Network Hard drives

[DarrenSV650S]

My laptop memory is getting a bit full so I'm thinking of getting a network hard drive that I can save all my music, videos and pictures on.

Are all the basic ones able to stream music/video through the network ok? And I need to stream everything to the xbox too. Do the hard drives appear as a virtual computer on the network?

And does anyone have any recommendations on what one to get? I'm using about 60GB at the moment

Cheers!!

[Bibio]

nas drives rock. you also get media drives.

if i were you daz, (and i'm not) i would get a media drive.

take your pick m8 there are hundreds and hundreds out there.

[DarrenSV650S]

What does a media drive do that a hard drive doesn't?

[maviczap]

Originally Posted by DarrenSV650S

My laptop memory is getting a bit full so I'm thinking of getting a network hard drive that I can save all my music, videos and pictures on.

Are all the basic ones able to stream music/video through the network ok? And I need to stream everything to the xbox too. Do the hard drives appear as a virtual computer on the network?

And does anyone have any recommendations on what one to get? I'm using about 60GB at the moment

Cheers!!

Advisable to have everything backed up to a seperate hard drive, just in case your lasptop goes bang.

They are so cheap, that I'd go for the biggest capacity I could afford.

1Tb model at Maplins £69.99. Think it's networkable as its got a port.

[Bibio]

has a built in media player so you can view pictures and video on yer telly.

[maviczap]

Originally Posted by DarrenSV650S

What does a media drive do that a hard drive doesn't?

My media player is connectable to my Tv or audio system and it has its own remote control, so I can rip movies to it in DVIX or MPEG4, then I can play them from the Hard drive. Saves carrying round a load of DVD's for a start

[DarrenSV650S]

Originally Posted by maviczap

Advisable to have everything backed up to a seperate hard drive, just in case your lasptop goes bang.

They are so cheap, that I'd go for the biggest capacity I could afford.

1Tb model at Maplins £69.99. Think it's networkable as its got a port.

Yeh I've got everything backed up on a portable 150GB drive. Learnt that the hard way years ago and lost a load of photo's

Originally Posted by Bibio

has a built in media player so you can view pictures and video on yer telly.

Originally Posted by maviczap

My media player is connectable to my Tv or audio system and it has its own remote control, so I can rip movies to it in DVIX or MPEG4, then I can play them from the Hard drive. Saves carrying round a load of DVD's for a start

Ahh. I've been using the xbox to do that but it's not the best having to use the controller. It would be handy to have a remote.
Would I be able to get the audio from the laptop to go through the media centre then out my dvd speakers? Or is that asking too much

[Bibio]

you would just copy it to the media drive. but i think some drives have a 'pass threw' feature.

i just bought an iomega one 124 quid at pc world it is serving 5 pcs in our house along with the tv (dlna) and the xbox 360 so yes they do work (took a bit of fiddling and upgraded software and firmware until all was ok.

but its worth it for freeing up all the other machines of the music and pictures , thereby saving 4 or 5 hard disk upgrades

[DarrenSV650S]

Originally Posted by amarko5

i just bought an iomega one 124 quid at pc world it is serving 5 pcs in our house along with the tv (dlna) and the xbox 360 so yes they do work (took a bit of fiddling and upgraded software and firmware until all was ok.

but its worth it for freeing up all the other machines of the music and pictures , thereby saving 4 or 5 hard disk upgrades

Is that the 1TB one? I had a look on their site but there's bugger all information for the products