Hey guys.

I'm using Canola at the moment to access music, pics and video from my desktop PC but I'm getting annoyed at having to have the computer on ALL THE TIME. So I'm thinking about getting a NAS and putting all my media on that.

If I do, will I be able to access the files through my 770?

It'd be great if I can, would be like a primitive media server for the whole house!

I see no reason why not.

I am aware of plenty of desktop NAS solutions that deliver a NT server type share (CIFS), the bigger business type devices deliver CIFS and NFS, I don't think the cheapo ones offer NFS.

If you get a NFS box, you just have to configure the NAS to export a directory, then set up the N770 to mount that storage

If you have to use a wintel type device, look for the post by fanoush in this thread http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...?t=2487&page=2

I can personally recommend the Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ NAS. It is an excellent, enterprise class NAS and also has a lot of support for media streaming. It support CIFS (windows), NFS, AFP, Webdav and ftp. It also supports iTunes streaming, uPnP and a bunch of other media streaming protocols. It has a wide variety of raid options, including a proprietary type which allows you to grow the volume size over time without loosing data as higher capacity drives become available (important to us people who work with big media files or who have a lot of computers to snapshot backup). The NV+ comes with some pretty good backup software for backing up PCs and the NAS itself can be backed up to an external USB HDD, to another ReadyNAS or can use rsync to sync the data to an offsite backup solution. It also can act as a print server. Highly, highly recommended. Unfortunately, since being purchased by Netgear, you can no longer buy the units bare and they seem to charge 2-2.5x market pricing for their drives. If you really want to load it out, the best way is still to buy it with a single low capacity drive and then swap in 4 higher capacity drives purchased aftermarket. The beta firmware available will support the new Hitachi 1 TB hdd's too.

Thanks for the info guys.

The ReadyNAS option seems the best way to go, but looking around on the web, they're big bucks (£750+) which is a bit more than I really had in mind.

The sort of setup I was hoping for was to be able to view shared network files (Kept on the NAS) from my 770 and then click them so they play in the 770's native media players (As you can when browsing shared folders in Windows).

As far as "CIFS, NFS, NFS Boxes and Wintel type devices" go, that means nothing to me, you could be talking German for all I know! lol Sorry, I'm not too bad with computers but that's going way over my head.

Food for thought though!
Cheers

The NSLU2 is $80 and works like a charm. Mine runs debian and serves DAAP, UPNP, and NFS. There are lots of howtos on the nslu2-linux wiki, making this a very good NAS to buy.

Glossary:
CIFS - Windows' file sharing protocol. Most NAS's will support it out-of-box. Nokia tablets can do it with extra software, but I haven't tried that.
NFS - network file system. Faster, better, unix way of doing it. Nokia provides the necessary kernel modules in a package you can apt-get install. Google for maemo nfs. You'll probably need to enable it on your NAS manually too. Again, google.
Daap - iTunes6 sharing protocol, readable by canola (and itunes7). Run mt-daapd on the NAS to serve it.
Upnp - Universal Plug-n-play. An increasingly popular Micros~1 protocol supported out-of-box by N800 file manager, media player, etc, and on 770/2006 using Nokia's "Media Streamer" app (and maybe other programs in os2007he too). Run gmediaserver on NAS to serve it.

re: "you could be talking German for all I know!" The difference is, google can teach you 'bout this stuff quicker than german, and we can help you here without using german but not without some TLAs

HTH

Hi.
I have used this kind of NAS during last 6 months: LaCie Ethernet Disk mini
Gigabit Ethernet & Hi-Speed USB 2.0. It is quite cheap and reliable ( now it have uptime ~ 4 months, no reboots or anything else needed). It is very easy to configure (web interface) and because it has own uPNP server Canola and Media streamer find it directly when uPNP server is on.

Hannu

Just to confirm, are you saying I can place all my media on the Lacie NAS and stream it using Canola/Media Streamer while keeping my computer switched off?! Sounds that way, and I like what I hear!!

And the 500Gb unit is only £130, which is a great price for the features I want.

I have a Thecus N2100 up and running on my network. I have found the support to be excellent for this product usually within 24 hrs of contacting them. The user community is pretty good as well and several modules have been added to the user support forum. Only complaint is that this device is not quiet.

I have the TwonkyMedia module installed on the Thecus N2100 and my N800 via Canola and PSP3 see it with no issues.

I tried going the route of mounting using Samba and Cifs which seemed to work OK but once I started playing with TwonkyMedia I just stuck to the uPnP route and haven't gone back.

Ok, I'm REALLY keen on the uPnP enabled NAS idea so I've been looking around a bit. In particular I'm looking at the Western Digital MY BOOK World Edition NAS drive, as it has all the uPnP goodness and it will also let me have remote access (Orb style?).

Has anyone tried this, or got experience with this device?

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/pro...sp?DriveID=319

For what I want, this is pushing all the right buttons for me!!

Yes. That is how it works. BTW I read the Western Digital MY BOOK World Edition NAS drive user manual and it did not mention uPNP server functionality. So I think that you should confirm that before purchasing.

Hannu