It's pre configured with the common shares and if you copy the files in the proper folders it's very, very simple to use.
Best nas 2015 for mac install#
Pros: very simple to install and work with, includes a Media Server and a iTunes server that can be used to share music and videos across the network.
Yesterday I installed a Western Digital MyBook World Edition, 1 TeraByte, single disk. Documentation and community support are satisfactory. It has a BitTorrent server built in, but again, i haven't used it.Īdministration is very easy (web based), setup is not difficult, but there are several steps to add disks, format them, create a RAID array, create a mount point, enable the services (AFP or SMB) to access. Other iTunes support is available (an iTunes/DAAP server called Firefly), but i haven't used it. I use MediaRover to sync iTunes libraries, and this works fine. For this reason, i don't do this, i use Carbon Copy Cloner to run to a disk image (dmg) every night. Time Machine backups are a little more complex, involving creating a Sparse Bundle (which is not the official method). I use the SMB shares to stream to all the computers in the house, and there is no problem. Works fine with Macs and PCs - and for this reason i use SMB shares rather than AFP. Software RAID is reliable.Ī key point, if any of the hardware dies, the RAID array can be rebuilt when the software is installed on new hardware, unlike some proprietary solutions (NAS or RAID cards) where you may be tied to a particular vendor and/or model, which, after time, may not be sold/available.
Best nas 2015 for mac full#
I love the ability to grab an old computer, fill it full of cheap hard drives, and install Freenas on a CF card or USB drive.
For more technical information on this, see the Find Any File FAQ, What kind of disks do support "fast search"? In particular, it supports Spotlight and fast file searches ( CatSearch), something that other NAS systems cannot do as well: They usually use a Linux system with netatalk and an ext3 file system which, compared to AFP with HFS, are not optimized for the ways a Mac can search.