Thinking of getting one as a file/media server, and retiring my Windows 2008 file server.

I'm hoping that I can set it up to snapshot to an external USB disk once a week (for off-site backup).

Anyone here used one, got any thoughts?

We had a couple at work and they seemed to run pretty hot. Luckily they live in the apps room so they're air conditioned. We've used them as temporary storage, user migrations and the like.

If you're after something to use as an all encompassing media server and don't mind spending more money then ReadyNAS, ReadyNAS, ReadyNAS. The best bit of Netgear hardware I've ever bought (even though it was made by Infrant).

Hmm. That's quite a bit more money. We're into "why not just use a normal PC?" territory.

Basically, I'm looking for always-available NAS, with the ability to do snapshot backup to an external disk periodically. The ability to snapshot my laptop (and Jenni's laptop) would be good too, but I've got her fairly well-trained to save important stuff to the shared drive.

I figured that since the WD ran Linux (although it's only got 32MB RAM, so couldn't run my web server, unfortunately), it'd be fairly hackable to do what I need.

I'd prefer something silent, with low power consumption. Then I could run my web server on something mini-ITX-ish, and turn off my Windows server when I'm not using it.

IMO, the WD products really shine here. I have two MyBooks (not NAS) and I can't hear either of them when right next to them.