if this is for back up only, it will work great... but if you wanna stream from it, get something better (speed vise)

#1, exactly. Basically in a nutshell, if you want to use this as a NAS, don't buy this. If you are buying it for direct attached storage, then this is fine.

Any recommendations for a better NAS?

I bought a unit from Buffalo, and it's a little faster than a floppy drive when used as NAS, but not by much. Just painful.

And they had the unmitigated gall to put a gig network connection in it.

I wouldn't recommend the Buffalo NAS to anyone.

Great for backup, not a bad price either, if you ned that much space.

Netgear ReadyNas is pretty good if you don't mind paying more.

good price good drive

We use a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ in our home office and it is awesome. Only downside was the cost, but what the hell it's a write-off.

Wow the Netgear ReadyNAS is around $1k .... I suppose I don't need a fast NAS after all.

No doubt the ReadyNAS is not cheap, but it is very powerful. I purchased the 1TB flavor (2x500GB) and dropped two more Seagate 500GB ES (Enterprise) drives into the box. The ReadyNAS automatically expanded the volume (XRAID) and now we have 1.3TB of redundant online storage. I have four users set up with their own shares as well as a couple of collaborative shares and media streaming shares. The thing just works and if there is ever a problem with the system or HDDs (temperature, fan, SMART HDD issues, etc.) the ReadyNAS emails me so that I can take corrective action. I've also got an APC UPS hooked up to the box and if we lose power and the UPS battery runs low, the NAS will email me and then shut itself down gracefully. It's a really well designed piece for small business users IMO.

BigPlaya your right that is the best option then for a small business requiring an NAS...especially for multi-users working simultaneously.

Thanks for the write up!