Which set-up is better for me?

[wifesabitch]

Right now I have a dedicated Windows computer running as a file server with 3 internal hard drives and one external attached. Now I'm not so sure this is the best way to keep things because things are changing.

I just got a RT-N66U and I'm ditching one of the internal drives for another external drive. So now I have one 1TB and one 2TB internal drives and one 3TB and one 4TB external drives.

Should I just keep them all hooked up to my server computer?
Should I attach my external drives (90% of my media can fit on there) right to the router and ditch my server PC?
Have a combination of both?
Any other better ways of sharing everything?

If it matters here are the hard drives I'm using:
Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 7200RPM SATA2 (HDT721010SLA360)
Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 7200RPM SATA2 (HDS722020ALA330)
Western Digital 3TB My Book Essential (WDBACW0030HBK-01)
HGST Touro Desk 4TB USB 3.0 (HTOLDX3NB40001ABB)

[tipstir]

For several years I did what you where doing using either Windows Server OS or Windows Client OS to manage shared network drives. But the power consumption was getting out of hand. My electric bills rates just too much. Now using the Router USB port for network shares like WD Passport not really a good idea going that route. Best to buy a real NAS as these NAS units primary function is to save power and keep your shares folders on shared drivers humming along.

I use my NSA 325 can handle max of 6TB in there you have many choices you can use both volumes 1 and 2 or use the two as 1. Everyone going to have their own cup of tea there. I use them as two volumes makes it easy. Everything can use them as DLNA Media Streaming no issues no sluggish NAS NPU. Anyway you can have more than one of these devices on your network.

Can be access via Android tablets, Smart Phones an etc. This is really the way to go today. You can always add your WD passport with 3.0 USB support or 2.0 USB support too NSA 325. For you all those HDDs you got you would need two NSA 325 though or choose which one you really need?

So today my Windows Server Shares are migrated to the NSA325 and I can flip off the power on Windows Server Shares and just use the NSA325 with it's own power management. Savings are great for me!

[convergent]

I kind of agree with tipstir... I used to have a big tower computer with a bunch of drives in it running a free NAS OS. It was big, loud, and consumed a lot of power. It also lacked many of the features of the modern NAS boxes. I migrated to a bunch of small 1 drive NAS boxes and liked the more compact setup, but was difficult to manage the mess of cables, power supplies, and drives. I then migrated to a 4 bay ReadyNAS first and loved it. Over time my needs changed and I migrated to the QNAP 6 bay unit I have now, and downtasked my ReadyNAS as backup for primary NAS. They are small, quiet, and power misers. Sorry I have no advice for your specific question, but think that with that many drives a move to a real NAS would be good in the long run.

[stevech]

I went down the same path.. and a 2-bay NAS (4TB total storage) is fine for me.

I wonder what residential users do with these 8TB & bigger NASes? I suppose these folks store ripped videos/movies. I never outgrew 2TB when doing lots of HD TV recordings. But, these weren't feature length movies - and few we wanted to archive for future viewing.

[wifesabitch]

I decided to just ditch the dedicated file server PC (don't know what to do with it now) and just hook them all up to my HTPC.

I will start looking into getting a NAS, seems like a good idea for me. I'm really getting sick of sharing files through Windows for numerous reasons.

Thanks for the input.