I'm looking for a NAS for my home office - useful when you're always on the road, for backups and remote access. I was initially going to buy the Western Digital My Book but the reviews scared me off.

I was almost settled on the Lacie ethernet but was surprised to find out that it does not allow backups through remote access, which is the main purpose why I am getting such a device (I'm not home very much).

Which NAS do you use?

http://www.amazon.com/SimpleTech-SIM.../dp/B000799LU4

That unit does not support remote access or at least not backups through remote access (or if it does their site does not make mention of it, as far as I can tell). Also, max size is a paltry 500GB....

I have a Koolu server running Ubuntu with a 1.5 TB external USB drive. Samba shares are used for Time Machine and Windows access.

A Ubuntu server with an SSH connection to the outside world.

No, it doesn't. But you asked "Which NAS do you use?"

good point

Thought I would share my solutions with you:

1. Home PC(s} on battery backup and BIOS set to restart PC after any extended power failure.

2. Home PC running Logmein. (FREE!)

3. Both home PC and laptop set up with shared data directories using Syncplicity (FREE up to 2 GB)

When I am on the network with both machines, I sync large directories with pictures, movies, and music with a neat $29.95 utility called Synchromagic. My collection of current documents, spreadsheets, etc. I keep in a C:\DOC folder on both machines. Old stuff I keep in an Archive directory. By keeping the C:\DOC directory under 2 GB, Syncplicity keeps both my laptop and my desktop in sync all the time with no effort on my part for free. 2GB is a lot of data and I don't have any problem keeping it under that limit.

If there ever is anything that I need on the desktop that I don't have on the laptop, I log onto the desktop with Logmein and put a copy of the needed file into the C:\DOC directory - or just read it off the desktop while logged in.

An added benefit is that I also have an offsite backup of my most important files stored on their secure server. If my laptop were to die on the road, I could call up any file on the desktop from any PC with an Internet connection.

I should add that the paid versions of Syncplicity ($99/year for 40 GB) and Logmein ($69/year with added features of file transfer and remote printing) are well worth the money for people needing those features and I have clients using them who are very satisfied.

On a final note, the throughput of the NAS devices that I tried a year ago was very low. With the arrangement that I am using, I just use a Seagate 500 GB external USB drive for automated on site backup.

Awesome setup, thanks for sharing!

I realise a NAS can be slow but I'd leave it in my parents' house as an automated backup solution for them too so a separate storage unit is needed anyway, so I thought I might as well get a NAS. As I need to backup large (video) files the 2GB wouldn't be enough and I'd have to pay $70 per year (plus perhaps for Synplicity) which quicly makes the cost of a NAS (the Lacies I looked at were under $300) quite attractive..

A couple of questions:

1. How big is a typical file that you want to transfer?

2. What upload speed do you typically have when you are traveling?

You can guess what I'm thinking...

I use the QNAP 209 Pro with western digital 1Gb hard drives.

I use the maxtor mybook world, 1TB bought it for 169$, can be had for about the same today.

It allows remote access (through pay plan or third party hacking) and remote automation. I haven't had ANY problems, and the reported speed problems, I haven't really seen. I can transfer 7GB of data in about 10 minutes, which is fine with me on the 1000MB LAN.

I also use iomegas storcenter products, they continue to run nicely. I haven't sunk any money YET into a DROBO or MSFT HomeServer (although, I DO run the software on one of my pc's) but might in the future. With 4TB of current local storage and 100GB of remote, I'm pretty set as it is.

MS HomeServer hasn't taken off anywhere; Drobo is a kludgy two-device approach (direct-attached drive+server attachment) that makes little sense unless you already had or want a Drobo.

Iomega StorCenter is good. Better choices: Netgear's ReadyNAS line (Duo or NV+). Or, a lesser known brand, Synology, or Buffalo. I think all of these allow some level of remote access...

It didn't help that they were stuck with a device that had a known data loss bug for 7 months. I was an early adopter of the WHS concept, but after losing backups and vital files for the third time, I put the piece of crap up on Ebay.

So far, the best solution I can find is a good old XP machine.

Just curious why you get so much better performance than the ZDNet guys who found that it took 30 minutes to transfer 5 GB of mixed file types, using the 500 GB Mybook World. Did your test use just a few large files?