Reddit mentions of Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo 2-Bay Diskless Enclosure High Performance Network Attached Storage (NAS) - LS-WVL/E

I am currenty using a Buffalo Linkstation with 2 4tb Seagate drives and have had no issues. Setup was a breeze and it comes with a "wake on lan" feature ensuring the drives arent spinning when not in use.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008DWAGPG/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The best option for having network storage be backed up is to use a NAS device which is capable of mirrored RAID; with this solution, all data is stored on the device is written to two drives rather than one (unlike Time Machine in which your computers actively compute copies of each file to transfer).

Some examples of NAS enclosures capable of mirrored RAID are the Lenovo IX2, Synology Disk Station, and Buffalo LinkStation Pro. In all cases, you can choose two of any drive which conforms to your sizing needs.

Any further questions, don't hesitate!

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B008DWAGPG/


|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||




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Basically you buy a NAS based on your needs (for me I got a Buffalo with 2 3tb HDD's for under $350 shipped. With that you could build a 6tb storage device or a 3tb with raid 1. I went raid 1 so if one HDD fails I'll likely still have 1 functional HDD as backup. The buffalo also has a USB so you can attach another external hdd to access if you need a bit more space.

You attach the NAS to your modem using a standard cat5 cable to one of the empty ports in the back of the modem (mine had 4 or 5 available). From there you can access the NAS just like it was a hard drive from any computer on the network.

I put a roku in the bedroom (optional only needed if you're on a TV instead of a computer) and installed the Plex app and can now view any movie/music/show on the NAS in the bedroom using the roku's remote. In hindsight I probably should have gone with a raspberry pi but a roku is great for less savvy people.

Sorry if any of this info is less techy than you're looking for and feel free to ask questions I'll answer them if I can.

If the primary focus is just photo viewing, then go with a low cost all in one NAS unit. There are some low cost ones that will give around 60MB/s reads and 30-40MB/s writes, which is more than enough for media consumption.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DWAGPG/

If your router offers FTP access for USB storage, you can even use that (especially since many modern routers are now offering samba, FTP, HTTP, and DLNA access to USB storage, which works great for sharing media over a home network, in addition to remote access.

If you want an entirely cloud based solution for free, and don't have too many photos, and if they have a smart TV, you can set up a flickr account and crate a private album (though in that case, you are at the mercy of flickr, and the random changes that they like to make (often which will break compatibility with some applications.

I personally prefer the NAS solution, and current use it to share photos and media with family, though I am using a more crappy NAS for that purpose, and simply link the 2 netwoks together using a VPN server running on the router to allow only local traffic, that way their WAN access will not be route through my network.