----Installation----
1) Purchased the enclosure with no drives so just the nas-m25 stand alone.(£145)
2) Purchased 2 x 2tb western digital green drives (£170)
3) Plugged the drives into the Nas-m25 (mind numbingly easy to do this)
4) Ran software which came on a disc with the Nas-m25 (It is called utility). This will get everything ready and formatted in a few clicks.
5) The software found my drive and mapped it so it is visible in my computer, I repeated this on 3 machines (windows vista, 7, xp) no problems.
6) I changed the default password for security.
7) Web/local network config page which you will be shown how to do and given a link for your browser. If you are impatient and want to get there yourself in Firefox, chrome type in this "192.168.0.2" or "192.168.0.3" or "192.168.0.4" and so on until you find yours. I had 3 computers connected at the time of setup so my nas-m25 ip was 192.168.0.4.
---edit august 2014 ----
If you have to reset your psw on the back of the router dont worry you do not loose your data. But you may need to re-enter your workgroup name and importantly share your folder if you want to be able to access it from your pc.
---edit august 2014 ----
Installation took about 30 minutes and about 20 clicks. It is really easy and I expect my mom could do it (Assuming she knows how to open a file from a disc)
Copying 1.5tb of data takes about 15 hours.
I can also wirelesly connect this nas-m25 to my lg 42 inch tv which has dlna enabled. The TV recognises the NAS and I can play any video, pictures or music I want from it remotely upstairs which is SUPER cool and useful.
This also works on ps3 which has DLNA built in.
----Setting up raid 1-----
Do you want to backup everything you store on the NAS automatically with 5 minutes of work? Then read on.
In the web config I set my 2 drives to use "raid 1" which just means that 2 x 2tb drives becomes 2tb of usable space and whatever I copy to this space will be stored as a mirror image on both drives.
If one of the drives dies, I will still have access to this data(it works great!). I suggest you try this yourself at the start to make sure it is working.
----Raid 1----
1) Add 2 drives of equal size or you will only have the amount of the smallest drive available. eg: 2tb + 1tb = 1tb of usable mirror space.
2) Set raid 1 in web config
3) Copy some files to nas-m25
4) Switch the Nas off and pull out a single hard drive.
5) Test you can still see your files in web config.
Of course you will only have 2tb of space if you do this instead of 4tb but hey at least your data is backed up easily. Your choice.
I highly recommend you try this before you start loading all your precious data on it.
I recently upgraded to 2 x 4tb western digital red disks as I ran out of storage (I use this thing for everything!). These red discs have more durability and are better suited to always on NAS environments and generally last longer. Installation was exactly the same as above and I was very glad that everything worked great. The only difference is that I did format these drives in windows first so if you have any problems you might wanna try that but it will probably work by just plugging in straight out the packet :)
| Brand | ASUS |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 12.9 x 21.1 x 12 cm; 970.69 Grams |
| Item model number | NAS-M25 |
| Manufacturer | Asus |
| RAM Size | 512 MB |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 3 |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 971 g |
