Need help buying Network Cloud External Drive

R

Robben05

Beginner
Hello
For my small interior design business am looking for an external drive which basically works on cloud and i can edit cad files on it from any of multiple systems without the need to download or upload the same file. (Much like google drive). I m not looking for a system for which i need browser to access files. It has to be within explorer (for windows) and finder (for macs).

I googled alot but no review talks about a device on which files can be edited and saved without needing to download.

I came across some iomegas NAS products. But have no knowledge of same. Looking for expert advice.
Thanks in advance.
 
If all your systems are on the same LAN you can easily setup a NAS using rasperry pi (choose NFS over samba file system). If the files are large and in case you require a huge storage capacity I would suggest something like a banana pi with sata ports to connect upto 2tb of laptop hard drives. I use on such setup using a banana pi over a gigabit network and the speeds are good (I don't use it to edit huge files, but rather office files as a part of some content development). I can edit from my multiple systems without having to download and upload it.

But if you want the same to be accessible over internet (outside of your LAN) then you should probably be using something like a pogo plug. I have the latest version of pogo plug, and I find the connectivity choppy sometimes (that's because my home network upload speeds are pathetic).

But with this setup I don't have any sort of redundancy (I really don't need it as I back up the data manually every few hours to drop box). If you value your data more than anything, you should be getting a NAS with a redundancy enabled (don't forget to get the WD red hard drives as your data is just not some movies and music). Experiences might vary regarding hard drives, but WD red gives better enterprise grade back up solution.

Please answer the following question and you can get a lot of help.

Budget
Storage requirements
Up time (If you want 24/7 or just office hours)
Knowledge about assembling hardware (for suggestions to build your own NAS)
Level of linux understanding (don't have to be an expert, should be able to comprehend few instructions to build your own nas with lots of available guides)

Building your own NAS is easier but with few caveats, but it gives a lot of head room to plan for future expansion at a reasonable price (you can use some old hardware if you are tight on budget, but drives should be always reliable)
 
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