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R7800 Hard Drive Options
I have been using a Netgear R7800 router for about a year and have had no issues with it. I haven't dug into the additional features or this equipment but would like to start using it to help with b...
Good question, but I'm afraid there is no right answer or one-size-fits-all answer.
This is a personal choice and monetary questions actually, as well as how do you intend to use it?
In my case, first I already had the drives, both USB 2.0 and 3.0. They were attached to our PC's. 2 and 4TB WD's self-powered. Neither was really being used fully. That drove me to putting one on the router was I had some DVD's I ripped and put them on the drive and was sharing them from my PC to the iPad's and SmartTV. Only problem, PC had to be on all the time, so I moved that drive to the Router, made it easier for me. I also backed up from the PC's our pictures. We do make local backups on our 2 main PC's and occasionally I'll move one to the USB router drive as well. Basically the drive is used access only, and not being written to it most of the time, only rarely. It works for me at a minimum cost.
Many people actively use the drive it seems. As far as I can tell, if you are going to 'actively' use the drive, a NAS is the way to go, mostly because of access write speed. Sure storage space is larger, but so is the cost.
I suspect on a NAS you can get better control of access as well. We do have guests and family that connect to the LAN and I've password protected the main drive and created a share for the video's anyone can use. I'd have liked to password protected them too, but many DLNA clients can't handle that.
Don't forget, you've got 2 USB ports on most routers, and at least in my case I can have 2 4TB's on-line.
Right now, only a 2TB on the router (USB 2.0, speed is not a write concern to me), I've got about 800GB's of files, 6600 of them. Movies all ripped to other formats, 172 of them in various sizes (some small home stuff from camcorder), about 300GB's. Pictures, 6400 of them for 39GB's. The Acronis backup copies take up most of the space.
Right now I've got a USB 3.0 4TB drive not in use I can add if I need more space.
As I said, your situation might be different. If nothing else, and either you have a drive or want to spend a minimal amount, 4TB External Desktop drives are really cheap these days, might be worth a try. From your description of what you intend to do, it does sort of match mine?
LRBob wrote:Thank you for the response, IrvSp.
Do you have any thoughts on going with a NAS instead of a configuration like I originally posted? I've been contemplating that route for awhile now. The advantages for me would be for more storage space, which could also allow redundancy. We will be storing mostly family pictures and videos on whichever route we go as a means to backup those files as well as share them on the home network.
If I had things like photos that I did not want to loose then I would go with a NAS solution. While the router will support a HD on USB there is no redundancy, so if the drive fails, unless you are also making another copy somewhere you have lost things if the drive fails. I started down the HD on USB path then switched to a Synology NAS with mirrored drives. More expensive solution, but better protection of things you do not want to lose.
Thanks for that info as well. I think I'm eventually headed towards a NAS, but I'm going to start with the external HD option for now. We are cable cutters, so we stream from various sources, mainly Netflix, on a Roku and an Xbox. The NAS would also allow us to stream more content, which would be a nice option in the future. For now, though, I'll go with the HD and see how that goes.