External drive attached to router vs. NAS

[absinthe]

I just purchased an Asus RT-N56U "Black Diamond" router, and would like some advice on the best way to set up network storage.

The router has USB ports allowing for an external hard drive to be attached. Obviously, this would be a bit cheaper than purchasing an NAS, so if this will accomplish everything I need it to, this would be what I'd prefer to do.

I have both Macs and PCs on my network. So, with the attached drive (let's say it's formatted NTFS), will I be able to write files from my Mac to this drive? Does the router perform some kind of magic that will allow this?

This particular router will run an FTP server so that files can be accessed via the Internet. So I don't necessarily need an NAS for that functionality.

Another thing I might be interested in is streaming media. I have a Micca player (no networking capability) as well as a Roku. I spend *lots* of time copying files to an external flash drive, which I plug into the Micca at the TV to play videos. I'd love to find a way to skip all the copying and just stream. I do have a Roku box, but I don't think it actually decodes files. I guess I'm sort of confused about how streaming works -- Does the file get decoded at the source and then streamed? Or is it streamed and then decoded by the device receiving the stream? (Does that make sense?)

BTW, the new Asus router is on order so I don't actually have it in hand yet.

All advice is appreciated!

-abs

 

[Zap]

I don't know about whether Macs will work with it, but it won't be very fast because you'll be limited by the USB 2.0 HDD connection.

 

[VirtualLarry]

chances are, he will be limited by the router's cpu before the usb2 interface.

I have a NAS on gigabit, and it maxes out at 13MB/s, far short of either USB2 or gigabit.

 

[Old Hippie]

I just purchased an Asus RT-N56U "Black Diamond" router

Man, that thing looks nice.

I have no need for wireless anymore but I may have to get one just........because. 🙂

AAR, I've never read anyhting good about USB ports included with routers (very slow).

Let us know how the router works out.

It sure looks/sounds good!

 

[zuffy]

I was getting only 3-4MB/s using my Netgear 3700. Using your router for NAS is a poor's man version of NAS. Get a real NAS or build one if you want to stream content.

 

[paperwastage]

had the RT-N16 (roughly the previous generation of the RT-N56U)

Loaded with Tomato (better than the stock firmware)

usually, since these are linux based firmwares, people get better speeds with EXT3/4 drivers attached via USB

I get roughly 3-8MB/s streaming from the hdd.... top shows that cpu usage on the router isn't really maximized... i think the bottleneck is from ntfs/ext3 drivers on the router along with USB chipset bottlenecks

Able to set up DLNA on the router to playback stuff on my Seagate Freeagent+ (connected via ethernet)

Unfortunately, looks like DD-WRT/Tomato support for RT-N56U isn't in the pipeline

@VirtualLarry, 13MB/s sound like 100mbps instead of gigabit... what NAS did you use?

 

[Blain]

NAS all the way on this one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

@VirtualLarry, 13MB/s sound like 100mbps instead of gigabit... what NAS did you use?

NS-349, aka "Gigabit NAS" (The official name, I guess)

 

[fteoath64]

Yeap, a proper NAS means a Qnap or Synology device that have features and performance you would want. Router based NAS devices are just good for occasional backups and casual small file sharing. Copying video files are areal pain due to very slow speeds. Good luck.

 

[absinthe]

I've come across a review of this router (RT-N56u) at smallnetbuilder which clearly states that "A key difference [in the RT-N56u] from [some other router] is that the USB sharing feature supports SMB file sharing as well as FTP. So shares will show up via network browsing with any device that supports SMB."

I guess the thing to do would be to format shared discs as Ext3, or even as Mac OS Extended. Wouldn't either of those be better than NTFS or even FAT32? I don't see FAT32 as an option due to file-size limit.

I'm still thinking of just getting a NAS, btw.

 

[Railgun]

You`ve got one more option...

External drive attached to your server (or internal for that matter). I`ve done that in the past and have had quite good speeds. If you have an external enclosure that has an esata interface (presuming you have one on the server that`s available as well) then you`re good to go. Else, you can use USB as well, but performance just isn`t there for USB.