NAS Enclosures.

[Captain Chickenpants]

Anyone know of a NAS enclosure that will also act as a Mass Storage Device.

What I want to do is hook a big hard drive to my XBox360, which I can copy stuff onto via the network. That way I can rip my DVD's onto the harddrive so that the Xbox can play them and then clear a bunch of space from my shelves.

Any ideas?

CC

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Nobody?

 

[Ty]

Infrant, that's the one I'm considering. They make a variety of them and seem to do well under testing.

I'm not sure of the protocols you need but I'm pretty sure you'll be OK with an NV+

 

[digitalwanderer]

Sorry Chickenpants, best I can add is "What is a NAS?".

 

[Blazkowicz]

Can a xbox 360 access a NAS? I thought it could only read video on a lan from a Windows Media Center PC running server crap in the background, with limitations regarding what you can play (no divx).

You'd better build a media PC (sempron, geforce 6100, micro ATX : that's cheap and low power), put a 400GB HDD in it, run a linux distro (geexbox?) or whatever OS that can play video, and you're done.

 

[Ty]

NAS = Networked Attached Storage.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Can a xbox 360 access a NAS? I thought it could only read video on a lan from a Windows Media Center PC running server crap in the background, with limitations regarding what you can play (no divx).

You'd better build a media PC (sempron, geforce 6100, micro ATX : that's cheap and low power), put a 400GB HDD in it, run a linux distro (geexbox?) or whatever OS that can play video, and you're done.

That is why I want a NAS that can be accessed as a mass storage device over USB. That way the Xbox uses the USB and the PCs in my house can access it over the network.
I dont want a PC in the living room. I already have PVR and HD functionality with our cable box. Plus video on demand.

 

[Ty]

That is why I want a NAS that can be accessed as a mass storage device over USB. That way the Xbox uses the USB and the PCs in my house can access it over the network.
I dont want a PC in the living room. I already have PVR and HD functionality with our cable box. Plus video on demand.

Oh, so the NAS would be attached to your X360 via USB?

Uh, sorry, don't think those exist. NAS' use good ole ethernet AFAIK. You might get by with a Linksys N (pre) router with "storage link" which allows you to attach an external HDD via a USB port to the router.

Or did I get you wrong?

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Yeah thats the impression I am getting.

My current plan is to go to Just an external HD, and then at a later date plug in a Meda Streaming NAS device. The latest firmware for the QNap TS-101 claims to support streaming video over network to the 360. But I think I will wait until they come down in price and have matured a bit first. Wouldnt want to spend the money and then MS disable the compatability (although I dont think they will).

CC

 

[Blazkowicz]

a PC could be your cable box, with the appropriate tuner cards (unless your cable company doesn't want it to work, I don't know. I've never seen cable TV in my life )

It's a matter of, do you want the hassle (or conveniance) of dealing with a PC, or the hassle (or conveniance..) of dealing with the various "fixed function" boxes. I'll go the PC route.. the day I have a living room

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

The cable company doesn't want you to go that route. I did look into it a while back and I haven't seen anything that suggests they have changed their mind.

They pair the decryption card with the CAM in the box so that it can only be used with the box. You can get programmable CAM's but to program it would involve having to take apart our cable box which I don't really fancy. The programable cams are quite expensive too.

Plus the actual functionality of the cable box is surprisingly good. Not only does it act as a PVR, but we get video on demand (both SD and HD content). It has three tuners so we can record two things whilst watching a third. It has it's issues, but considering they only introduced the box at the start of this year, it has been reasonably stable for me, other people look to be having issues on the forums but I am mostly ok.

 

[Ty]

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I'm fine with our Cable Company's PVR but am/was looking forward to building a HTPC to handle all PVR functions, including recording media to a NAS so I could stream programs to other rooms.

However, the recent news about how Cablecard will work in PCs leaves me disappointed and looking for another solution. It looks like it won't be as easy as just putting on into your own PC.