Download the software file to your desktop and extract it. Compatible Products: Seagate Personal Cloud products Seagate NAS Seagate NAS Pro. If you have serious storage requirements, and you make protecting your data a high priority, then here are six of the very best NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives for work and play.
Best pgp software for mac reddit. NAS stands for “Network-Attached Storage.” Basically, it’s a way to attach a hard drive to your network and make it accessible to all your devices for centralized file-sharing and backups.
You could also use your NAS to make your files available to you over the Internet, using it as a remote file server you can access from anywhere.
Dedicated NAS Devices
The most obvious — though not necessarily best — way to get a NAS is just to buy a pre-made, ready-to-use NAS device. Head to a website like Amazon and perform a search for “NAS” and you’ll find a bunch of devices marketed as a home file or media servers. Essentially, these devices have built-in hard drives and some basic server software that can connect to your Wi-Fi or wired network and provide a NAS file server. They’re all-in-one solutions so you can just grab a box, plug it in, and start using it.
Generally, such devices can be controlled via a web interface, like your router can be. You can then access the files using a variety of different applications and even run different bits of software on the NAS itself, such as media-server solutions for streaming media and BitTorrent clients for downloading directly on the device. Many types of back-up software can back up directly to the network storage.
Routers With Built-in Hard Drives
Rather than getting a dedicated NAS device and tacking it on to all your other devices, you can actually buy higher-end Wi-Fi routers that come with built-in hard drives. These devices function as your typical network router, but they also have all that fancy NAS server software and a built-in hard drive so you can get a NAS without adding yet another device to your household.
For Apple users, Apple’s AirPort Time Capsule is a wireless router with built-in network storage that Macs can easily back up to and use for network file-sharing. This may be the most well-known type of router with a built-in hard drive, but there are many similar routers available to those not interested in Apple products, too.
Editor’s Note: At the How-To Geek office we use (and recommend) the 3TB AirPort Time Capsule to backup our Macs and the 802.11ac Wi-Fi access is blazing fast everywhere. It’s compatible with Windows as well, although you’ll need to download the Airport utility software to manage it or access the hard drive. Because the hard drive is internal, you don’t have to deal with the slow USB 2.0 speeds that you might get connecting an external drive to another router.
Of course, if you’re happy with your existing router, you shouldn’t need to grab an entirely new one. But upgrading can be a smart idea if your router is older and doesn’t support the latest-and-greatest Wi-Fi networking standards and their faster speeds and lower Wi-Fi interference.
Routers With USB Ports
RELATED:10 Useful Options You Can Configure In Your Router’s Web Interface
Many routers don’t include built-in hard drives, but they do offer something almost as good. Quite a few routers — especially higher-end ones — include USB ports. Plug an external hard drive or even a USB flash drive (preferably not a flash drive if you intend on using it heavily) into the USB port. The router has built-in NAS software that can do the rest, exposing it to the network as a NAS. You can enable the NAS server from your router’s web interface and set everything up.
For Apple users, the standard AirPort Extreme wireless router works this way, offering a USB port you can connect external drives to you. Many, many routers — especially the higher-end ones, as the low-end, bottom-of-the-barrel ones don’t want to splurge on USB hardware and the extra software — include USB ports so they can function as a NAS in this way.
This is often a pretty good option, although it may be a bit slow if you’re using USB 2.0 drives — especially compared to internal drives. You can get much faster speeds if you use a USB 3.0 external drive along with a router with a USB 3.0 port, though. External hard drives can get a much larger speed improvement from USB 3.0 than typical USB flash drives can.
Network-Attached Drive Enclosures
Rather than buying a pre-made NAS or attempting to use your router as a NAS, you can always buy a network-attached drive enclosure. These are dedicated NAS devices with the appropriate server software, designed to be connected to a network. They generally don’t come with any built-in drives. You’ll need to buy an appropriate hard drive (or multiple hard drives) separately and insert them into the NAS to get the storage you’ll need to use it.
These can potentially be cheaper if you can get a decent deal on the hard drives. Or, if you already have some old internal hard drives lying around, you can easily turn them into NAS storage without spending too much. But they’re particularly convenient if you want to insert more than one hard drive into your NAS and get a much larger amount of storage.
Old PCs, Repurposed
RELATED:How to Turn an Old PC Into a Home File Server
Why buy a new device when you can repurpose some old hardware you have lying around? Well, there are definitely some reasons to leave your old PC in the closet — a modern NAS device will consume much less power and be quieter and smaller than that old Pentium 4 you have in the closet.
But, if you’d like to repurpose old hardware you have lying around, you can use a software solution like the popular FreeNAS to turn an old computer into a home file server. This option isn’t for everyone — it’s not even for most people — but this is How-To Geek, and it’s an interesting option for geeks. Heck, you could even turn an old laptop (like that old netbook sitting in a drawer) into a home NAS if you really wanted to!
NAS Devices Built From Scratch
RELATED:How to Turn a Raspberry Pi into a Low-Power Network Storage Device
Better yet, you could even build your own NAS if you’d like to do something geeky. We’ve covered how to turn a low-power Raspberry Pi into a dedicated NAS for your home network. It’s a bit like turning a general-purpose PC into a NAS, but it’s a better option because it’s smaller, quieter, and will use much less power. Raspberry Pi devices are pretty cheap as well, so this could be a good option if you want a little project to take on. You’ll need to provide the storage, of course. But you’ll save money in electricity costs over using an old PC!
Not everyone needs a home NAS. If you don’t feel a need for a centralized home file share or backup location, you don’t need to buy a bunch of hardware.
If you do go this route, be sure to always have backups of your important data so you don’t lose it if your NAS bursts into flames.
Image Credit: Glenn Batuyong on Flickr, Andrew Currie on Flickr, Martin Wehrle on Flickr, Ivan PC on Flickr, Vernon Chan on Flickr
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Your Mac came from Apple equipped with at least one internal drive. Depending on the Mac model you have, it could be a 3.5-inch desktop platter hard drive, a 2.5-inch laptop hard drive, or a 2.5-inch SSD (Solid State Drive). Some Macs, including specific models of the iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Pro, were offered with an additional internal storage device, or at least with room for the end user to add more drives.
But when it comes right down to it, the 2006-2012 Mac Pros are the only Intel-based Mac models that have easily user upgradeable drive space.
If your Mac isn't a Mac Pro, it's likely that if you need more storage space, you're going to go with an external drive.
External Drive Types for the Mac
External drives can be categorized by the type of drives the external enclosures contain, as well as the interface type that is used to connect the external enclosure to a Mac.
This guide concentrates on Macs from 2006 on, which means that external storage options should be able to work with FireWire 400 and 800 ports, USB 2 and USB 3.1 ports, Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt 2, and Thunderbolt 3, the newest of the ports.
Now, any single enclosure doesn't need to contain all of these port types. But if you're buying a new external enclosure, it should at least have a USB 3.1 port, to ensure compatibility with newer Macs (even if you don't own one yet). USB 3.1 is backward compatible with USB 2, so it should be usable on older Macs as well.
When we say that a USB 3 drive is usable on an older Mac, we mean just that: usable. It is by no means optimal. If you plan to use your older Mac for the foreseeable future, make sure that the external drive supports one of your faster connection types, specifically FireWire 800 or FireWire 400; both are faster than a USB 2 port.
Increase Storage With an External Drive for Your Mac
External drives are available for many purposes. They can be used for backup, primary data storage, secondary storage, media library, and even as a startup drive. They can also be easily moved to another compatible Mac, if necessary. This versatility makes external drives the popular choice for upgrading storage.
External drives are available in many styles, including single-drive enclosures, multi-drive enclosures, prebuilt enclosures, bus-powered enclosures (no external power supply needed) and DIY enclosures. And we haven't even gotten to the interface options yet.
Best Nas Drive For Plex
Before you purchase an external drive, use this guide to learn more about the various types of external drives and how they connect to a Mac.
Build Your Own External Hard Drive
Taking a DIY approach and building your own external drive for your Mac allows you to pick the enclosure you like, with the interface you need, and install the type of drive you want. And in some cases, you can do this less expensively than buying a pre-built, off-the-shelf model.
Of course, you have to spend some time looking for the best enclosure for the project, as well as decide which drive you want and where to purchase it, so in the long run, it takes more time than just buying a ready-to-run solution. But, saving money and building it yourself; what’s not to like?
Where to Buy External Drive Enclosures
There are a few sites and manufacturers you can always check when in the market for a ready-to-go solution. https://supernalbot906.weebly.com/blog/best-free-software-app-reverse-phone-number-lookup-for-mac. That's where you buy the external drive enclosure, the drive, and any necessary cables, already assembled.
The advantage is that you end up with a quick solution to your storage expansion needs. Simply remove the drive from the shipping box, plug it into power and your Mac, flip the switch, format the drive, and you're ready to go.
Your Home Folder Doesn't Have to Be on Your Startup DriveBest Hard Drive For Nas
Now that you have an external drive, you may want to consider moving your home folder to that drive, to free up space on your Mac's startup drive.
This is especially true if your Mac has an SSD for a startup drive. Moving your user data will provide a lot of free space on the SSD. But this only works if your Mac is always connected to the external drive. If you tuck your Mac under your arm and hit the road without the external drive, you'll be leaving all your user data behind.
Using macOS Disk UtilityWhich Is The Best Nas Drive For Sonos
When you purchase a new external drive, chances are you’re going to need to use Disk Utility to format or partition the drive to meet your needs. This guide provides details for using Disk Utility.
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November 2020
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