QUOTE]Maybe I missed something, but I only see one computer in the mix. If this is the case it could be easy to give you the protestion you are looking for easlily and cheaply. [/QUOTE]
There are going to be multiple client machines, workstations and laptops who will be sharing this. I would like to also set up external access to the shared files to access photos and other items if needed.
The first few boxes were Tritton SOHO NAS. This box worked very well but went out of production. An early Maxtor Shared Storage failed. Now I have a Maxtor SS2 with GE. This box has an USB port to connect a backup drive.
The Linux based DLink DS-323 seems very popular. Do you have any experience with it? The only requirement it does not fulfill is the USB to backup, though I presume it can be hacked (USB is primarily avail to be a printer server).
This seems like a good device but a bit over my budget ($200). (twice as much as the DLink).
Windows Home Server. This is the exact set of problems that WHS was designed to address.
Maybe without justification, but I think I will try to stay away from MS products for this one, I know that you cannot group them all in one bucket, but between Windows updates, viruses, etc, I prefer to keep the NAS on Linux or other open-source.