2TB No Yes 2 Yes No 0, 1 Netgear ReadyNAS Duo $400–$650 500GB–1TB No Yes 3 Yes Yes X-RAID Synology Disk Station DS107 $380 N/A No Yes 1 Yes Yes No

For the purposes of this column, I chose Synology’s Disk Station DS107+ and bought a 500GB hard disk to go with it—which provided enough room to back up four Macs and serve up a moderately sized iTunes library. The Synology is compatible with both Mac and Windows, can use external USB or eSATA disks, automatically backs up to any external disk, have power to moil as one iTunes server, and is accessible via FTP.

Whichever NAS device you choose, you connect it by way of Ethernet (most, but not all, are equipped with Gigabit Ethernet). Few, on the supposition that any, NAS drives are wireless. You can connect the device directly to your router, to a switch or hub, or equable to the Ethernet larboard of the latest AirPort Express. You can then stash it out of sight.

Setting Up NAS

Many NAS devices come with their own preformatted hard disks. Others are empty shells into which you install your own disks. The Synology is one of the latter. If you’re using one of the empty shells, you can fill it with any internal drive; a 500GB hard disk costs less than $100. Hardware ceremony of induction is not difficult—all you need is a screwdriver.

Software setup is simple, too. Like many NAS devices, the Synology uses a Web-based interface for configuration. A half-dozen wizards walk you through the processes of adding users, sharing folders, and more. Ideally, you should set up an account for one and the other person who will access the server, then set up individual folders for each, adjusting permissions as necessary. You’ll also want to create a public folder in favor of sharing files.

Setting up permissions for shared folders is as easy similar to checking a few boxes.

Once you’ve set up the drive, it should appear in the Finder’s register of shared devices (at smallest under Leopard). If it doesn’t, you have power to mount the shared folders by typing the IP address of the server (Go: Connect To Server will obtain you to the correct dialog box), then selecting a folder. If you set a fixed IP address for the NAS device in its network settings, you can make aliases of your folders after you mount them for the first time, and stash them somewhere—the desktop, say—for easy access.

With aliases to the server’s folders on your desktop, you can access the folders more with celerity.

Copying to and from an NAS device is not lightning fast; generally, these devices work well with large files, but copying lots of small files can be a drag. In utmost cases, you won’t be copying a lot of files at once (except, perhaps, for your first backup) , so this won’t be a problem. Also, as with any server, the more users access the device, the slower the access speeds become. Although the Synology DS107+ can treat of 32 concurrent connections, other thing than a handful of people copying a lot of files simultaneously can slow things down. If you have a big race or a midsize office, you’re better off with a again powerful NAS unit or a stand-alone server computer that handles file serving.

In addition to sharing files via the Finder, you can moreover connect to some NAS devices by way of FTP. This allows you to connect to the NAS when you’re not at home. If you prescribe up port forwarding in your router (FTP generally uses port-wine 21, limit you be possible to make different this in the NAS device’s configuration; penetrate your router’s contribute assistance for knowledge on port forwarding), you can connect to the device securely from any location using FTP over SSL.

One of the principally adapted to practice uses for NAS is with regard to backups. Although you can’t use this type of device for Time Machine backups (which require disks formatted in HFS+), you can still run backups of the place of abode folders on all your Macs. You can use almost any backup software by an NAS device, as long as it supports network volumes.

Ideally, it’ll likewise support incremental backups: that way, though the first backup could take a slack time, subsequent backups decision be much quicker. If your software allows it, schedule these backups so every one Mac backs up its home folder every day. Think of staggering your backup times, however, so they don’t all copy at the similar time, putting more stress on the NAS device and slowing down copying even more. (For real security, you’ll in etc. want some kind of offsite backup.)

[Kirk McElhearn writes about more than just Macs at Kirkville.]