Good storage for media?

Question

I currently have two regular USB drives to store all my media (audio/video/images).

I'm thinking about "upgrading" my media storage facility to something more usable:

• Hopefully does not need a computer turned on, but can use one if available
• Is remotely accessible and manageable
• Handles synchronization of data (may serve as a backup storage as well)
• Is at least cold-swappable

The main problem with the current status is that the disks need to be close to a turned on computer to be of any use, which is a pain when you mostly use a laptop.

In other words, no remote access, no direct playing of the media, no automatic (ie, without having to use a third party backup or synch tool) synchronization between the disks and my computers' disks.

I'm aware of these 'media drives' that address most of the issues, but I wanted to know if you know of one that solves all of them and also to hear experiences about how do you manage this scenario.

Answer 1

I use a DLink DNS-323 for media storage (photos mostly). It's always on and mapped to a drive so any of 5 home computers (1 mac, 4 PC's) can upload to it. It's on a wireless network so all the laptops can access it. I think it supports rsync too.

It's pretty much just 2 hard drives with a gigabit ethernet port.

Answer 2

Sounds like you want NAS

Answer 3

You may want to look into a NAS device. One that comes to mind for your usage if the Linksys Storage Link. They are pretty cheap and designed to attach USB drives. Sounds like it would be a great fit for your needs.