Network Attached Storage Device to replace fixed harddrive shares on a pc

[ant101]

hi all,

I'm Thinking of getting a Fujitsu-Siemens Network Attached Storage Device, it's a 250GB sata harddrive which is is administered through a web browser, and plugged into the local lan via RJ45.
The current pc which is hosting a few share folders for our lan is a bit of a bottle neck due to the pc occasionally going down. So I'd like to have something more stable, always on, and with a better performance.

I'm not 100% sure how the other pc's detect this device on the local lan, in winxp enironment, can someone shed some light?
I plan to have a few ms access databases located on it, as well as 1000's of small text files, plus some html files for local access.
Do winxp machines detect the device as a fixed drive and assign it a random drive letter or assigned letter? Or do you apply a unc format address to the device through the on board gui like //fileserver/myfolder1/

Also, since there is no operating system on the device, do you defrag the device from any winxp machine in the long run?
Can it share mdb file without any hiccups?
How do these devices perform?

 

[repitah]

Can you give us a model number? Most NAS devices are addressed via UNC which can be mapped (use z: \\nasserver\share)

If it's got a web interface, there's a good chance it will have some form of embedded linux OS in it

 

[ant101]

It's this item , Link to Makro
Phoned to find out more, but the guys there were not clued up on it.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

Its prolly just a network share that you would browse to and then map.
From what I remeber those are Fujitsu-siemens storagebird drives.
They do run an embedded linux kernel with a samba share on it.

 

[ant101]

mmm, if it's embedded linux with sharing via samba, then I'm not convinced that this will be easy to configure sharing of an ms access mdb file on this drive.
Has anyone got experience on this?
Thanks

 

[RVFmal]

Storagebird LAN2

 

[repitah]

the embedded Linux is usually a customized kernel specific for the ARM/iX86 CPU and related IO on it. pretty much, their isn't much it can do other than do SMB/CIFS and NFS sharing. Usually the entry/lower end models won't support any form of LDAP authetication (ie: Domain support)

Generally theiy're very easy to use. Slap a drive or 2 in, setup your shares and RAID level and there it goes.

It should work for your MS Access DB, just check for op locking and so forth.

Sorry, I haven't actually looked at that specific product. I shouldn't be much different from the D-Link 323 / Mecer 1-drive NAS / Intel Baxter Creek I normally work with.