i know that most nas boxes offer raid configs but access drives as individual units

i have 5 sata drives of different capacities all with data on and want to stick them in a nas

also do any nas boxes have a passthru ethernet port as i only have one port on the pc and need to connect both the nas and the router

thanks

PastEgo

The QNAP NAS boxes have dual gigabit ethernet ports. They also allow you to plug in an external hard drive enclosure via USB and copy the content across. Downside is that they are more expensive than (say) the single-port D-link NAS, but then they are much better and more capable, too.

But if your router has a built in switch (most consumer grade units do) then you should be able to plug both the NAS and PC into it. Or if its a single-port router, a cheap 4-port switch placed behind it might be the go.

i know that most nas boxes offer raid configs but access drives as individual units

i have 5 sata drives of different capacities all with data on and want to stick them in a nas

also do any nas boxes have a passthru ethernet port as i only have one port on the pc and need to connect both the nas and the router

thanks

PastEgo

NAS devices may let you use drives of different capacities, but they will then be addressed as different drives within the NAS unit. Beware you may also have to reformat your drives as some such as my Buffalo Terastation use a Linux format. This same NAS unit lets you have either 4 separate drives, 2 pairs of drives (which may be mirrored for reliability, or all drives formatted as 1 big drive (very fast but least reliable) . To use the best mode (Raid 5) the drives should be of the same capacity.

Also as stated by others you should be able to connect both your PC and your NAS to the router. Connecting the NAS direct to the PC will require a crossover cable.

If you have not bought a NAS unit you may like to look at using an old PC with the NAS2Lite software

This software converts any old PC in to a NAS unit which will let you mount your existing drives in an an old PC and give you everything you want including dual gigabit ethernet ports if you wish, by using cheap or 2nd hand PC hardware.

a 4,5 or 8 port switch would be the best solution to your problem

unless the NAS NICs were bridged you would have routing overheads