LG N2A2 NAS, Network Disk, and iOS Applications by LG: In Depth

Sharing files, having our “digital life” so that we can enjoy it from several computers, downloading torrent files from the device, making backups without physically connecting to anything, remotely accessing a webcam to see what’s going on while we’re away from home, sharing a network printer, storage with a capacity of 2 TB, thanks to two hard disks with Raid options, with the possibility of increasing it to 4 TB if we connect an external hard disk. All this and much more is what the LG N2A2 NAS offers us , a network drive that, in addition to all the above, includes some functions closely related to Mac OS X , as we will see later. Also with iOS, since LG has provided a couple of applications for content management free of charge.

Updated: due to disk update issues from Mac OS X and no support from LG, you can see the second part of the review in this other entry.

LG N2A2 NAS, Network Disk, and iOS Applications by LG: In Depth
LG N2A2 NAS, Network Disk, and iOS Applications by LG: In Depth

The NAS is quite quiet, the external appearance is quite good and it reminds me of a stormtrooper because of the color combination. On the front it has a USB port so we can make direct backups of pendrives and disks with just a push of a button, and on the back we can connect other drives to increase the capacity, as well as the ethernet connection and the boot button. The web interface has also been well cared for and is easy to configure. This is in general, but the entry will be dedicated to the more Apple-related aspects of the NAS, i.e. the functions related to Mac OS X and iOS applications.

Let’s get on with the show. The first one is that the disk incorporates Time Machine functionality, so that we can save in the same backup copies made with the Apple application. So, whenever we are connected from our Mac to the network where the NAS is, we can make an automatic backup of our data, such as from our laptop without having to physically plug it in if the NAS is connected to a WIFI router to which our Mac is also connected by WIFI.

Now the bad news, as I mentioned in this post, and waiting for a NAS firmware update, this feature is not compatible with Lion, so be careful if you plan to recover your data from a backup after installing the new Apple operating system from scratch, because it will not work. It is possible to access your data by doing this trick with Lion, but not by using Time Machine with it.

The second function is that the disk, by itself, works as an iTunes server, so the music we store on it will be visible from iTunes as if it were a computer where the option Share my library on my local network has been activated, as you can see in the picture. The problem is that it doesn’t work, and apparently the culprit is iTunes 10, as far as I could see on the internet. If any of you have a NAS of this or another brand and this service works, I would appreciate very much if you put a message in the comments, because I have gone crazy trying to make it work without success.

LG N2A2

LG N2A2, un NAS que también nos vigila la casa

Let’s now review the applications for iOS. The first one has been developed for iPhone, although it also works with iPod Touch and iPad, and is a file manager via ftp. The application is called MyData File Manager. With this application we can make multiple selections of files, upload and download files, upload photos and movies, some basic services on the server, delete files both local and remote, and play some files on the device we have transferred through the application, including mov, mp4, m4v, mp3, ppt, doc, xls, psd.

The application works relatively well, but falls short in terms of content reproduction. Forget about receiving a movie by streaming, because it does not serve this purpose. You’ll have to download it first. But well, it’s free and for some very basic options and operations it can work.

The second application has two versions, one for iPhoneTouch and another more specific for iPad. It is called LG My Data, and it is aimed at streaming content stored on the NAS from the iOS device. We will be able to play photos (stored in a directory, not directly from iPhoto), music, videos and folder viewer on the NAS.

One thing that makes me quite nervous about this application is that it doesn’t load the information from the directories completely, but we’ll have to stretch, just like we do on Twitter to refresh the new messages, to partially load the contents of the directories or the contents. Luckily we have a search field to locate the contents faster, but if we don’t know the name of the file, we’ll be really lost. Video playback is good and fast, as long as the file is supported, and full screen playback and basic pause and play controls are possible.

As you can see, LG’s programs are pretty basic and don’t give us any good reasons to choose this NAS over others. Fortunately, there are programs on the App Store that are much better, work on various network drives without tying us to any one manufacturer, and do their job much better than these two applications. We will see these programs in future posts on Apple. This LG NAS can be bought for just over 200 euros at the moment

and, taking into account that it includes two 1TB disks in that price, it is worth it as it is a fairly economical option for the price that such devices usually have.

I recommend that before deciding to buy this album, you read the second part of the review of it, available in this other entry.

More information>
At Apple>
and LG NAS N2A2: How a bad after-sales support can load a revision

In Xataka

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