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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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I can tell you I'm much happier with the gigabit backbone than 100. Moving a 2Gb file in a minute or so is just a wonderful thing.
In a mixed environment there's some issues with a NAS. Which is why I switched back to something that is just USB to a CPU. I generally have a central machine anyways so it can just hang off of that.
mymac.com
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All of this may sound like I'm being overcritical, but I've working with NAS devices in a mixed Mac/Windows environment for a number of years, and know many (but not all) of the workarounds and tricks to make things work. The average person who reads all about these neat devices in the Mac (and PC) magazines is going to oooh and aaaah and see these nifty devices as the answer to all their media, backup, and other storage needs. When they get it home, unpack the box, and try to connect it to their network, it's another story entirely. See what someone might have to go through:
1. Use FTP instead of drag-copy to move large numbers of files (especially if they have either long filenames or foreign language characters in their filenames) to reduce NAS firmware crashing.
2. Figure out that if they can't remount the device, to go in via the web server and reboot it.
3. Give up any hope of using it for backups unless they carefully go through their computer and rename any potentially problematic files.
No one, at least no Mac user, is going to tolerate such behaviors. As this device currently operates, it can't even perform one of the main functions NAS devices are known for: storing backups. If it randomly crashes or drops offline while performing a backup, what good is it?
Why is this all happening? I believe it's because this device is a Linux computer that is only partially Mac-compatible. It uses "Samba" file system drivers that emulate the Windows "SMB" file transfer protocols to move files to and from your Mac to this device. It is not using Apple File Protocol (AFP) drivers. AFP drivers are freely available as open source, but most NAS boxes do not use them--probably because memory space is limited and it's one additional integration issue for a very small financial return. So it isn't just this device. Most, but not all, network attached storage devices are like this. There may also be bugs in the device's operating system. I checked Fantom's website, and the device I tested had the latest firmware (2.6.2a-n) installed.
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