Xbox 360 + NAS

February 24, 2008 4:26 PM

Are there any network attached storage devices that work well with Xbox 360?

I only own a laptop and stream lots of music and movies to my Xbox 360 set up to my TV. I really don't like having to have my laptop on whenever I do this. I was wondering if there are any NAS devices that work well with the Xbox. Or should I just build another system, throw XP on it and just put it in a corner somewhere?

posted by notchristopher to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

A search for "xbox 360 nas" turns up things like this and seems to indicate that the protocol the 360 needs in order to find and share stuff is called DLNA.

There's some product called TwonkyVision that does it and their page includes a section that says something about how to install the plugin on the Ifrant ReadyNAS. Netgear bought Ifrant recently so I dunno what their offerings are like.

Personally I'd just get a cheapie old box to do the job. If you don't want to pay for an XP license that Twonky stuff runs on linux as well or you could use this freebie thing.
posted by phearlez at 5:20 PM on February 24, 2008

I know the 360 can read music files off of flash drives or ipods, so it could probably read the same files off of a large USB hard drive. That might be a cheaper option, though I don't have one handy to check myself right now.
posted by sandswipe at 8:16 PM on February 24, 2008

What sandswipe said. I use an USB hard drive to store multimedia files on to play thru my xbox 360. Here is a quick tutorial.
posted by white_devil at 8:31 PM on February 24, 2008

I have a DNS 323 which works great with the Xbox 360, once you've installed Twonky which is very easy. I think it's a really nice piece of kit.

You can do lots of other stuff on there as well which you can read about here - I have a torrent client on there which is good for unattended downloading.
posted by eb98jdb at 4:21 AM on February 25, 2008 [1 favorite]