Get yourself some 4TB NAS!

Over the last few weeks I have been researching NAS-drives for central backups. The Apple TimeCapsule initially sounded promising, but not really relevant in my case, as I already have a wireless-N router. So I stumbled across the Synology CS407:

The device is about the size of a toaster and weighs in at 2kg. Most appealing is that it supports up to 4Tb storage and Raid 0, 1 and Raid 5 configurations. Amazingly, the little device also functions as an iTunes server, streams audio and video content via UPNP and is DNLA compliant – perfect for my PS3.

The features are too plenty to mention: File Server (CIFS, FTP and AFP), Print Server (LPR, CIFS, AppleTalk), FTP Server, iTunes Server, Web Server (with PHP and MySQL), Multimedia Server (UPnP for music, photo and movies) and Download Server. The later you should really check out – schedule your HTTP, FTP and BitTorrent downloads remotely and the CS407 will download all content for you.

The CS407 is rather price (R 5,500.00 without any storage. 1TB drives go for R 2,500.00 each). I will probably consider getting the DS207+ instead (around R 2,500.00 without any storage, but same features as the CS407) – only limitation is a maximum of 2TB:

The most compelling features I would like to use are the iTunes server, the media-streaming, the download manager and using the device as a central backup-device.