NAS Compares Recommended Small NAS Drive for a Mac Home?

Choosing the Right NAS for Home and Family

We are a home with all Apple devices and need a backup solution. There is an iMac, 4 MacBooks, and 4 iPhones. There are also 4 iPads, but those have never been backed-up on the past. We have been using a Time Capsule but it is maxed out and they are no longer selling larger version. We would love to be able to file share, as accessing old photos and videos then send to my kids at school is a massive pain. Sharing of our iTunes library would also be great. We don’t necessarily need a dual drive unit if we can copy to an external device once a month or so via USB. I was looking at the WD My Cloud, but they apparently don’t offer that anymore and the My Cloud Home is getting horrible reviews. Now I’m looking at the Synology DS218, but I am no IT person so I’m concerned about set-up. Any thoughts?

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[fredbert]

I think the recommendation is pretty much where I got to ... and why mine is a DS218+


The issue with shared iTunes, and always has been, is that the application is a single user architecture. It's easy to split the iTunes Media folder (where the actual music, video, and podcast files are stored) but the real control and what's presented within iTunes comes from the iTunes Library file (.otl).

An iTunes Library file cannot be controlled by two or more Macs running their local iTunes.app at the same time. If you want to share the library file then only one Mac can be running iTunes at any time. That's no a realistic situation with multiple people.

On all devices that advertise iTunes servers they are really saying that stored media (and I've only ever got music to work) will be advertised and available for iTunes.apps on Mac/Win. This media isn't accessible within iOS Music app nor on Apple TV. Even if this is useful to remotely play music on Mac/Win you still cannot then select and sync this music to iOS devices from those Mac/Win iTunes.

You are better off maintaining the full music library on the NAS, using iTunes server, and also keeping the subset of that music that you want to sync to iOS on the local iTunes library. Doing this could be by keeping these files on the Mac/Win or (deselect keep media folder organised) adding the relevant from the NAS storage.

Managing iTunes is a whole subject in itself and rather off-topic (sorry). I bet it hasn't got much better with Catalina's splitting iTunes into separate apps and, of course, Windows still has iTunes.

 

[WST16]

I never liked iTunes!

 

[fredbert]

I never liked iTunes!

vs WinAmp? It wasn't such a bad deal.

 

[WST16]

I don’t recall using WinAmp! Looked it up. What an eye sore.
I concur, will take iTunes

 

[jeyare]

Sure, all the recommendations must cover:
- level of “tech” experience for the “main” family user, means family admin. Then 2bay NAS is enough for tech beginners. Agree.
- level of internal resources as availability of CAT 5 or CAT5e (and highest) wire for LAN clients. For CAT5 is single 1G port in NAS enough.
- level of WiFi, not just propagated by vendor, but by real conditions. When there is just 2.4b/g/n network no need more than 1G port in NAS.
- level of internet connection, same as for the WiFi, when there is underperform WAN

Thinking twice can save more.