Is there any benefit to having a stand alone NAS if your router supports a USB hard drive?
A NAS can hold a lot more stuff. Also, a NAS like mine has some sort of RAID situation going on that protects against data loss if a drive crashes. NAS's do a lot of stuff that a USB stick does not do. If you don't need those things, then fuck it.
And then sharing it on the network my using my routers USB port as opposed to spending $300 more on a standalone NAS.
Sure, but that thing still doesn't do RAID. Also, how much does your router let you configure the network shares for the drive? I can do all sorts of configurations on the NAS using CIFS, FTP, SMB, HTTPS, domains, read only, user accounts, storage quotas, etc. Routers usually just give everyone on the network full access to the drive.
Sure, but that thing still doesn't do RAID. Also, how much does your router let you configure the network shares for the drive? I can do all sorts of configurations on the NAS using CIFS, FTP, SMB, HTTPS, domains, read only, user accounts, storage quotas, etc. Routers usually just give everyone on the network full access to the drive.
To the configuration page!
Also, I'd like to note that you should always comb through a new router to confirm the default settings. I bought an ASUS RT-N56U and it has IPsec blocked by default. I use Csico VPN for work and got a support call at 3:30am when I discovered that the VPN just would not connect. After a half hour of troubleshooting I ended up on the floor of my living room plugged directly into the cable modem troubleshooting the client's problem. Then after fixing their issue spent another half hour going through each menu of the router till I found the setting that caused the problem. Wasn't fun.
I have PFSense running on an old computer as my router, which effectively makes it an enterprise class router. There is nothing I can't do with mine. I have a real DMZ that is isolated from the whole rest of the network.
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To the configuration page!
Also, I'd like to note that you should always comb through a new router to confirm the default settings. I bought an ASUS RT-N56U and it has IPsec blocked by default. I use Csico VPN for work and got a support call at 3:30am when I discovered that the VPN just would not connect. After a half hour of troubleshooting I ended up on the floor of my living room plugged directly into the cable modem troubleshooting the client's problem. Then after fixing their issue spent another half hour going through each menu of the router till I found the setting that caused the problem. Wasn't fun.