Home Media Storage., External Hard Drive or NAS Options

[Ishta2000]

I just purchased a Netgear 3700 modem/router and I would like to hook up either an external hard drive or a NAS device to it.

The router has 2 USB ports which makes buying an external hard drive much easier. I am looking for suggestions please.

Budget is about $250 to $300 max and I would like around 2-3TB of data storage.

I would like to be able to store all my videos and Music on the devise and access it from my Home Theatre (Samsung TV and/or Blu Ray player) as well as from my smart phone (android) and laptops.

Can you please help with suggestions or recommendation and can you please explain why/benefits of each.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

[ninjacatfish]

I currently have a 2TB USB hard drive hooked up to my router (Apple Airport Extreme) The router shares the hard drive over the network via AFP and SMB, so any compatible device can view and read the files.
I've got my Apple TV jailbroken with an app to play media straight from the drive wirelessly, similar I have an app for my iPhone/iPad to do a similar thing. All full PCs I have can access the files as well.

With your TV and BR player, I would imagine they probably will need to have a media server running to be able to access the files. Most TVs/BR players/game consoles I've used weren't able to access network directories directly, but only through a DLNA media server. Depending on your router, it may have a DLNA server built in, and if that's the case, all you need to is hook up a USB drive, set it up and you're golden.

If your router doesn't have a DLNA media server built in, you'll probably need a separate device to act as a media server, either a small form factor PC, or probably a NAS or something similar.

It's really up to what features your router has with file/media sharing, and what features your TV/BR player have to access those shared files.

[EDIT]
If you need a media server for your TV/BR player, and would prefer not to have your PC on all the time, might be worth looking into a Tonido Plug. I haven't used one myself, but they look like quite capable little units, and they use very little power compared to having a PC constantly on to be a media server.

This post has been edited by ninjacatfish: May 23 2012, 08:47 PM

[Ishta2000]

I currently have a 2TB USB hard drive hooked up to my router (Apple Airport Extreme) The router shares the hard drive over the network via AFP and SMB, so any compatible device can view and read the files.
I've got my Apple TV jailbroken with an app to play media straight from the drive wirelessly, similar I have an app for my iPhone/iPad to do a similar thing. All full PCs I have can access the files as well.

With your TV and BR player, I would imagine they probably will need to have a media server running to be able to access the files. Most TVs/BR players/game consoles I've used weren't able to access network directories directly, but only through a DLNA media server. Depending on your router, it may have a DLNA server built in, and if that's the case, all you need to is hook up a USB drive, set it up and you're golden.

If your router doesn't have a DLNA media server built in, you'll probably need a separate device to act as a media server, either a small form factor PC, or probably a NAS or something similar.

It's really up to what features your router has with file/media sharing, and what features your TV/BR player have to access those shared files.

[EDIT]
If you need a media server for your TV/BR player, and would prefer not to have your PC on all the time, might be worth looking into a Tonido Plug. I haven't used one myself, but they look like quite capable little units, and they use very little power compared to having a PC constantly on to be a media server.

Thanks Ninjacatfish appreciate the help. Turns out my router/modem does have DNLA so its all good. I forgot that it was one of the reasons I bought the router in the first place LOL.

Cheers

[ninjacatfish]

No problem! Hopefully setting up the router's DLNA stuff is pretty straightforward, good luck!