i’m using a ds211 http://www.nasreview.org/nas/Synology-DS211 and pretty happy with it
Are there any posts on how to set this up? Tried searching but couldnt find anything…
I just plugged in a USB drive and it showed up in my network. :)
I have been leaning towards a QNAP ts-459U-SP+ for its features and speed. I like that it is dual core and has plenty of RAM. Has anyone heard anything negative about this unit? The redundant power supply version seems like overkill for personal use or is it?
Qnap users, are you connecting over AFP or SMB? I read over on the Qnap forums that AFP is not working properly on aTV Flash.
@ndy, I am afraid you are right. I miss the skills to let my ATV flash recognize the AFP of my QNAP NAS. The AFP does work for my mac, not for ATV flsh. Hence I use SMB on the NAs and AFP on the MAC.
I hope QNAP will repair this
good luck Marc
Thanks Marc for confirmation. :) I hope they update 3.5 soon!
I just got the Qnap ts-459U-SP+ and I am trying to connect to it via smb and having trouble. My NAS automatically shows up as a AFP share and not as SMB. I try to add it manually and it gives me a time out error(60). Any tips? I am overlooking something. :[
I figured it out! I was putting server name instead of ip address.
Synology DS509+
Working with AFP no problems (had to upgrade to beta firmware for afp updates req’d for time machine in Lion. that might not be beta any more, actually: been working so well I haven’t paid attention to see if it was released)
I would HIGHLY recommend ANY Synology product because the software is awesome. The 5 bay RAID units are definitely on the high end, but WELL worth the money, IMO.
I’m using the Lacie 5big raid and it’s spectacular.
A bit pricey, but very pro and stable.
I’m using the Synology DS210+ working with AFP and its fast and reliable. Highly recommend it.
my AppleTV 2 works great with my Synology DS411 Slim i would recommend it any time
Long before I even considered getting a jailbroken ATV for streaming movies off a NAS, I did some research and decided in purchasing a Synology 209 some 18 months ago. Been using it to backup my family’s 5 Macs via TimeMachine, store hundreds of movies, and hold thousands of music tracks. Works great… is very stable, responsive, and keeps the hard drives operating at cool temps. Synology keeps releasing OS updates for all of their NAS models, improving the value and longevity of my investment.
Been using the NAS recently for streaming all of my MP4 and MKV movies via aTV Flash, and it works great. Now, if only James can improve the loading times of saved metadata for my movies, all will be well. 
I’m curious, I have the DS211j and I cannot connect using AFP, I had to use smb. How did you get it to connect? Are you running the latest firmware on your 210j?
I am using a USRobotics NAS “dongle” for external hard drives. Doesn’t do redundancy, but provides decent NAS services, BT client, SMB support, Xbox/PS3 media server, access control And cheap < $80 !
http://www.usr.com/support/product-template.asp?prod=8710
These may be good solutions too - but don’t expect too much
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=2673
UPDATE: Nov 21 – My USRobotics dongle decided to eat itself, so I cannot recommend it. As per the consensus here I went out and found the Synology DS111 1-bay device. Hard to find the DS211j which is an amazing deal if you can find it. Review of the DS111 is here. And screen shots of the amazing OS on the Synology products!
Do you have AFP enabled on your Synology drive? We have a DS212+ here and it was disabled by default.
Yes I do. I can share with my Macbook via AFP no problem.
Is it possible it won’t work because I have the drives formatted for NTFS? Someone on a different thread suggested this may be the reason my brother cannot get is External HD to show up that’s connected to his iMac.
Yes. FAT and NTFS drives are not able to be shared using AFP, so SMB would need to be used in its place.
I was using a DS111 and the drives are formatted with ext4 on the Synology devices. I had AFP enabled and was not able to connect either. Ended up disabling AFP and using SMB. I don’t believe drives are formatted as NTFS or FAT32/FAT with the Synology devices. All hard drives get reformatted with ext4 since the OS is Linux on the Synology devices and the OS installs on a partition on each hard drive on a Synology system.