NAS or Server... What's the diff.. which is best?

I make a list of priorities and then act on them. Having heard yours, I like the direction you are heading.The Netgear ReadyNAS is a solid product. It hits your hot buttons...good dumbyproof array preformance and has great capability for easy back up routines. Remember...an array increases as you add drives because they hit all drives at the same time and while writting or reading; thus it's best to get the 4x250gb box. The ReadyNAS is packaged with decent backup utilities and comes with a USB port. What my guys set up at my freinds house...(because he lost some of his family digi photos once)...is the ReadyNAS and then we hung an external WD Hardrive and it copies all data to the external everynight. Now if you really want extra security for your data...(in case of home fire ect.)...buy two cheap external hard drives and keep one at the office, then rotate them every week or two.
Good luck with your project and happy listening.
SGS

Sgs

Thanks, I'm sorry I've taken so long to get back here and update things. i hate it when folks just abandon a thread after asking for help and recieving some... it just ain't good manners.

I've gotten so immersed into deciphering a bunch of new accessibility gear of late, including the new Laptop with Vista SP1 on it… I’m swamped… and the painter is coming Tuesday to paint the nearly all redone living/HT room.

I’m leaning towards a lesser expensive NAS than the Netgear unit. The Iomega 2TB unit looks attractive. But I’d like to get it just now without all the drives it supports, and fill it’s bays later as I go along and actually need the space… if they even offer that configuration, that is.

blindjim, just wanted to share little bit of story regarding storage for your digital music. I went with a more consumer (versus enterprise) based NAS drive. I used this to store my over 30K song library. To cut a long sad story short, this drive died after less than 1 year. Luckily I had performed a manual backup to another drive I had. Just out of curiosity, I opened up the dead drive and found a cheap hard drive in there. I learned my lesson and now will only get enterprise type NAS devices and hard drives. I make sure the NAS has good backup and recovery software. By the way, I used to work for a hard drive maker so I know first hand that there is a big difference between what is sold to consumers and businesses. The difference in MTBF is amazing. Spending a little more now is worth it if it avoids the headache that ensues in the event of a failure. Anyway, just my two cents.

Tboooe

Certainly that is appreciated. Thanks.

Budget and inexperience with some of my upcoming plans precludes me diving into a commercial unit. The 1TB Iomega gigabit unit with four 250 gig HDs and a RAID array with mirroring seems the logical choice now.... for me.... under $400.00.... an optional $150 prior to the expiration of the initial years warranty buys 2 more years and adds phone support.

Sure, support is an afterthought or worthless if the unit flat out dies... but it's twice the price for the same 'small business' near server unit... 150D with the same space. I had thought to add the latter or another likewise unit next year, once I'm vested into which and what I will do... add movies, and/or multimedia functions, etc.

I'll bare in mind your exp.